Numbers and Distribution of the Aborigines in Victoria.
The numbers that at the first coming of the white man occupied the area now known as Victoria cannot be ascertained nor even estimated with precision, but enough is known of Victoria and of other parts of Australia, some but lately explored, to admit of a rough estimate being made.
The late Sir Thomas Mitchell, whose accurate observations are justly valued by men of science, and whose works even now are the best to which reference can be made as regards Eastern Australia, formed a very low estimate of the numbers of the Aborigines:—"The native population is very thinly spread over the regions I have explored, amounting to nearly a seventh part of Australia. I cannot estimate the number at more than 6,000; but, on the contrary, I believe it to be considerably less. They may increase rapidly if wild cattle become numerous, and, as an instance, I may refer to the number and good appearance of the Cudjallagong tribe, near Macquarie Range, where they occasionally fell in with a herd of wild cattle."[1]
If the reader will cast his eye over the map of the vast extent of country explored by Sir Thomas Mitchell, this estimate will probably strike him with astonishment. That there should be more than forty-five thousand acres of land required for the support of one Aboriginal appears to be incredible; but when the character of the country is carefully examined, the vicissitudes of climate to which it is subject duly noted, and its natural productions observed—and when it is considered further that the number of the Aboriginal inhabitants must of necessity be governed by the conditions of adverse seasons, rather than by those of ordinary or favorable years—and that, as will be seen when the laws of this people are considered, there was no possibility of any singularly rich or productive area in which food was plentiful adding to the resources of any tribes inhabiting adjacent less highly-favored lands—the sparseness of the population will cease to excite astonishment, and more importance will be attached to the low estimate—certainly, as regards Victoria, the very low estimate—made by Sir Thomas Mitchell.
The late Mr. E. S. Parker, who was for many years a Protector of Aborigines, stated, when delivering a lecture in Melbourne in 1854, that he estimated the number of the Aboriginal population at the foundation of the colony at 7,500. He said:—"In the year 1843 I endeavoured to take a nominal census of the Aboriginal population in the district extending from the Goulburn on the east to the Upper Wimmera on the west, and from the Great Dividing Range between
- ↑ Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, vol. II., p. 345.
