The First Inhabitants

Pre European arrival biodiversity across the southern Fleurieu peninsula was an interconnected web of fresh and saline water, a mild climate cooled by summer south westerly breezes and varying soil types, in particular limestone, sandy soils and black clays. It supported a huge variety of trees, shrubs and small plants, native grasses and reeds.

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These in turn along with abundant water supported fish, mussels, turtles, yabbies, frogs, water rats, kangaroos, possums, lizards, snakes and much more. All this variety of food sources meant that the area was able to support a permanent population of Aboriginal people over a very long period of time.

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The lands of the Ngarrindjeri nation are part of South Australia from Cape Jervis to the River Murray at Murray Bridge and the to the coast near Kingston in the south east.

It is thought there were about 18 clans or family groups that made up the nation. Each nation had a defined area which they called their own.

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Reverend George Taplin in his 1874 book “The Ngarrindjeri” describes the communities as well organised and settled enjoying an area rich in resources.

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Aboriginal contact with Europeans began in about 1810 when sealers from Kangaroo Island kidnapped Ngarrindjeri women. These men introduced a variety of diseases to the Aboriginal population including smallpox, venereal disease and other diseases which had a devastating effect on the population. The first non-indigenous inhabitants of the area were fishermen, whalers and sealers, seeking an easy catch. Some were to jump ship and settle.

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Taplin (1873) also wrote the estimated time of an outbreak of disease, thought to be smallpox, happened in about 1830. This decimated many, many Aboriginal communities right along the river. It was said that so many people died from disease that burial rites could no be performed and bodies were buried as fast as possible. It was not until 1911 that verification of this account came about when earthworks uncovered a mass grave near Swanport on the Murray.

In his book "Conquest of the Ngarrindjeri, Graham Jenkins describes the "dispossession of the

Ngarrindjeri" in detail referencing George Taplin, George French Angus and Mrs Louise Karpany (nee Kontinyeri).

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https://guides.slsa.sa.gov.au/Aboriginal_Missions/PointMcLeay

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Acknowledgements:

"The Hundred of Alexandrina" Alan King and Bruce Allnutt,  May 2017, Point Sturt and Districts Landcare Group

George Taplin     "The Ngarrindjeri" (1873) reprinted in J. D Woods, The Native Tribes of South Australia  (1879)

Graham Jenkin "Conquest of the Ngarrindjeri", 1978 ,Rigby