Gadigal

The Gadigal people originally inhabited the area that they call "Gadi", which lies south of Port Jackson, covering today's Sydney central business district and stretching from South Head across to Marrickville/Petersham with part of the southern boundary lying on the Cooks River; most notably Sydney Cove is located in Gadi, the site where the first Union Jack was raised, marking the beginning of colonisation.^[5]

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]

Soon after his arrival at Port Jackson, Governor Arthur 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]

Australian band Midnight Oil included a song "Gadigal Land" as a single in their The Makarrata Project mini-album project.^[20] The song includes a verse written and spoken by Gadigal poet Joel Davison.^[21] A statement from Sony Music Australia explained: "It is a provocative recount of what happened in this place, and elsewhere in Australia, since 1788".^[22]

In October 2023, the New South Wales government renamed a Sydney Metro station to Gadigal railway station whilst it was under construction, which had formerly been named as Pitt Street station.^[23][24][25]

Nanbaree was a young Gadigal boy who survived the smallpox outbreak in 1789. He was taken to the British colonial outpost at Sydney and became an important interpreter between the Indigenous people and the colonisers.^[26]

• Aboriginal Australians