Always was, always will be…
Before invasion and colonisation by the British in the early 1800’s, the Turrbal and Jagera peoples inhabited what we now know as Brisbane.
The explorer John Oxley, on first sighting the Turrbal in 1824, described them as “about the strongest and best-made muscular men (sic) I have seen in any country”.
The Turrbal people’s tracks form the basis of many modern-day roads. Waterworks Road from Ashgrove is built on a Turrbal track that leads to Mount Coot-tha.
The Turrbal people called the peninsula of New Farm Binkinba (place of the land tortoises).
Captain Patrick Logan established a farm in the area in 1827 and it also became a working site for convicts.
The lie of terra nullius and the violence of colonialism continues to the thwart the ongoing fight, by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, for justice.
Acknowledgement of Country