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Dharawal is a term referring to the groups of Aboriginal Australian people who shared the Dharawal language. Traditionally, they lived in defined hunter–fisher–gatherer family groups or with ties of kinship, along the coastal area through what is now the Wollongong, Port Kembla, and Nowra regions of New South Wales.
The language of the Gandangara people in the mountains inland from Dharawal country was also closely associated with Dharawal, and these two groups shared some cultural ties. The Gandangara appear to have known the Dharawal language as Gur Gur.
The Dharug clan Cubbitch Barta or Cobbitty Barta (meaning place of white pipe clay) clan were located in the Narellan and Campbelltown region of what is now the outer south-western suburbs of Sydney. They were also known by the early British colonists as the Dharug"Cowpastures tribe" as this was the area where the lost cattle from the First Fleet were rediscovered. A registered Indigenous land use agreementand 5 x native title claims was made by glenda chalker claiming as Dharawal country and all 5 native title claims were rejected as no factual evidence was found on all 5 native title claims for Helensburgh in 2011.
The country of the Wodiwodi clan (also known to the colonists as the "Five Islands tribe" referring to the Five Islands just off the coast of Port Kembla) includes the Illawarra, Wollongong and Port Kembla areas. The Dharawal name for the Five Islands is Woolyungah, which is now incorporated into the name of the adjacent city of Wollongong.
Around the Shoalhaven River region and northern part of Jervis Bay, the various clans such as the Numbaa, Meroo, Jerringong and Worrigee were known to the colonists collectively as the "Shoalhaven tribe". The descendants of these people are now referred to as the Jerrinja.
There is some debate as to the southern extent of the Dharawal speaking people and where those who spoke the Dhurga language (which is quite similar to Dharawal) began. At the time of British colonisation this was a border region between the two groups and it is possible Dharawal was spoken as far south as Ulladulla.
The Dharawal had various totems but sea mammals such as dolphins, porpoises and whales had special status amongst these people. The historical artwork () of the Dharawal people is visible on the sandstone surfaces throughout their language area and charcoal and ochre paintings, drawings and hand stencils can be found on rock surfaces and in and overhangs. (2026). 9781742231167, UNSW Press. ISBN 9781742231167
For example, there is a public viewing site of one group of engravings at Jibbon Point, showing a whale and a wallaby. According to an early Dharawal informant, Biddy Giles, these images commemorated notable events, a successful hunt and the stranding of a whale.
Cook himself wrote:
"as we approached the Shore they the all made off, except two Men, who seem'd resolved to oppose our landing...for as soon as we put the boat in they again came to oppose us, upon which I fired a musket between the two, which had no other effect than to make them retire back, where bundles of their darts lay, and one of them took up a stone and threw at us, which caused my firing a second musket, load with small shot; and altho' some of the shot struck the man, yet it had no other effect than making him lay hold on a target. Immediately after this we landed, which we had no sooner done than they throw'd two darts at us; this obliged me to fire a third shot, soon after which they both made off, but not in such haste but what we might have taken one."He went on to say that:
"in the afternoon 16 or 18 of them came boldly up to within 100 yards of our people at the watering place...all they seem'd to want was for us to be gone. After staying a Short time they went away. They were all Arm'd with Darts and wooden Swords."
Dharawal clans, such as the Wodiwodi, who lived in what is now called the Illawarra region, were subjected to incursions of cedar-getters from the early 1800s, and then from 1815 wealthy land-holders such as Charles Throsby, George Johnston and Richard Brooks received land grants in the area. Although some Dharawal were killed in the violence that occurred with this taking of land, the Aboriginal people of the Illawarra were regarded as "friendly" and people such as the Emma Timbery and Toodwik were regarded favourably by the colonists.
Further south, in the Shoalhaven region, early cedar-getters were driven away by the clans there and the colonists hence regarded the resident people as ferocious. However, when Alexander Berry arrived in the early 1820s to lay claim to his massive Coolangatta Estate land grant along the Shoalhaven River, he was able to negotiate a peaceful takeover through Dharawal intermediaries. The Aboriginal people of the Shoalhaven area became important workers for Berry, while they in return were able live on country with access to European goods.
Due to their good positioning in terms of survival and their close cultural and geographic ties to the British economic hub of Sydney, a significant proportion of Dharawal people were able to integrate into the colonial world. By the 1830s, the coastal Dharug (Eora) people of Sydney had been decimated by colonisation and the few Aboriginal people seen in Sydney were by this stage mostly Dharawal. Dharawal people like William Worrall were regularly observed in the colonial capital and regarded as locals. (2026). 9781742235110, NewSouth. ISBN 9781742235110 Furthermore, other Dharawal men such as Warroba and Johnny Crook were employed by the colonists as negotiators and trackers in places such as Van Diemen's Land, Western Australia and Port Phillip. These Dharawal men played a significant role in the founding of Melbourne and the negotiation of Batman's Treaty.
The few surviving people around Botany Bay and along the Georges River appear to have ended up on reserves at La Perouse and at Picton, while those who lived in the Illawarra region had camps at Minnamurra, Port Kembla, Bombo, Kiama, Werri Beach and at Gerroa. A larger Aboriginal reserve was gazetted at Windang near the mouth of Lake Illawarra in the 1880s on the site of what is now the Windang Beach Tourist Park.
Around the Shoalhaven region, most of the Dharawal people there were confined to a purpose built village on the Coolangatta Estate under the patronage of the Berry and Hay families. However, in 1901 these people were forcibly relocated onto a government reserve at Roseby Park.
By the 1920s, most of these camps and reserves had been shut down and the remaining people were consolidated by the Aboriginal Protection Board into the La Perouse and Roseby Park establishments.
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