In 1863 the surviors of the Wurundjeri and Tawngurong tribes went back to live on the traditional camping place at Coranderrk in Victoria.The Aboriginal community worked hard to clear some land, grow crops and build slab huts to live in. By 1875 they were able to look after themselves. The white settles of the area objected to their success and wanted them to move. They wanted to move them to the Murray River area. They didn't agree with the white settlers and because they had put in the hard work they didn't want to move .

William Barak, a community elder, and two young men, Robert Wandin and Tom Dunolly who had been educated in a white school, convinced the government to let them stay on at Coranderrk. William Barak said in the Leader newspaper in February 1876:

The Yarra is my father's country.
There's no mountains for me on the Murray

Because of the protests of the people of Coranderrk, there was a Royal Commission in 1877. This recommended the people staying in their land.

The 1886 Victorian Aboriginals Act said that "half castes" had to leave the resevve. This had a disasterous effect on the Coranderrk people because the younger people who were doing the work were not allowed to stay there.

The government took over half the Coranderrk land in 1893 and in 1923 the people who were still there were sent to Lake Tyers.