Species Introduced during Colonisation
The History of Cattle in Victoria: Colonisation, Expansion, and Impacts on Indigenous Communities
Cattle, like sheep, arrived in Victoria during the early years of European colonisation and quickly became a cornerstone of the colonial economy. While sheep defined the wool industry, cattle supplied meat, hides, and transport, shaping settlement patterns and altering the environment.
By the mid-19th century, cattle runs covered vast areas of Victoria — especially along the fertile river valleys of the Goulburn, Ovens, and Murray, and across the Western District and Gippsland plains. Yet this expansion came at a heavy cost. The introduction of cattle brought widespread dispossession, frontier violence, and ecological collapse, dismantling Indigenous food systems and relationships to Country that had existed for tens of thousands of years (Broome 2005; Clark 1995).
Arrival and Early Expansion
Cattle on the First Fleet and Beyond
Cattle first arrived in Australia with the First Fleet (1788), imported from the Cape Colony in South Africa. Early breeds — Cape cattle and English longhorns — were valued for meat and as draught animals (Roberts 1935).
In the 1820s and early 1830s, herds were driven south from New South Wales into what became known as the Port Phillip District, later Victoria.
Introduction to Victoria
1835: John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner brought cattle to the Yarra and Geelong regions on Wadawurrung and Woiwurrung Country.
1836–1838: Overlanders such as Hume, Hovell, and Mitchell led major cattle drives along river systems.
Some cattle were shipped from Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), where the industry was already established.
Cattle thrived on the open grasslands maintained for millennia by Indigenous fire regimes (Gammage 2011), but their grazing soon destroyed the very ecological balance that had sustained those landscapes.
Growth of the Cattle Industry
By 1840, approximately 220 000 cattle grazed across the Port Phillip District; by 1850, herds exceeded 400 000 (Roberts 1935).
Cattle concentrated along watercourses and valleys, where native grasses and reeds were abundant.
In the Western District, large squatter estates developed, taking over Gunditjmara wetlands.
In the north and east, Taungurung, Yorta Yorta, and Gunai/Kurnai Countries were rapidly overrun by pastoral expansion.
By the 1870s, Victoria’s cattle numbers stabilised near 600 000–700 000, as sheep dominated drier inland regions while cattle thrived in the wetter north-east and coastal plains (Broome 2005).
Cattle Runs and the Land Grab
Cattle stations were often vast and loosely managed, demanding access to rivers and permanent water. Squatters established runs along:
The Goulburn, Ovens, and Murray Rivers (Taungurung / Yorta Yorta Country).
The Western District (Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung Country).
Gippsland (Gunai/Kurnai Country).
By 1850, nearly every fertile river valley in Victoria had been claimed as a cattle run under Crown licence or squatter occupation — almost entirely without consultation or consent from Traditional Owners (Reynolds 1987).
Impact on Indigenous Communities
Dispossession and Violence
Cattle became both a symbol and a catalyst of colonisation.
Indigenous clans, seeking to feed their families, occasionally speared cattle in place of kangaroos — an act settlers used to justify punitive raids and massacres.
Notable violence occurred across the Western District, Gippsland, and the Murray plains, documented in Clark’s Scars in the Landscape (1995).
These reprisals formed part of Victoria’s broader frontier conflict, or “Silent War,” of the 1830s–1850s.
Ecological Disruption
Cattle profoundly altered Indigenous food systems and water management:
Trampling destroyed yam daisy (murnong) fields — a key women’s staple (Pascoe 2014; Gott 1983).
Rivers and billabongs were fouled, collapsing eel fisheries like those at Budj Bim (McNiven 2012).
Native grasslands were replaced by imported pasture species, degrading soil and biodiversity.
Labour and Adaptation
Many Indigenous people were forced or coerced into the pastoral economy:
Indigenous men became skilled stockmen, shearers, and drovers.
Women often worked as domestic servants or cooks on remote stations.
Wages were commonly paid in rations — flour, sugar, tea, and tobacco — creating cycles of economic dependency (Broome 2005).
Despite exploitation, Indigenous expertise in reading landscape, tracking, and animal handling became integral to the industry’s success.
Cattle in the Colonial Economy
Cattle sustained the expanding colony through multiple industries:
Meat: supplied urban markets and later the goldfields, where demand for beef surged after 1851.
Hides and tallow: exported to Britain for leather and candle production.
Transport: bullocks hauled drays and wagons, moving goods and ore across Victoria’s rugged terrain.
By the late 1850s, beef production rivalled wool as a colonial export, linking Victoria to global markets.
Global and Comparative Contexts
The introduction of cattle in Victoria mirrored imperial frontiers worldwide:
In North America, Native lands were seized for ranching in the 18th–19th centuries.
In Aotearoa (New Zealand), Māori territories were cleared for cattle and sheep farming.
In southern Africa, colonial cattle herds expanded at the expense of Indigenous pastoral systems.
These parallels highlight how cattle were central to empire — transforming landscapes and subordinating Indigenous sovereignty to agricultural capitalism (Crosby 1986; Broome 2005).
Cultural and Environmental Legacy
The long-term impacts of cattle pastoralism remain visible across Victoria:
Soil compaction and over-grazing continue to affect rivers and grasslands once sustained by Indigenous burning and harvesting.
Remnants of early cattle stations stand on sites of former Indigenous camps and ceremonial grounds.
In some regions, Indigenous rangers now manage restoration programs that re-balance Country through revegetation and waterway repair.
Truth-telling projects such as the Yoorrook Justice Commission (2022) acknowledge that much of Victoria’s pastoral wealth was built on unceded land.
Today, reconciliation in agriculture and land management means recognising this shared history — the cattle industry’s role in both economic growth and cultural devastation.
Conclusion
Cattle transformed Victoria’s environment and economy from the 1830s onward. They provided food, transport, and export wealth, fuelling the growth of Melbourne, Geelong, and the goldfields. But behind this prosperity lay profound costs — the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, the destruction of food systems, and enduring ecological imbalance.
Understanding this dual history — prosperity for settlers and suffering for Indigenous communities — is vital for truth-telling and environmental repair. The land still bears the hoofprints of colonisation, but it also holds the memory and resilience of First Peoples who continue to care for Country.
References
Broome, R 2005, Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Clark, ID 1995, Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria 1803–1859, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.
Crosby, AW 1986, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900–1900, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Flood, J 2006, The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest.
Gammage, B 2011, The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Gott, B 1983, ‘Murnong—Microseris scapigera: A Study of a Staple Food of Victorian Aborigines’, Australian Aboriginal Studies, vol. 2.
McNiven, IJ 2012, ‘The Budj Bim Eel Traps: World Heritage Aboriginal Aquaculture’, Antiquity, vol. 86.
Pascoe, B 2014, Dark Emu: Black Seeds, Agriculture or Accident?, Magabala Books, Broome.
Reynolds, H 1987, The Law of the Land, Penguin, Ringwood.
Roberts, SH 1935, The Squatting Age in Australia 1835–1847, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Yoorrook Justice Commission 2022, Interim Report on Truth-Telling and Country, Victorian Government, Melbourne.
Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (20 October 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.