Umagico
Umagico is a town and locality in the Northern Peninsula Area Region, Queensland, Australia.
Umagico is 1 of the 5 communities which collectively form the Northern Peninsula Area, also known as the NPA. The landmass of the NPA consists of 1,030 km2 in the northern most region of Cape York Peninsula, Injinoo, New Mapoon, Seisia and Bamaga communities make up the remainder of the NPA.
Umagico, originally and still locally known as Alau, was one of several traditional Aboriginal camping sites on the western beaches of Northern Cape York Peninsula. The Gumakudin people are thought to have traditionally occupied Alau prior to first contact.
In 1897, Archibald Meston submitted a report on the Aborigines of Queensland in which he suggested the population between Newcastle Bay and Cape York had decreased from 3,000 to less than 300 people. By 1900, Aboriginal populations in the Cape York Peninsula area had been decimated as a result of introduced disease, exclusions from traditional hunting grounds, and by the brutality of the Native Police and Somerset’s Police Magistrates, most notoriously Frank Jardine.
By 1915, remnants of the Aboriginal population had autonomously regrouped at Red Island Point (later known as Seisia) and Cowal Creek (known then as Small River and later as Injinoo). Both communities approached the Queensland Government for land to establish gardens, leading to the creation of an Aboriginal reserve at Cowal Creek in 1915.
By 1918, the Cowal Creek community was functioning as a self-sufficient community, managed by a self-elected council. The community grew during the 1920s and 1930s with the inclusion of Aboriginal groups who moved from the McDonnell Ranges, Red Island Point and Seven Rivers. In 1923, Anglican missionaries and school teachers arrived at Cowal Creek and increasingly took on administrative functions in the community.
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