Tony Reneker from the Leeton Family and Local Historical Society shares an important story

Other villages in the shire such as Whitton and Yanco have European history dating back to the 1830s and 1840s.

Prior to that time the Wiradjuri people had lived in the area for thousands of years

Prior to colonial contact, the Wiradjuri people had a relationship with the land centred around the Murrumbidgee River and their traditions and understanding of their environment ensured sustainability.

In and around the now Leeton shire area "They travelled light ...they stayed in larger groups for a season ... then split up into ... groups of around 20 people ..."

They would move from place to place and this movement remained a feature of their traditional life.

In 1829-1830 Captain Charles Sturt led an expedition from Sydney to where the Tumut and Murrumbidgee Rivers met then west along the Murrumbidgee past the site of modern Wagga Wagga and then onto the plains of the beyond.

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They were the first Europeans to encounter the Wiradjuri people. On December 1, 1829, the expedition was met by two Wiradjuri people, who were given the English names of Jemmy and Peter.

Sturt acknowledged they were of infinite service to them and they would hand them over from one group of Aboriginal people to the next as they made their way down the river.

When the party arrived in the area roughly around where Yanco is, they assembled a whale-boat they had carried with them, and some of the group commenced to sail down the Murrumbidgee.

On January 14, 1830 the group reached the Hume River, which Sturt promptly renamed the Murray River.

They continued on after they established that the Murray-Darling system flowed into the sea.

Then, on February 12, 1830 commenced to make the return trip back to Sydney.

This time however, they were travelling against the current and things weren't so easy.

They reached Yanco March 23, but the extensive heat and lack of provisions commenced to take its toll and they abandoned the boat and made the rest of the journey by foot, arriving in Sydney on May 25, 1830.

Sturt's expedition was followed by an explosion of settlement which saw squatters taking over large areas of land.

By the late 1830s large "runs" had been taken up in the Wagga Wagga area and, by the early 1840s, these runs had expanded further west into areas such as where parts of the Yanco and Whitton districts are now generally located.

This occupation of the lands resulted in tensions between the settlers and the Wiradjuri people and this led to the Wiradjuri War between 1839 and 1841.

There was direct conflict as the Wiradjuri people were dependent upon the land for their traditional way of life while the squatters were reliant on the land for agriculture.

One of the tactics used by the Wiradjuri people was to strike in numbers, rushing mobs of cattle, killing some and driving away the rest.

This led to retaliation and reprisals by both groups with deaths on both sides being recorded.

By the end of the 1840s however, the original inhabitants had been defeated by guns, poison, starvation and disease.

While they tried to hold onto their culture as best they could, they had lost their land and lifestyle.

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Acknowledgements:

Brad Montgomery - A Study on the Relationship Between Wiradjuri People and the Non-Indigenous Colonisers of Wagga Wagga 1830-1900. 2010

Author Unknown - Some of the Early History of Whitton. Date unknown

Former Warangesda Aboriginal Mission Art and Historical Exhibition. Warangesda Project Working Group. 2018.

Sherry Morris - Wagga Wagga A History. 1999

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