DISPLACEMENT

Acknowledgement 

Gulgong was built on the land of the Wiradjuri nation. Little is known of the Wiradjuri people who lived in the area before the gold rush of 1870. It is said that the first owners of Guntawang left because of trouble with the Aboriginal people. If massacres occurred in this region, they were covered up by the settlers and officials who should have recorded the casualties. 

If not killed, one of the other fates that befell the traditional custodians of the area was displacement. Did they only move on as shafts, mullock heaps and bark cottages filled the landscape at Gulgong? Or had they already fled in the decades of settlement following Mudgee's establishment? 

Some of those who didn't leave voluntarily were forcibly removed to reserves or missions, like the Aboriginal people of Wollar. But did any remain living a traditional lifestyle in remote sections of the bush?

The following articles contain mentions of Aboriginal people in the Gulgong district. 

PRE-1900 - Although written in 1943, this article contains a memory of an event that happened prior to 1900 (after which the old bark hospital was no longer in use):

 

Whilst Mrs. Strange was matron of the old Gulgong Hospital on the western side of Church Hill some 60 years or more she received the name of 'one of God's own angels,' and so she was. One instance is enough to confirm the fact. One day a well known Gulgong man, who is still living here, was driving on the outskirts of the town and saw two old blackfellows lying down in great distress. Sick and emaciated, bothered by blowflies and in a most pitiable condition, these poor creatures were dying. At once this good Samaritan conveyed the sufferers to the hospital where Mrs. Strange took charge of them. It was a most unpleasant duty but she did not shirk it. Bathed and fed them, nursed and helped them. One life was saved, but the other was in too deplorable a condition to recover. 

Source: Mudgee Guardian Thursday 16 December 1943