Possibly the first record of the sale of possums in Victoria comes from the Melbourne area. John Pascoe Fawkner, the first European to occupy land in the vicinity, recorded in February 1836:

Mr Henry Batman sent blacks out to get parrots, got [William] Buckley to abuse William Watkins for buying squirrel skins for me and l find him forbidding the natives to sell us any skins or birds. He wants them all himself.³⁰

Several months later Fawkner repeated his complaints about Batman trying to gain exclusive rights to the possum skin trade: 'both Buckley and himself [Henry Batman] ordered the blacks not to sell us any squirrels or baskets'.³¹ It is of interest that Fawkner used the terms 'buy' and 'sell' when discussing locally manufactured items as it suggests a very early use of money in transactions with the Aboriginal people on the Port Phillip frontier.

George Langhorne, a missionary in Port Phillip (1836-39), also noted that a substantial monetary trade was well established in 1838:

A considerable number of the blacks obtain food and clothing for themselves by shooting the Menura pheasant or Bullun-Bullun for the sake of the tails, which they sell to the whites.³²

Langhorne was convinced that the Kulin people (a confederation of at least five language groups) frequenting Melbourne were intrinsically involved in the colonial monetary system: 'Money they obtain readily in the town in return for the trifling services they perform, and the bakers in Melbourne assure me they are their best customers'.³³ Moreover, one of the reasons Langhorne submitted to the Colonial Secretary to explain the mission's failure was the Kulin people's disdain for charity and their rapid acculturation of the principles of buying and selling. He lamented that on account of the Kulins so readily earning money from a labour-exchange relationship with the Europeans he was unable to attract them to the mission:

The blacks might earn a comfortable subsistence in the town [Melbourne], were it only as hewers of wood and drawers of water, and indeed some few who were constantly working here are now employed in Melbourne, having attached themselves to individuals there from whom they obtain money in part payment for their services. On this account they generally refuse to labour here...³⁴

Broome's discussion of the attitudes of Aboriginal workers in south-eastern Australia to the workplace has emphasised the importance of reciprocity, yet Broome acknowledges the opportunity taken by some Aboriginal people to actively engage in the job market for financial gain.³⁵ Thematic and regional research by Clark and Fels also reveals a small but significant number of Aboriginal people exchanging their labour for money.³⁶ By 1844 the trade in possum skins was so lucrative that large volumes of skins were now being offered for sale to white settlers.³⁷ Assistant Protector of Aborigines Thomas reported that he had been canvassed by the Aboriginal people to the north of his district: 'Loddon blacks arrive, bringing in some thousands of skins for sale'.³⁸ Similarly, Dr James Horsburgh, the medical officer at the Goulburn Protectorate Station (1846-53) noted that the 'natives also obtain both money and food for opossum skins, about 2 [sterling] pounds of the former article being laid out in my presence to hawkers'.³⁹ The rapidity with which the Aboriginal people of Port Phillip entered into monetary commerce is a subject worthy of more attention by historians.

As the squatters penetrated beyond the Melbourne and Geelong regions, the inter-cultural trade continued unabated, though not always using money as a medium.⁴⁰ George Gilbert, a bullock driver in the Goulburn district, witnessed 'large quantities of skins' being procured from the Aboriginal people in exchange for flour.⁴¹ EB Addis, Commissioner of Crown Lands (Port Phillip District, 1836) considered that the 'Barrabool tribe' [Wathawurrung] was attracted to the Geelong township chiefly because of the ease with which they were able to trade possum skins and lyrebird tails for the new foodstuffs:

... the town of Geelong attracts them greatly, partly from curiosity and otherwise by the facility they procure offal meat from the sheep and cattle killed at the butcheries, and rice, flour or sugar, in exchange for birds and skins...⁴²

Assistant Protector Thomas recorded in May 1840 that the people in his Western Port District were eager to work on the station and to exchange 'Aboriginal manufactures' for food rations.⁴³ Aboriginal hawkers also became a regular sight for the squatters and their pastoral workers. Katherine Kirkland, a 'lady' pastoralist in central Victoria (Trawalla) regarded these trade encounters as one of the pleasures of bush life:

Occasional adventures with the savage aborigines streak the homeliness of the picture with something like the hues of romance ... We sometimes got some skins of the opossum and flying squirrel, or tuan, from the natives. It was a good excuse for them to come to the station. I paid them with a piece of dress, and they were very fond of getting a red pocket handkerchief to tie round their necks.⁴⁴

James Nealer, a shepherd employed by Thomas Learmonth at Buninyong (15 kilometres south-east of Ballarat) reported that a group of Wathawurrung had tried to hawk some possum skins in exchange for a sheep: 'On the 25th of July [1838] four natives came to [me and] my flock of sheep and wanted one, offering some squirrel skins'.⁴⁵ GF Read, a pastoralist also at Buninyong, was the subject of an earlier business visit in April 1838: 'A great many natives came here today and exchanged skins for flour'.⁴⁶ The rate of exchange on the inter-cultural network varied, but Charles Griffiths, a pastoralist near Ballan (60 kilometres west of Melbourne) reported on one occasion that two unidentified Wathawurrung men received flour and sugar for a kangaroo tail and skin, and on another occasion noted that he was busy tanning 'a number of opposum skins and touan skins, the latter is the flying squirrel ... which we have got from the natives in exchange for flour'.⁴⁷ In March 1845, John Cotton, a squatter on the Goulburn River, west of present- day Yea, had adopted a similar trade and exchange rate:

... they know very well that we never give anything unless we receive something in return, so they generally come provided with opossum skins, for which we give them rice, sugar, bread or anything of the sort that we can spare; they generally prefer rice and tobacco.⁴⁸

Clark posits that the trading of Aboriginal manufactures such as baskets, skins (kangaroo and possum) and buckets was common and that Chief Protector Robinson frequently obtained such items for his own collection or sold them on to George Lilley, a produce merchant in Melbourne who also had a stall at the Melbourne market.⁴⁹