‘Cambo’ Kamilaroi tribesman @ Segenhoe 1831

Featured Image: ‘Cambo’, Kamilaroi tribesman @ Segenhoe 1831

Audio ‘Living Histories’ UoN, Margaret Henry: Allan Wood, author of ‘Dawn in the Valley’ – “DAWN IN THE VALLEY” – 1987 | Living Histories (newcastle.edu.au)

Walter Allan Wood vehemently extolled the virtues of the first nation people in ‘Dawn in the Valley’ prior to exposure to, and admixture with the primary European ‘invaders’ and settlers. Their rapid deterioration within a very few generations he attributed to deleterious ‘whitefella’ practices and introduced diseases to a naïve population. Also, the attitudes and behaviour of some of the first ‘Exclusive’ pioneers were truly iniquitous in some instances.

‘Cambo’ would have been among the earliest aboriginals to contact the very first white settlers to arrive at ‘Segenhoe’ in 1825. The Elliott family assigned to Thomas Potter Macqueen were in this vanguard. W. Allan Wood’s great-great Uncle George Elliott, later of ‘Buttai’, was one of their number.