Frontier History in Colonial Early Victoria
The History of Squatter Licenses in Victoria and Their Impact on Indigenous Peoples
The expansion of European settlement in early colonial Victoria was driven by squatters—settlers who pushed beyond official survey boundaries to graze sheep and cattle on Indigenous Country. Squatting began illegally in 1836 but was soon formalised under Governor Richard Bourke’s regulations. Though presented as administrative reform, the new licensing system legalised invasion, sanctioned frontier violence, and embedded dispossession into colonial law.
For Indigenous communities—especially the Wadawurrung and neighbouring Kulin Nations—the introduction of squatter licenses brought catastrophic loss of land, kinship disruption, and violent conflict. The system marked a shift from informal occupation to an officially sanctioned regime of colonisation.
The Origins of Squatting in Victoria
Expansion from New South Wales
After John Batman’s 1835 “treaty” with Woiwurrung Elders was annulled by the Crown, settlers from Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales began crossing Bass Strait into the Port Phillip District. Batman’s treaty—while deeply flawed—acknowledged Indigenous ownership. Its rejection under terra nullius reaffirmed the British claim that no prior sovereignty existed (Reynolds, 1987).
Sheep and cattle were soon driven across the Murray and down the western plains, occupying fertile grasslands of the Wadawurrung, Woiwurrung, Taungurung, and Dja Dja Wurrung nations.
Government Response: From Condemnation to Control
At first, officials condemned squatters for trespassing. But as the wool industry’s profitability became clear, Governor Bourke issued regulations in 1836 allowing squatters to pay a £10 annual fee for a “pastoral license.” This turned illegal occupation into taxable settlement.
These licenses did not confer ownership, but they granted settlers legal protection, military support, and de facto authority over vast areas of Indigenous Country (Broome, 2005).
How Squatter Licenses Worked
Licenses gave settlers the right to occupy enormous tracts of land for grazing, often covering thousands of acres.
Annual fee: £10 per run.
Implied rights: Exclusive grazing and control of access to water and land.
No land title: Technically temporary, but effectively permanent in practice.
Because Indigenous people were not recognised as legal owners or even tenants, squatters could exclude them entirely. The law protected livestock and property—not human life.
By the 1840s, squatting was the backbone of the colony’s economy, with wool exports forming the basis of Victoria’s early wealth.
Impacts on Indigenous Communities
Dispossession of Land
The licensing system institutionalised the seizure of Indigenous Country. Lands that had been managed through millennia of cultural burning, murnong (yam-daisy) cultivation, and seasonal movement were fenced and claimed as “runs.” Families were forced from their waterholes and food sources.
Violence and the Frontier Wars
Licenses emboldened squatters to defend their “property” with force. Indigenous resistance—including livestock raids, hut burnings, and guerrilla tactics—was met with punitive violence.
In the Western District, the Eumeralla Wars between Gunditjmara clans and squatters in the 1830s–1840s left hundreds dead (Critchett, 1990). Similar massacres occurred on Wadawurrung Country near the Barwon River, Bellarine Peninsula, and You Yangs, where squatters and police conducted “dispersals” of entire camps (Clark, 1995).
Loss of Sovereignty
Batman’s annulled treaty symbolised the shift from negotiation to conquest. The squatter license system reasserted Crown ownership of all land, denying Indigenous law and sovereignty. As historian Bain Attwood notes, “the right to occupy became the right to rule” (Attwood, 2003).
Wadawurrung Country: From Occupation to Displacement
Arrival of Squatters
By 1836, Wadawurrung Country—stretching from the Bellarine Peninsula through Geelong, Ballarat, and the Moorabool–Barwon catchment—was overrun by licensed settlers. Early squatters included Captain Foster Fyans, the Learmonth brothers, and Henry Smythe, who established vast sheep runs near Geelong and Buninyong.
Transformation of the Land
Pastoralism destroyed carefully managed grasslands. Fencing blocked access to water, and trampling by sheep and cattle ruined yam fields and hunting grounds. Mount Buninyong, Wurdi Youang, and the Barrabool Hills—sites of ceremony and creation stories—were occupied by homesteads and quarries (Clark, 1990; Cahir, 2012).
Conflict and Massacres
Wadawurrung resistance was strong. Families fought to defend their lands, leading to violent reprisals from settlers. Recorded massacres occurred near the Bellarine Peninsula, Lake Connewarre, and along the Moorabool River. Fyans himself authorised punitive expeditions using mounted police and settlers (Clark, 1995).
Forced Displacement
By the 1840s, survivors were relocated to Nerre Nerre Warren Reserve and later missions such as Coranderrk and Lake Tyers. The squatter licensing regime ensured that virtually all Wadawurrung lands were alienated within two decades.
Economic and Social Consequences
Collapse of Food Systems
Overgrazing eliminated Indigenous food plants and wildlife. Families faced starvation and became dependent on settler rations, eroding self-sufficiency and health.
Disruption of Kinship and Ceremony
Fenced and surveyed landscapes fractured kin networks and ceremonial movement across Country. Traditional gatherings became impossible; sacred sites were desecrated or used for farming.
Dependency and Exploitation
Many Indigenous men and women worked as shepherds, boundary riders, or domestic servants on the very runs that displaced them. Payment was irregular—usually in rations, not wages—cementing a cycle of economic dependency and colonial control (Broome, 2005).
Indigenous Resistance and Advocacy
Despite catastrophic loss, resistance continued. Wadawurrung and neighbouring Kulin clans used both warfare and diplomacy:
Direct resistance: Burning of pastures, theft of livestock, and disruption of runs.
Legal resistance: Petitioning government protectors and colonial administrators for justice.
Cultural survival: Maintaining language, stories, and kinship practices in secret.
Gunditjmara resistance in the Eumeralla Wars, the Wadawurrung stand at the You Yangs, and the Woiwurrung petitions of William Barak in later decades exemplify Indigenous resilience amid repression (Barwick, 1998).
End of the Licensing System and Expansion of Freehold
By the 1840s, squatters—now immensely wealthy—lobbied for security of tenure. The Orders in Council of 1847 granted 14-year leases and the right to purchase runs outright. This formalised their dominance and extinguished almost all remaining Indigenous access to land.
During the gold rush of the 1850s, pastoral leases were further consolidated as the colony’s political elite—the “squattocracy”—became landowners and lawmakers.
Global Analogies: Empire and Land
Victoria’s licensing system reflected a broader British imperial model of occupation:
In New Zealand, Crown land purchases under the Treaty of Waitangi (1840) displaced Māori communities.
In Canada, “reserve” systems emerged alongside pastoral and timber concessions.
In South Africa, “trekboer” settlers used grazing licenses under Dutch and British rule to dispossess Khoisan peoples.
In each case, Indigenous sovereignty was erased through bureaucratic language—“leases,” “licenses,” “reserves”—that disguised conquest as administration.
Legacy and Continuing Impact
For Settlers
Squatter licenses laid the foundation for Victoria’s wool economy and social hierarchy. The wealth of the Melbourne, Geelong, and Ballarat elites derived directly from Indigenous land.
For Indigenous Peoples
Licenses meant forced removals, massacres, and the reconfiguration of Country. For the Wadawurrung, the system led to near-total loss of their land base by 1850. Yet oral history, language revival, and Country care initiatives continue to reclaim connection and assert sovereignty.
Today, these histories are central to truth-telling and treaty processes, including the work of the Yoorrook Justice Commission.
Conclusion
The squatter license system of 1836 was a turning point in Victoria’s colonial history. It converted theft into legality, violence into policy, and Indigenous land into private wealth.
For the Wadawurrung and other Kulin Nations, this system brought devastation—loss of Country, kin, and ceremony—but not disappearance. Through truth-telling, cultural renewal, and treaty, Indigenous communities are restoring balance to a land once fragmented by licenses that claimed ownership where none was ever ceded.
Reference List
Attwood, B. (2003). Rights for Aborigines. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Barwick, D. (1998). Rebellion at Coranderrk. Canberra: Aboriginal History Monograph.
Broome, R. (2005). Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Cahir, F. (2012). Black Gold: Aboriginal People on the Goldfields of Victoria, 1850–1870. Canberra: ANU E Press.
Clark, I. D. (1990). Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900. Clayton: Monash Publications in Geography.
Clark, I. D. (1995). Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria 1803–1859. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Critchett, J. (1990). A Distant Field of Murder: Western District Frontiers, 1834–1848. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Presland, G. (1994). Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People. Melbourne: Harriland Press.
Reynolds, H. (1987). The Law of the Land. Ringwood: Penguin.
Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (22 October 2025)
MLA
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