Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Cumberland Plain

Expanse of flat land in the centre of the Sydney basin, which was covered with over 1,000 square kilometres of woodland and forest used and managed by Aboriginal people before Europeans arrived and began clearing it for agriculture and settlement. The plain is now the site of most of western Sydney.

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Type

Appin massacre

CC BY-SA 2.0
,
2015

The ongoing dispossession of the Aboriginal people who lived on the Cumberland Plain by white settlers lead to ongoing violence and assaults. The government ordered reprisals by the military included the massacre of at least 14 Aboriginal people near Appin in 1816.