Wadawurrung Place Names
The Geelong Frontier: Wadawurrung Country, Conflict, and Transformation
The story of Geelong, or Djilang in the Wadawurrung language, is one of ancient continuity interrupted by colonial violence and rapid transformation. For tens of thousands of years, the Wadawurrung people lived across the Bellarine Peninsula, Barwon River, Moorabool, and You Yangs, maintaining intricate systems of law, ceremony, and environmental care.
By the 1830s, this thriving landscape of eel traps, grasslands, and wetlands became the stage of one of the most significant frontier encounters in Victoria’s colonial history. The town that would become Geelong rose out of dispossession, resistance, and reinvention — its prosperity built upon Wadawurrung land, culture, and loss.
Wadawurrung Country: Djilang Before Colonisation
Before British occupation, Djilang was a centre of meeting, trade, and ceremony.
The Wadawurrung — one of the five Kulin Nations — lived within a network of riverine, coastal, and volcanic ecosystems, from the Surf Coast through to Ballarat and Bacchus Marsh.
The word Djilang, meaning “tongue of land” or “place of the sea cliffs” (Clark & Heydon 2002), describes the narrow peninsula projecting into Corio Bay. This Country was abundant with life:
Eels and fish from the Barwon (Parwan) and nearby wetlands.
Murnong (yam daisy) gathered from grasslands shaped by fire-stick farming.
Birdlife and shellfish along the estuarine coast.
For millennia, seasonal cycles guided ceremony — eel migrations, flowering plants, and lunar tides signalling times to gather and share. Shell middens, scarred trees, and stone artefacts still line the landscape, silent witnesses to lives lived here long before Geelong became a port.
The Arrival of Colonisation (1835–1839)
Colonisation came to Djilang not by treaty but through occupation and assumption.
In 1835, John Batman’s “Port Phillip Treaty” claimed to purchase vast areas of Kulin land, including Wadawurrung Country. Though later dismissed by Governor Bourke as illegal, it opened the floodgates for squatters from Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and New South Wales.
By 1838, settlers such as Dr. Alexander Thomson, David Fisher, and Charles Swanston had established sheep and cattle runs around the Barwon and Moorabool rivers. The new settlement of Geelong grew swiftly — its sheltered harbour and proximity to the Western District made it a hub for the colonial wool economy.
For the Wadawurrung, this expansion was catastrophic. Lands that had sustained generations were suddenly fenced, claimed, and renamed. Creeks once used for ceremony became watering points for livestock. Sacred sites were desecrated. And resistance was met with deadly force.
Frontier Violence and Resistance
The Geelong frontier of the 1830s and 1840s was a violent contact zone.
Wadawurrung clans resisted through guerrilla-style defence, driving off stock, burning huts, and reclaiming food from their traditional lands. Settlers retaliated with organised punitive raids — actions often sanctioned, or ignored, by colonial authorities.
According to Ian Clark’s (1995) Scars in the Landscape and Jan Critchett’s (1990) A Distant Field of Murder, multiple violent incidents occurred across the region:
Mount Duneed Massacre (1839): Following the killing of a shepherd, settlers retaliated, killing numerous Wadawurrung people.
Barwon River reprisals (late 1830s): Frontier skirmishes led to clan dispersal and loss of access to river camps.
Lal Lal and Buninyong regions: Similar patterns of conflict marked Wadawurrung Country’s northern frontier.
Disease compounded the violence. Introduced illnesses such as influenza and smallpox ravaged populations already weakened by displacement. Within a generation, the Wadawurrung population collapsed from thousands to mere hundreds.
Missions, Displacement, and Control
Colonial authorities, alarmed by settler–Indigenous conflict, established Buntingdale Mission near Birregurra in 1839, run by Wesleyan missionaries Benjamin Hurst and Francis Tuckfield. While framed as protection, missions served as instruments of social control and dispossession. Wadawurrung people were relocated away from their homelands, expected to adopt Christian beliefs and European lifestyles.
When Buntingdale closed in 1848, survivors were transferred to Framlingham, Coranderrk, or into domestic service across settler farms. Despite immense hardship, Wadawurrung families maintained identity through kinship and language, passing on songs and place names in secret. Their endurance ensured that Wadawurrung culture never disappeared, even when officials declared it “extinct.”
From Port to Industry: Colonial Prosperity on Stolen Land
By the 1840s, Geelong was booming. Its port exported wool, hides, and tallow to Britain and imported goods from around the world. The gold rush of the 1850s turned Geelong into a regional gateway, feeding the mines of Ballarat and Bendigo.
Industrial expansion followed:
Fyansford quarries and the cement works carved into ancient limestone beds.
Woollen mills and textile factories grew along the Barwon River.
Ford’s motor factory (1925) symbolised modern prosperity.
Yet beneath this progress lay the unacknowledged foundation of frontier violence and Indigenous dispossession. Every road, riverbank, and industrial site was built on land once governed by Wadawurrung law.
Water, Land, and Ecological Transformation
Colonial occupation reshaped Djilang’s ecology.
Wetlands drained: Sites like Lake Connewarre and Waurn Ponds were reduced for agriculture.
Barwon River diverted and dammed, destroying traditional fish traps.
Murnong fields replaced by European pasture.
By the 20th century, less than 1% of original native grassland remained (Presland 1994).
Industrial pollution from tanneries, abattoirs, and chemical plants poisoned Corio Bay through the 1900s. Only in recent decades have restoration projects — led by the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, Barwon Water, and local councils — begun to heal parts of this damaged ecosystem.
Population and Cultural Change
Pre-1835: Thousands of Wadawurrung people lived across 25 clan estates.
1838: Around 500 Europeans in the district.
1851: Over 8,000 settlers, many drawn by gold and wool.
1901: 25,000 residents, mostly British-born.
1950s: Italian, Greek, and Eastern European migrants diversified the post-war city.
2000s–present: Over 270,000 residents, with growing recognition of Wadawurrung heritage and dual naming.
Where settlers once described Wadawurrung people as a “dying race,” today their descendants stand as cultural custodians, actively guiding land management, education, and truth-telling across the Geelong region.
Modern Geelong: Truth-Telling and Renewal
Modern Geelong — now a UNESCO City of Design — sits at the intersection of industrial heritage and cultural renewal. The Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (WTOAC) leads projects to reawaken language, ecology, and storytelling.
Examples include:
Dual naming of Djilang and Kardinia.
Cultural heritage mapping of the Barwon River and You Yangs.
Environmental partnerships restoring wetlands and coastal dunes.
These initiatives represent a shift from colonial amnesia to living recognition — understanding that the future of Geelong depends on healing the Country that sustains it.
Conclusion
The history of Geelong is not a simple tale of progress — it is a frontier story of conflict, survival, and renewal. From Djilang, where Wadawurrung ancestors gathered for ceremony, to the industrial city that grew from the wool trade, each chapter reveals a complex dialogue between destruction and endurance.
Today, truth-telling, environmental restoration, and cultural recognition are reshaping how Geelong remembers its past. Its foundations lie on Wadawurrung Country — sovereignty never ceded, stories never silenced. Understanding that truth is the beginning of reconciliation, and the first step in restoring balance between people and Country.
References
Broome, R. (2005). Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Cannon, M. (1991). Old Melbourne Town: Before the Gold Rush. Main Ridge: Loch Haven Books.
Clark, I. D. (1995). Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria 1803–1859. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Clark, I. D. & Heydon, T. (2002). Dictionary of Aboriginal Placenames of Victoria. Melbourne: Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages.
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.
Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (2023). Djilang: Country, Water, and Story. Geelong: WTOAC.
Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (22 September 2025)
MLA
Sharing the truth of Indigenous and colonial history through film, education, land, and community.
www.magiclandsalliance.org
Copyright MLA – 2025
Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.