In 1810, when Macquarie assumed governorship of New South Wales, the colony extended as far as the Hawkesbury River in the north, ‘Cowpastures’ (Camden) in the south, and the Blue Mountains in the west. Once Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson found a path across the Blue Mountains in 1813, Macquarie saw an opportunity to improve the colony’s agricultural prospects, as he had been tasked, by sending out survey parties to look for fertile soil and good water supplies.
Macquarie was also instructed to treat Indigenous people well, but pastoral growth inevitably led to Aboriginal dispossession. During the drought of 1814, with food scarce, hostilities between settlers and Aboriginal people broke out. At the end of the year, Macquarie drew up a plan to ease tensions, which included the creation of ‘chieftainships’ among Indigenous people, with the use of an ‘honorary badge’ – a breastplate – to identify them.
For the rest of the century, Macquarie’s practice of awarding breastplates was maintained as a way of extracting cooperation from Indigenous people, as pastoralists pushed the frontier ever further.