Landscapes and People of the Mitta Valley 1830 – 1914: an Environmental History
Creators: name: Raulings, Kathleen
Publisher: name: Monash University
Year: 2017
Subjects: History

description: This thesis is an environmental history of the Mitta Valley in north-east Victoria from pre-colonial times through to 1914. It covers the period when squatters, miners and settlers transformed the landscape that had been created by Aboriginal people. As a detailed study of a narrow mountain valley, it challenges conventional narratives of colonial land settlement that have few references to landscape change across time. Drawing on social history, historical geography, archaeology, botany, art history, family history and fieldwork, as well as newspapers, land selection records and official documentary sources, this study employs a multi-disciplinary approach to provide an alternative methodology for local history. By combining and analysing these sources, the thesis uses changes in the landscape to uncover how different groups of settlers, many of whom were illiterate or left few documentary records, have responded to and shaped their surroundings. <br> With a central focus on landscape, people and environment of the nineteenth century, this study of the Mitta Valley demonstrates how the incursion of Europeans with herds of livestock dispossessed the Aboriginal occupants and brought an end to Aboriginal land management practices. Economic and social imperatives of the squatters are shown to have further changed the landscape with new ideas about ownership of land. However there was not the devastating destruction of native vegetation reported in other studies, although ecological changes to fauna occurred, due to the propensity of nineteenth century settlers’ love of hunting and shooting. The discovery of gold in the 1850s resulted in less environmental destruction during early alluvial phases of mining than elsewhere. However, hydraulic sluicing and dredging, which continued into the twentieth century, left significant landscape scars. The extended period of gold mining brought permanent village settlement as well as tracks and roads that opened up the mountainous country. <br> The thesis goes on to show that more profound changes to the valley landscape occurred during the period of land selection from 1865 onwards. The persistence of the yeoman ideal resulted in the partition of the valley landscape into small farming allotments, although some resident squatters managed to maintain large landholdings. Nineteenth century ideas of bringing civilisation to the land by clearing and cultivation resulted in environmental changes as settlers successfully adapted and changed their agricultural practices over time with fewer dramatic struggles than had been depicted in the literature. By the turn of the century, technological advances and the development of transport networks brought a transition to dairying as the preferred landscape use that was supplemented by the raising of fat cattle and pigs. While much of the land was cleared of native timber and cultivated, other exotic species were planted and settlers established gardens and orchards around their properties to create a landscape that is still familiar today. Finally this thesis argues that the use of such a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of a local area has wider implications for colonial settlement history offering scope for a richer, more diverse interpretation and different understandings of the colonial settler experience.