pastoralism

Early Tinnenburra blocks, 1863. The first surveys of the Warrego River were conducted a few years after European settlers crossed from the Darling River. Drafted in 1863, this map shows the boundaries of early pastoral runs. The location of town reserves, sheep yards, waterholes, blazed trees and the Queensland-New South Wales border are also shown as well as the tentative outline of watercourses. Pastoral interests were closely tied to water as blocks rarely extend more than ten miles away from creeks and rivers. In this map, three ‘Tinnenburra’ blocks line the banks of Cuttaburra Creek, an offshoot of the Warrego River. These were later taken up by James Tyson and formed one of the largest pastoral stations in the world. The name ‘Tinnenburra’ probably comes from ‘Dinnenbooroo’, the Aboriginal name for a waterhole on the Cuttaburra. While both place and name were appropriated by Europeans, its appearance alludes to an Indigenous landscape beyond what is conventionally represented by maps. Collection of the Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying, DERM, Brisbane

Cullin-la-ringo run, selection 68, 1877. This map of the final selection of Cullin-la-ringo station, number 68, was ‘Applied for by the trustees of the late H.S. Wills’. The run was surveyed on 23 June 1877 after instructions from the trustees of Wills. Selection 67 joins this part of the run in the north-west corner. Marked with patches of trees and in open downs country, the south-east corner of this map shows a hut marked as ‘Broughton’s or Murdering Camp’, with an annotation that reads, ‘Murder of Wills and party of 19 souls by Blacks Oct 17^th 1861’. Nearby, graves are marked on the map. Collection of the Queensland State Archives

Cullin-la-ringo run, selection 66, 1877. The land in this part of the selection is made up of ‘open undulating downs’. The Clermont Road runs through the southern portion and joins selection 65 on the eastern boundary – the far side of the map shows a diagram of this connection along Six Mile Creek. In selection 68 the location of the ‘Murder of Wills and party’ is marked. Collection of the Queensland State Archives

Perambulator survey of runs in West Maranoa, 1863. In the unsettled districts of western Queensland, pastoral boundaries often amounted to little more than a surveyor’s blazed tree. Early plans produced for the Lands Department recorded their location as well as other landscape features. Conducted in 1863, the first survey of the upper Warrego River recorded the location of two Landsborough camp sites. Made on the 9 May 1862, ‘camp 66’ is depicted on the east bank of the Warrego, not far from a ‘well watered creek’ described by Edmund Kennedy in 1847. Within a newly surveyed 32,000 acre block, Landsborough’s ‘camp 67’ is depicted near the junction of the Warrego and Ward Rivers. The Lands Department continued using this map to later record town reserves and land resumptions. Collection of the Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying, DERM, Brisbane