Guildford – 1830-1833
As the Guildford area was a traditional Noongar meeting place, there was a good deal of contact between Noongars and wadjelas. This often turned to conflict, with the clash of traditional Noongar practices of hunting and gathering, and European ways of farming. The main cause of much of the conflict between Noongars and Europeans was the different and often incompatible values held about the nature of land ownership and property. [iii] Noongar people do not think of the land as owning it, we consider it to be a part of us.
Midgegooroo, a senior and respected Noongar man, caused the new settlers considerable grief by attempting to resist their settlement of his country. After many confrontations he was caught and executed outside Perth gaol in May 1833. Recently, the lost burial site of Midgegooroo was located at the Deanery on St. Georges Terrace in Perth city.[iv]
Midgegooroo’s son, Yagan – the Noongar resistance leader – was shot by a young bounty hunter on the Upper Swan a few months later. Yagan was both respected and feared by Europeans, and some were angry at the way in which Yagan had been entrapped and killed.[v] For Noongar people, Yagan is a symbol of resistance to European colonization and culture.