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==Country==
[[File:Ngunawal Lands.png|thumb|Map of the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal peoples of New South Wales.{{efn|This map is indicative only.}}]]
When first encountered by European colonisers in the 1820s, the Ngunawal-speaking
Their tribal country according to the early ethnographer, [[Robert Hamilton Mathews|R. H. Mathews]], stated their country extended from [[Goulburn, New South Wales|Goulburn]] to [[Yass, New South Wales|Yass]] and [[Boorowa, New South Wales|Boorowa]] southwards as far as [[Lake George (New South Wales)|Lake George]] to the east and [[Goodradigbee River|Goodradigbee]] to the west.{{sfn|Mathews|1904|p=294}} To the south of Lake George was the county of the Nyamudy speaking a Ngarigo dialect. Recent research by [[Harold Koch (linguist)|Harold Koch]] (2011) and others shows that the Ngunnawal country was primarily the land surrounding the Yass River extending between Lake George to the east and the [[Murrumbidgee River|Murrumbidgee]] to the west, while the southern boundary of the Ngunnawal people was north of [[Canberra]], approximately on a line from Gundaroo to Wee Jasper. Sometimes the whole of the Burragorang language speaking area as far north as near Young is included as Ngunnawal, giving them a population in the 1830s of well over a thousand people.
A major battle for ownership of the country was fought at Sutton between an invading Ngunnawal band and the Nyamudy inhabitants, which the
==People==
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At present,{{when|date=July 2021}} three groups contest [[Aboriginal traditional owner|ownership]] in the Canberra area: the Ngambri, the Ngarigo, and the [[Walgalu people|Walgalu speaking]] Ngambri-Guumaal, represented by Shane Mortimer, with widespread connections from across the [[Snowy Mountains]] down to the [[Blue Mountains (New South Wales)|Blue Mountains]].{{cn|date=July 2021}}
According to settlers living in the area in the 1830s, such as quoted in the ''[[Queanbeyan Age]]'', there were three groups in the region: the Ngunnawal
The present dispute originated when the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory at the time, [[Jon Stanhope]], inaccurately stated that "Ngambri is the name of one of a number of family groups that make up the Ngunnawal nation." He went on to say that "the Government recognises members of the Ngunnawal nation as descendants of the original inhabitants of this region." He made the error after talking with multiracial people of part Ngunnawal descent whose forebears had come from Yass in the 1920s to find work.{{cn|date=July 2021}}
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==Native title==
The earliest direct evidence for Aboriginal occupation in the area comes from a rock shelter near the area of Birrigai near [[Tharwa, Australian Capital Territory|Tharwa]], which has been dated to approximately 25,000 years ago. However, it is likely (based on older sites known from the surrounding regions) that human occupation of the region goes back considerably further.{{cn|date=July 2021}}
They were gradually displaced from the Yass area beginning in the 1820s when graziers began to occupy the land there. Some people worked at properties in the region. In 1826 many Aboriginal people at Lake George protested an incident involving a shepherd and an Aboriginal woman, though the protesters moved away peacefully.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://yasshistory.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Eric-Bell-book-April-2011.pdf|title=Looking Back: My Story|last=Bell|first=Eric Bernard|year=2011|page=24|quote=George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector of Aborigines in Victoria, who toured through the Yass area in 1844 and stayed with Hamilton Hume, commented “The Yass and Bathurst Blacks in the early settling of the Colony were said to have been troublesome, and that in consequence Commandoes had gone out against them”, White and Cane repeat this. They also mention “one of these encounters involved the colonial government sending a detachment of soldiers in 1826 to disperse a large and hostile gathering of Ngunnawal Aborigines at Lake George”. My friend, Dr Ann Jackson-Nakano, who has made a close study of the Lake George communities gives a detailed background to this hostility. “Communities banded together in large numbers to avenge the taking of their women by European stockmen at Lake George and Lake Bathurst. It incensed these groups enough when their Indigenous neighbours stole wives, as Govett and others described it, but they would not tolerate their women being taken by Europeans.” (p 25; Weereewa History Series Volume 1).}}</ref>
Historical records of Australia record the last "[[Half-Caste Act|full-blooded]]" Ngunnawal person, Nellie Hamilton, dying in 1897, however, this is disputed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, as there are many Ngunnawal people still around today.{{sfn|McKeon|1995}}
==Notes==
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