Aboriginal people had to adapt quickly to the impacts of colonisation. It was a time of great change and crisis.

Denied access to resources they had relied on for sustenance, they watched the landscape change as hoofed animals compacted the soil, rivers were dammed, and European farming methods changed the environment. At times it was a violent dispossession. There was resistance. There were massacres. Eventually people were forcibly moved from their traditional lands.

This watercolour of early Geelong from around 1860 shows a group of Aboriginal people in the foreground. There are cattle and homesteads in the background. Geelong was the traditional land of the Wadawurrung (Wathaurung) speaking people.