The Gadigal, also spelled as Cadigal and Caddiegal,[1] are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands are located in Gadi, on Eora country,[2][3] the location of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.[4] However, since the colonisation of Australia, most Gadigal people have been displaced from their traditional lands.
Philip Gidley King gave Long Cove as the western boundary[6] which lieutenant governor David Collins identified with present-day Darling Harbour.[7]Arthur Phillip in a letter to Lord Sydney in February 1790 also reported: "From the entrance of the harbour, along the south shore, to the cove adjoining this settlement the district is called Cadi, and the tribe Cadigal; the women, Cadigalleon".[8]
The Gadigal are coastal people who were previously dependent on the harbour for providing most of their food whilst they were living in their traditional lands. They are one of seven clans from coastal Sydney who speak a common language and have become known as the Eora people. "Eora" refers to "people" or "of this place" in Dharug language.[9]
European history
Soon after his arrival at Port Jackson, GovernorArthur Phillip estimated the Aboriginal population of the area at around 1,500 people, although other estimates range from as low as 200 to as high as 4,000.[10] The Gadigal clan was estimated to have 50-80 people.[9]
The colonisation of the land by British settlers and the subsequent introduction of infectious diseases including smallpox decimated the Gadigal people and their neighbours. The 1789 smallpox epidemic was estimated to have killed about 50% of the Eora population, with only three Gadigal survivors.[11][12][13][a] However, archaeological evidence suggests that some Gadigal people may have escaped to the Concord area and settled there.[15] Since colonisation and its subsequent spread, most Gadigal people have been displaced from their traditional lands.[5]
The former Marrickville Council area, now part of Inner West Council, is situated within Gadigal country and bordering Wangal country. In 1994 the Marrickville Aboriginal Consultative Committee was established and the committee established the Cadigal/Wangal peoples' website.[16][17]
Gadigal elder Allen Madden estimates that several hundred Dharug people, including at least a hundred Gadigal people in his own family, live in Sydney today.[18][19]
^Attenbrow, Val (2010). Sydney's Aboriginal Past: Investigating the archaeological and historical records. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press Ltd. p. 36. ISBN978-1-74223-116-7.
^Heiss, Anita; Gibson, Melodie-Jane (2013). "Aboriginal people and place". Sydney Barani. Archived from the original on 7 July 2014. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
^Flood 2019, p. 49"The epidemic was certainly smallpox and killed over half the Eora. Mortality was up to 95 per cent in some bands; only three survived out of the 50-strong Cadigal."
^Broome 2019, pp. 22–23. "However, he [Arabanoo] perished in the diastrous smallpox epidemic that destroyed half the Eora in mid-1789."
^Heiss, Anita; Gibson, Melodie-Jane (2013). "Aboriginal people and place". Sydney Barani. Archived from the original on 7 July 2014. Retrieved 5 July 2014. It is estimated that almost half of Sydney's Aboriginal population died in the smallpox epidemic of 1789. Melinda Hinkson's Aboriginal Sydney says that the Gadigal, 'the recognised owners of Sydney Cove – were reduced in number from about 60 in 1788 to just three in 1791'
"Camperdown". University of Technology Sydney. Archived from the original on 31 August 2007. Retrieved 24 May 2007.
Cumpston, J. H. L. (1914). The History of Small-Pox in Australia, 1788-1908. Melbourne: Government Printer, Government of Australia.
Flood, Josephine (2019). The Original Australians: the story of the Aboriginal People (2nd ed.). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN9781760527075.
Heiss, Anita; Gibson, Melodie-Jane (n.d.). "Aboriginal people and place". Barani: Sydney's Aboriginal History. City of Sydney. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
