The enduring significance of Coranderrk

Coranderrk began as a response to the displacement caused by rapid settler expansion during the mid-nineteenth century.

After decades of violence, disease, and forced removal from their traditional lands, members of the Woiwurrung and other Kulin nations, including Wurundjeri families, sought to create a safe place to live on their own terms.

During the early 1860s, some Aboriginal families travelled into the Yarra Valley and settled near Badger Creek, where they joined efforts with Scottish preacher John Green, who later became the first Superintendent of the reserve, and German-born missionary Friedrich Hagenauer.

With this support, they asked the Victorian government to recognise Aboriginal land use in that area and to give formal protection. 

As a result of these efforts, the colonial government officially established Coranderrk as a reserve under the control of the Board for the Protection of Aborigines in 1863.

The reserve, which lay on about 2,300 acres of good farming land, offered residents a rare chance to develop a degree of economic independence and to maintain a cultural community.

Over the next two decades, families generally planted crops, built homes and public buildings, grew market gardens and raised livestock.

They sold hops and other crops to local buyers, and some of their products were praised for their quality.

Coranderrk hops even won awards at the 1881 Melbourne International Exhibition. 

Because Coranderrk had achieved a measure of consistent success, it challenged the common belief that Aboriginal people could not take part in the local economy.

As agricultural yields had increased and Coranderrk had outperformed neighbouring European farms, some local settlers began to object to the idea that Aboriginal people had been given access to such productive land.

In response, complaints from landowners and certain changes in public opinion brought increased government attention and began to threaten Coranderrk's future. 

To counter this threat, the people who lived at Coranderrk organised protests, wrote letters, and sent petitions to officials in Melbourne.

William Barak, who had lived near the site of Batman’s 1835 treaty as a child and who later spoke of its significance, was the community’s ngurungaeta and a powerful public speaker, and he travelled repeatedly to meet with politicians to demand that the community be allowed to continue their way of life.

He often walked to Melbourne on foot to present his case directly. When they wrote in English and used official channels, the residents of Coranderrk used the tools of colonial government to defend their right to keep land, to earn a living from farming and trade, and to live with dignity.

Barak painted works that are now held in major public collections and that helped keep cultural knowledge and express identity. 

From the 1880s onward, new legislation introduced progressively tighter restrictions on Aboriginal movement and access to reserves.

After the Aborigines Protection Act of 1886 passed into law, it created a system that labelled people by how much Aboriginal ancestry they had.

Under this law, all "half-caste" people under the age of 35 were required to leave reserves.

Many residents were forced to leave Coranderrk because the government now defined them as “half-castes” and denied them access to land on which their families had lived for decades.

At least 40 people were removed under this policy, which contributed to a population drop of around 60% during the 1890s.

Since so many were removed, families broke apart, and the community’s capacity to maintain its success in farming and trade rapidly declined. 

As the population fell, officials increased their control of daily affairs and removed the limited local authority that had allowed Coranderrk to operate successfully.

Government managers, who received wide powers, controlled many parts of life on the reserve, including work, rations, movement, education, and religious activities.

Once this control had been imposed, farm output fell noticeably, and life at Coranderrk became more tightly regulated, more isolated and more dependent on state support. 

In 1881, after pressure from missionaries and activists, the Victorian government established a parliamentary inquiry into the operation of Coranderrk and other Aboriginal reserves.

Leaders at Coranderrk, who had seized this opportunity, had prepared detailed statements and evidence.

William Barak and others gave evidence before the committee and explained how interference by the Board had weakened their community and undermined earlier government commitments.

The government inquiry had accepted their complaints as largely true. The inquiry did not bring immediate change, and officials continued to impose policies that reduced local control.

Some non-Indigenous figures supported the inquiry. Influential officials such as Friedrich Hagenauer actively opposed Coranderrk's self-management and promoted policies that reduced Aboriginal control. 

During the early twentieth century, Coranderrk had entered a period of slow decline.

Many young people had been removed from their families and had been sent to state institutions, where they were often trained for domestic service or manual labour under assimilation policies.

Meanwhile, older residents witnessed the steady breakdown of the systems they had worked to build.

Since authorities discouraged traditional language, cultural meetings and ceremonies, community identity suffered to some extent, and passing on cultural knowledge became harder. 

Government policies did not react to internal failings at Coranderrk. Instead, officials carried out long-term strategies that aimed to weaken Aboriginal self-management by removing people, cutting resources and denying control over their lives.

The efforts of Coranderrk’s residents helped to influence later Aboriginal movements.

In 1924, the Victorian government closed Coranderrk as an official Aboriginal reserve.

After six decades of survival and resistance, the land that had once supported a thriving Aboriginal settlement was divided and given to others.

Much of it was handed to white soldiers who had returned from World War I under the Soldier Settlement Scheme, enacted through the Soldier Settlement Act of 1917.

The remaining residents were moved to missions such as Lake Tyers in eastern Victoria.

A small number of individuals continued to live nearby and occasionally visited the land that had once sustained their families. 

While the reserve ceased to operate, the memory of Coranderrk did not disappear.

Former residents and their descendants passed on stories that told of protests, kept cultural identity across generations and remembered community leaders.

These stories continued to circulate within Aboriginal families and communities.

Among those figures, William Barak remained a powerful symbol of the fight to preserve culture, claim rights, and hold governments accountable. 

From the 1980s onwards, growing public interest in Aboriginal history encouraged efforts to protect Coranderrk's remaining buildings and written records.

Aboriginal leaders, historians, and local councils worked together to help protect surviving structures, record oral histories, and collect documents that showed the importance of the reserve.

Individuals such as Jim Berg, who helped lead these efforts, and institutions like the Koorie Heritage Trust supported these efforts.

As an example of Aboriginal action and resistance, Coranderrk showed how Indigenous people worked within the colonial system to defend their rights.

Its residents, who had worked to build a self-managed community, had challenged racist laws and had insisted on their right to remain on their land.

Later movements such as the 1967 Referendum and the demand for constitutional recognition built on that foundation.