This page of our website features a brief history of Redfern and the Aboriginal Housing Company.
Two good sources of reference for Aboriginal timelines are dreamtime and kooriweb websites.

BC [Before Cook] and Colonisation

Global sea levels began to drop significantly around 140,000 years ago, as glaciers formed from large amounts of solidifying evaporated ocean water. Glacial formation occurred intermittently throughout the next 90,000 years. During these periods in earth's history the Australian landmass could be reached from central Asia in a one-day 140 kilometer sea passage on a large raft. After global warming and the inevitable rise in sea levels, that same journey would have been almost impossible without navigation equipment.

Radiocarbon dating has revealed that more than 45,000 years ago, during one of these glacial periods, human beings established themselves in Australia. The most recent archaelogical discovery of an Ancient Aboriginal site found in north-west Qld could be evidence of Aboriginal occupation of Australia as far back as 60,000 years. However, it has yet to be determined where they originated from as scientific analysis has failed to match them by blood or language with people from any other area of the world, many scientists have speculated Asia.

It has been argued that as few as thirteen people could have generated the estimated Aboriginal population of the late 1700s (600,000 to 800,000). This means only one original migratory group would have been required. Although this is unlikely it is not beyond the realm of possibility. More probable is that the current Aboriginal population is the result of several groups traveling to Australia and becoming integrated during the process of population evolution. The ancient Australian Aborigines evolved to be hunter-gatherers with an oral tradition. This tradition includes music, song, dance, and graphic expression - all of which contained rich symbolic meaning. In fact a combination of forms may have been required for a concept to be fully expressed. Remarkably, Aboriginal society evolved virtually without outside interference until the disruption brought about by the arrival of the English convict ships in 1788.

In 1788 the British landed on the shores of Kamay Bay, now called Botany Bay. The Gadigal, Bidjiagal and Wongul clans of the Darug Nation inhabited the district surrounding that bay and the great harbour of Tuhbowgule [Sydney Harbour] - around which the city of Sydney is now built. At that time the local clans extended from South Head to Botany Bay out to Petersham taking in the suburbs now known as Redfern, Erskineville, Surry Hills, Darlinghurst and Paddington.

It has also been recorded that the Darug occupied 1800 square kilometres of land extending along the coast from the Hawkesbury River in the north to the Georges River in the south and inland to the present towns of Campbelltown and Camden. The traditional owners of Redfern were the Gadigal (also spelled as Kadigal or Cadigal) people. They lived in Redfern and surrounding areas for more than 40,000 years before European invasion. Material excavated from the Alexandra Canal in the 1960's and middens along the Cooks River are evidence of their occupation in the area. The Gadigal people spoke the coastal Eora language and are often referred to as the Eora people. Other clans of the Sydney region, occupying different parts of Eora land included the Wanegal, the Kamergal, the Karegal, and the Bidjigal (Bediagal). There were two major groups to the north and south of the Eora lands; they were the Tharawal and Daruk (also spelled as Darug or Dharug). Some believe that the Gadigal may have been part of the Daruk Nation, however there is uncertainty regarding this.

With the arrival of the Europeans, the Gadigal population was virtually wiped. In 1789 and 1790 a smallpox epidemic swept through the Aboriginal population around Sydney killing literally thousands of people. It is probable that anywhere between 50-90% of all the Aborigines in the vicinity of Sydney died from this epidemic within the first three years of the European settlement. During this period, a large number of Eora were also killed during their resistance (led by Eora leader Pemulwuy) to the violent, dispossession and invasion of their land. Those who survived moved out of the area and joined neighbouring groups. Eora society as it had existed for so many millennia is believed to have been completely destroyed by the early 19th century. The events surrounding the Aboriginal resistance during the European invasion is analogous to the American Indian’s resistance against British colonial rule. During the French and Indian wars in the 1600’s, the British waged germ warfare against the American Indians and their leader Pontiac. The British strategically infected blankets with small pox and distributed them to the Indians. Small pox crippled the resistance and practically wiped out the American Indian Nation.  Historians have revealed that dried smallpox scabs brought to NSW by surgeons for inoculating against the disease may have been used to start the epidemic among Aborigines. Two junior officers of a British commander who had approved using smallpox against Native Americans sailed with the First Fleet, so knowledge of germ warfare was possible. The timing of the Sydney small pox epidemic and the Aboriginal resistance would suggest that the British may indeed have used similar germ warfare tactics in Australia during colonisation.

20th Century till Now

After the First Fleet arrived in Australia, the Aborigines where ravaged by diseases like small pox and were gradually driven further and further from Sydney Cove.

By 1900, La Perouse was declared an Aboriginal reserve and was the closest Aboriginal community to Sydney’s city centre.

During 1889 residential dwellings were constructed by the British in the area known as Darlington (incorporated in 1864), stimulated by the need for housing for workers at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops. The houses mainly consisted of brick rendered walls, iron roofs and timber verandas with iron balcony railings.

During the 1920's, Aboriginal people from all around NSW migrated to Redfern drawn by the possibility of regular work on the railways as fettlers and cheap rent.

As work became scarce during the Great Depression of the 1930's, the links between the two Aboriginal strongholds of La Perouse and Redfern strengthened and the growing homeless population formed makeshift camps around La Perouse. After World War II, more affluent residents who had bought land freehold nearby, pressed Randwick Council to move the squatters. Many Aboriginal people moved to Redfern and sought refuge with relatives.

By the 1940's a large Aboriginal population had established itself in Redfern and the area was the location of a number of civil rights protest meetings and rallies.

By 1965 Redfern accommodated over 12,000 Aborigines, many were employed in local factories. Others, however, turned to crime and drinking.

The 1967 National Referendum gave citizenship rights to Indigenous people for the first time since colonisation. Consequently, more Aboriginal people migrated from mainly the rural areas of NSW and Queensland to Sydney where there were greater opportunities for jobs, housing and education.

In the early 1970s a serious overcrowding and homelessness crisis developed, with indefinite numbers of Aboriginal people without permanent or adequate housing following a series of evictions and general racial discrimination in the private housing market. The lack of affordable housing for Redfern's increasing Aboriginal population resulted in a group of Aborigines squatting in empty terraces in Louis Street Redfern, in the latter months of 1972. In November that year, police arrested 15 (goomies) alcoholics who where squatting in the empty houses. They were released in the care of Father Ted Kennedy at St Vincent’s Church in Redfern. Fr Kennedy housed the goomies in the church hall, but when the number of homeless people living in the church grew to over 50 South Sydney Council exerted great pressure on Fr Kennedy to evict them.

On 2 December 1972, the new ALP Gough Whitlam federal government was elected. Whitlam's team had been toying with the idea of Aboriginal land rights, especially since 26 January 1972, when Aboriginal activists opened the "tent embassy" outside Canberra's old parliament building. Whitlam's Aboriginal Affairs minister Gordon Bryant was keen to help the Redfern Aborigines.

Fr Ted Kennedy teamed up with Aboriginal leaders including judge Bob Bellear and his brother Sol. The Builder Labourers Federation imposed a green ban on the Louis Street site prohibiting the owner from demolishing and redeveloping the houses. Fr Kennedy and Co. leased some of the vacant houses in Louis St. These dilapidated terrace houses were 80-100 years old and were largely shabby and ramped, tiny 12 feet wide double story properties.

Under a 'blind-eye' agreement with the owner-developer, the squatters organised themselves and formed a company. The Aboriginal Housing Company, the first housing collective in Australia, was incorporated on 25 July 1973 under the NewSouth Wales Companies Act 1961 (now the Corporations Act.) as a company limited by guarantee. Subject to the legal constitution of the Company, an initial grant of $530,000 from the Whitlam government allowed the AHC to purchase and restore the first six terrace houses. This initial acquisition in Redfern was the first urban land-rights claim in Australia. Wattie Creek preceded the Redfern project as the first rural land-rights claim.

The Aboriginal population of Redfern tripled between 1976 and 1981 primarily as a result of this housing project.

Mr. Dick Blair (now a Pastor), one of the 11 original directors of the AHC, said on behalf of the Aboriginal Housing Company:

"The whole aim of the project is to bring Aboriginal people together so that we can live in the way we want to live and share what we have with one another. Many of us are now living in slums and pigstyes because we cannot afford the high rents. It is difficult to get jobs because we have no skills and because white people don’t want to employ us. We can’t be proud to live in these conditions. But when we are living together we will be able to help each other to learn skills and to get jobs and, most importantly, we will be proud of our houses and proud of our community. Our children will be able to grow up with more opportunities than we had and they too will be proud of their community and proud of themselves. All we ask is that we be given a chance to prove that it can work".

In the early years the company generated much needed local employment through its extensive building works programs, but suffered many financially crippling delays due to an uncooperative South Sydney Council. When the Fraser Coalition government was elected in 1975, a year later it terminated capital works funding to the project. Without financial assistance the Block descended into disrepair and disorder. By the early 1980s the Aboriginal Housing Company had acquired almost half the properties on the Block and with another change of federal government (Hawke/Keating) came renewed support for Redfern’s Aboriginal community. In 1994 the last house on the Block was finally owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company.

However, by the early 1990s heroin had begun to infiltrate the community and the Block gradually became so violent it was a virtual a no-go zone. Police rarely ventured into the community except in large numbers, and with armour to protect them from flying bricks and petrol bombs during periodic riots.

In 1997, the Aboriginal Housing Company started demolishing some of the houses that had become derelict and were frequented by drug dealers.

The Aboriginal residents of Redfern have come from many different Aboriginal lands and communities, resulting in a significant intra-cultural diversity within this local community. Amid all the trouble it is sometimes easy to forget the Block has housed many honest, kind and hard-working Aboriginal families that have found a new life in Sydney.