John Batman arrives off Indented Head and establishes a holding station. On 6 June Batman recorded in his journal that he had signed a treaty with the local Aboriginal people, the Wurundjeri. In this treaty, Batman purported to buy land near the Yarra River and around Geelong, on Corio Bay – almost all of the Kulin nation’s ancestral land. In exchange he gave the eight “chiefs” whose marks he acquired on his treaty some blankets, knives, tomahawks, scissors, looking-glasses, flour, handkerchiefs and shirts. It is unlikely they understood the European negation. For the Indigenous people of Victoria, the land was not about possession but belonging.
However, the treaty was significant as it was the first and only documented time when Europeans negotiated their presence and occupation of aboriginal lands. It was later declared void by the Governor of New South Wales.

Buckley reveals himself to Batman’s men at Indented Head.