1780s

Darug people travel to Brisbane Waters for marine resources and trade axes from the Nepean/Hawkesbury.

Yarramundi is chief of the Richmond tribe of Boorooberongal clan.

When exploring with Governor Phillip, Colebee, from Sydney, is found to not to know the country north of Rose Hill and is surprised at the sight of the Nepean River.

There is good evidence of a high Aboriginal population density at contact. Australia has a naturally occurring diversity of plant resources, rather than a few specific staples as in Papua New Guinea. These are easier to exploit if not planted. That is to say, Koori people are Polyculturists. The population may have been increasing at the time of the invasion. Butlin has calculated that the population certainly did not survive on kangaroos alone as a meat source. If 15% were killed to maintain a stable population, that is, a hunter killed more than 1 per year, ‘roos would have been extinct in 10 years. Therefore Kangaroos did not provide enough protein for the relatively high number of Koori people living in the Sydney region at the time of the invasion. Kohen p 81.

‘From what we can glimpse, the closest links and associations between Sydney clans and bands seemed to run north-south along the coast, rather than east-west between the coast and inland mountains. Rivers and creeks, were food was more abundant, were the places of densest occupation, while high places were for ceremonial use. Rivers served as both boundaries and corridors. Karskens, The Colony, p. 42.

Burramattagal people meet with force a British attempt to set up an armed fort at Rose Hill.

The Richmond Windsor area is explored by British settlers and is known by the colonialists as Richmond Hill. Following severe food shortages in the colony, the Hawkesbury River settlements are referred to as the food bowl of Sydney, for they produce much of the colony's fresh vegetables as well as the majority of grain crops in Sydney. The farmers’ clearing the land depletes the food supplies of the Kooris who find themselves driven from their traditional hunting grounds.