Species Introduced during Colonisation
The History of Sheep in Victoria: Colonisation, Expansion, and Impact on First Peoples
The arrival of sheep in Victoria during the 1830s transformed the continent’s landscapes, economies, and societies more profoundly than almost any other colonial event. Imported from Britain and other parts of the world, sheep became the backbone of the colonial economy, fuelling a global wool trade that made Melbourne and Geelong among the wealthiest ports in the Southern Hemisphere by the mid-19th century.
But behind the story of pastoral wealth lies a deeper and darker history. For the First Peoples of Victoria — including the Wadawurrung, Wurundjeri, Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, and Taungurung Nations — the spread of sheep marked the beginning of massive environmental disruption, dispossession, and frontier violence. The “sheep age” brought profound ecological, cultural, and spiritual upheaval as landscapes once managed through Indigenous fire and seasonal knowledge were converted into fenced grazing estates.
This article traces the intertwined scientific, historical, and cultural story of sheep in Victoria: their introduction, environmental impacts, and the ways in which Indigenous communities resisted and adapted within a rapidly changing world.
The Arrival of Sheep in Australia and Victoria
Early Sheep and the First Fleet
Sheep first arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, brought from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. These early breeds were mostly for meat, but some carried fine-wool genetics from Spanish Merinos (Roberts, 1935). Within a generation, colonial breeders such as John Macarthur in New South Wales began selectively breeding Merinos for their soft, dense fleece, laying the foundation for Australia’s global wool reputation.
Overland and Maritime Expansion into Victoria
By the early 1830s, flocks were moving south from New South Wales into what was then known as the Port Phillip District. Others came by ship from Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), where pastoralism had already displaced many Indigenous Tasmanians.
In 1835, the expeditions of John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner brought sheep to the banks of the Yarra and the Barwon Rivers.
Early squatters imported Merino sheep from Spain via Tasmania and New South Wales, prized for their fine fibre diameter and lanolin-rich wool that resisted water and wind.
By 1839, thousands of sheep grazed across the Geelong, Western District, and Wimmera Plains — all fertile volcanic soils formed during the Cenozoic and Quaternary eras.
This influx of livestock preceded any legal government framework. Squatters claimed vast tracts of land under the fiction of terra nullius — the belief that Indigenous land was “unoccupied” despite millennia of occupation and cultivation (Broome, 2005).
The Science of Sheep and Land Transformation
Soils, Pasture, and Climate
The Western District of Victoria — stretching from Geelong to Hamilton — rests on the Victorian Volcanic Plain, a basalt plateau created by eruptions between 4.6 million and 5,000 years ago (Birch, 2003). The iron- and calcium-rich basalt produced deep, fertile clay soils ideal for growing temperate grasses such as rye and clover introduced by colonists.
However, these new pastures replaced complex Indigenous grasslands dominated by native species such as Themeda triandra (kangaroo grass) and Microseris lanceolata (murnong or yam daisy). These native plants had co-evolved with Aboriginal fire-stick farming for thousands of years. Sheep grazing and trampling destroyed the soil structure, compacted the ground, and eliminated native perennials that held water and carbon in the soil (Pascoe, 2014; Gammage, 2011).
Wool, Biology, and Industry
Scientifically, Merino wool is a keratin-based fibre, each strand covered in microscopic scales that interlock, making it elastic, insulating, and easy to spin. Its low thermal conductivity made it ideal for Europe’s cold climates. By the 1840s, Port Phillip wool was being tested and classified in London markets, its fineness measured in microns — an early link between Australian biogeography and global industrial science.
The wool industry also introduced European animal diseases (such as scab and foot rot), which spread rapidly through shared watering holes, impacting native fauna populations that relied on the same springs and soaks.
Expansion, Numbers, and the “Squatting Age”
Sheep numbers in Victoria grew at astonishing rates:
1836 – A few thousand sheep grazed near Melbourne and Geelong.
1840 – Approximately 1.5 million sheep across the Port Phillip District (Roberts, 1935).
1850 – Over 6 million sheep grazed from the Western District to the Murray plains.
1870s – Numbers peaked at over 11 million, concentrated on large estates of 20,000–30,000 acres each (Broome, 2005).
These vast “runs” were taken without purchase or treaty. Surveying and fencing fragmented landscapes that had once been managed collectively through Indigenous fire regimes, totemic stewardship, and kin-based rights to water and food.
Impact on Indigenous Communities and Country
Dispossession and Conflict
For Victoria’s First Peoples, sheep were both a symbol and a weapon of colonisation. Their grazing patterns displaced kangaroos and emus, polluted waterholes, and destroyed murnong fields — the main carbohydrate food cultivated by Indigenous women. When families hunted sheep for survival, settlers responded with violent reprisals.
Notable conflicts include:
Convincing Ground Massacre (c.1833), on Gunditjmara Country near Portland, sparked by a dispute over whales and grazing land (Clark, 1995).
Werribee Plains and Western District massacres, where Wadawurrung, Jardwadjali, and Djargurd Wurrung people resisted the taking of their land (Broome, 2005).
Between 1835 and 1850, dozens of recorded massacres and countless unrecorded killings occurred in Victoria’s frontier regions. These are collectively known as part of the Silent War, where the expansion of sheep runs was both the motive and the means of Indigenous dispossession.
Environmental and Cultural Disruption
Sheep overgrazing reduced native vegetation cover by up to 70% in some regions within decades (Garden, 1984). This destruction undermined Indigenous ecological knowledge systems that had sustained balance between humans, animals, and plants.
The loss of murnong — a tuber cultivated through fire and digging — had devastating consequences. It not only removed a vital food source but also erased women’s cultural authority tied to earth-based harvesting practices (Pascoe, 2014).
Adaptation and Labour
Faced with forced displacement, many Indigenous men and women became skilled stockmen, shepherds, and shearers. Some worked on stations such as Coranderrk, Framlingham, and Lake Condah, combining traditional tracking and animal care knowledge with new pastoral techniques (Clark, 1990).
Although often paid only in rations of flour, sugar, and tobacco, these workers sustained the colonial industry. Their knowledge of weather, water sources, and animal behaviour was critical in the success of many sheep runs. Yet their contributions were largely unacknowledged in the written records of the time.
Sheep, Economy, and Global Trade
By the 1840s, wool had become Victoria’s “gold before the gold rush.”
Geelong emerged as a major export port, its woolstores lining the waterfront.
Melbourne’s rise as a commercial city owed much to wool merchants and shipping magnates.
The Western District’s volcanic soils and consistent rainfall produced some of the world’s finest fleeces.
By the 1850s, Victoria supplied a significant portion of Britain’s textile mills in Manchester and Leeds. The wool clip became a direct conduit between Indigenous lands and global capitalism — the same wool that clothed Europe’s industrial working class was grown on stolen Country.
The wealth generated from sheep built the grand bluestone homesteads and civic buildings of Melbourne’s boom era, yet it also funded policies that further confined Indigenous people to reserves and missions.
Science and Ecology of Change
Hydrology and Water Systems
Sheep’s hooves compacted soils and reduced water infiltration. Springs and creeks — once lined with reeds used by Indigenous communities for weaving and food — became eroded gullies. In scientific terms, this represents a major shift in the hydrological cycle: reduced infiltration, increased runoff, and altered groundwater recharge (Costin, 1954).
Overgrazing also reduced biodiversity, causing declines in native marsupials, reptiles, and birds. Wetland systems such as Lake Corangamite and Lake Bolac, which held cultural and ecological importance for the Djabwurrung and Gunditjmara peoples, suffered sedimentation and nutrient changes that persist today.
Fire and Carbon
Indigenous burning practices, designed to renew grasses and prevent destructive wildfires, were suppressed by colonial authorities. Without controlled burning, dense woody regrowth and altered fire regimes increased the severity of later bushfires (Gammage, 2011).
In a modern environmental science context, the transition from native to pastoral systems also shifted the carbon balance of the landscape: soil carbon declined, methane emissions from ruminants increased, and biodiversity loss accelerated — all measurable outcomes of colonial ecological change.
Ongoing Legacy and Resilience
Today, sheep remain a cornerstone of Victoria’s agricultural economy, with over 13 million animals grazed across the state. The wool and meat industries contribute billions to exports, yet the scars of their introduction remain etched in the land and memory.
Many Indigenous groups continue to reclaim stewardship through cultural burning, land-back initiatives, and regenerative grazing that integrates traditional knowledge with ecological science. Projects on Gunditjmara Country and Wadawurrung Country, for example, are reintroducing native grasses and restoring wetlands while maintaining sustainable stock.
The story of sheep in Victoria is therefore not simply one of economic success, but of environmental consequence and Indigenous endurance — a living dialogue between past and future.
Conclusion
The arrival of sheep reshaped Victoria’s landscapes, economies, and societies in ways that are still unfolding. From a few hundred animals in 1835 to millions by 1850, the pastoral industry transformed basalt plains into some of the world’s most productive wool-growing lands. Yet this transformation came through the dispossession of First Peoples, the destruction of ancient ecosystems, and the suppression of knowledge systems that had sustained the land for over 60,000 years.
In the face of these upheavals, Indigenous communities endured — adapting, working, and preserving cultural connection amid changing Country. Today, as Australia seeks pathways toward truth-telling and reconciliation, the story of sheep reminds us that every fleece and pasture carries a legacy of both innovation and injustice, of profit and pain — a history still written across the plains of Victoria.
Reference
Birch, W.D. (2003). Geology of Victoria. Geological Society of Australia (Victoria Division).
Broome, R. (2005). Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Clark, I.D. (1990). Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Clark, I.D. (1995). Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria 1803–1859. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Costin, A.B. (1954). A Study of the Ecosystem of the Monaro Grasslands. CSIRO.
Gammage, B. (2011). The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Garden, D. (1984). Victoria: A History. Melbourne: Nelson.
Pascoe, B. (2014). Dark Emu: Black Seeds, Agriculture or Accident? Broome: Magabala Books.
Roberts, S.H. (1935). The Squatting Age in Australia 1835–1847. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (22 October 2025)
MLA
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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.