The Dharug Aboriginal people originally occupied the area west of Sydney, with significant communities around the Hawkesbury River as it travelled west from the coast. With such fertile land, the Dharug people were able to live off the native flora and fauna as well as the fish which could be caught in the river. The Dharug nation was made up of several different clans, some of which would be used by European settlers to name the area in which they lived including Cattai and Kurrajong. 

When Captain Watkin Tench first explored the regions of the Dharug people he noted the confident and friendly nature of the people he met who were seemingly at ease with the foreigners that had come to their land.

With one of the first settlements outside of Sydney Town established in Parramatta, it was not be long before the Dharug people had their traditional customs interrupted by the settlers. The natural resources they relied on to survive were subsumed by farming and land clearing, and soon relations between the settlers and the Dharug people were strained. Disputes were met with violence from both sides culminating in a massacre of Dharug people in Bringelly in 1816. 

Today descendents of the Dharug people still live in the Western Sydney regions and comprise the largest population of Aboriginal people in Sydney.