The Warangesda Aboriginal Mission is a heritage-listed former Australian Aboriginal mission site at Warangesda, Darlington Point, Murrumbidgee Council, New South Wales, Australia. The mission was designed and built between 1880 and 1926. It is also known as Warangesda Aboriginal Mission and Station, Warangesda Mission, Warangesda Aboriginal Station, and Warrangesda. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 9 July 2010. The Naden (Lydia Naden) family as well as Florence (Cot) Johnson also lived at Warangesda.
History
Pre-European Aboriginal land use
Stone tools found on the ground during farming activities at Warangesda suggest that the pre-European area of Warangesda was not so much a permanent camp, as an area visited for seasonal foraging and occasional ceremonies. The grass lands of the Riverina contained native cereals and plants with fruit or nuts that could be gathered by hand. Small portable grindstones were part of the basic equipment carried by Wiradjuri women along with their babies and young children. Larger game animals such as kangaroos were hunted by the men, roasted in an earth oven, formed by a shallow hole in the ground, containing ash and charcoal. Sometimes the hole was lined with stones or lumps of clay, or was dug straight out of an old clay termite mound. Traces of one Aboriginal oven were found near the Aboriginal hut area, suggesting that some aspects of traditional life continued into the mission period.
Colonial frontier: and consolidation of pastoralism 1841 -1880
By 1832 the first settler had arrived at Wiradjuri Land near Darlington Point and within a year the Murrumbidgee River frontage between Wagga and Darlington Point was fully occupied by Irish settlers. European colonial farmers occupied and sub-divided the land, displacing Wiradjuri hunter-gatherers and establishing Darlington Point as a small town. This had a direct impact upon the lives of Aboriginal people affecting their food sources, introducing disease and alcoholism and decimating their population.
Relations between the Wiradjuri and Irish settlers appeared to be good at first, but during the severe drought of 1838 these relations had deteriorated to the extent that white men formed armed posses to attack Aborigines. Wiradjuri reacted by mounting a guerrilla type resistance against the settlers. In 1841, posses of settlers trapped a Wiradjuri group on an island in the Murrumbidgee River (Massacre Island) in which an unknown number of Wiradjuri were massacred. This massacre marked the end of organised Aboriginal resistance in the region.
White settlers then weathered the 1840s depression, and drought. Increased stress on food resources began to force Wiradjuri into a steadily tightening net of dependence and poverty. At stations they received uneven treatment. This ranged from being welcomed as cheap labour to being shot on sight. The Government officials (Crown Lands Commissioners) also had various attitudes to Aboriginal people, ranging from compassion to hostility.
The 1850s brought a flood of people into NSW for gold and creating a booming market for meat, and when gold rushes dissipated, a source of cheap labour for the squatters. Rising wool prices in England brought increasing prosperity to sheep farmers. Many Wiradjuri were becoming dependent on the stations in winter, following traditional hunting and gathering mainly in spring. From 1861, the Free Selection Acts brought thousands of new settlers into Wiradjuri country.