Trading on the Goldfields
According to Clark, Aboriginal people moved quickly to 'grasp the economic opportunities presented to them by the miners flooding to the Central Victorian gold diggings' in the 1850s.⁵⁰ The influx of prospectors and subsequent social upheaval led to significant changes in the pastoral economy. Walter Bridges, a miner at Buninyong near Ballarat in 1855, described how a local clan of Wathawurrung people carrying possum skin rugs approached his wife and made a request, framed within the ties of reciprocity of neighbours, for some steel needles and thread: 'So up they come yabbering good day Missie You my countary woman now. My Mother had to be spoksman the Blacks said You gotum needle Missie you gottum thread...'.⁵¹ It seems likely that the demand for Western means of sewing their rugs stemmed from the high volume of possum skin rugs being sold on the goldfields. It is clear that many diggers engaged in trade with Aboriginal people to obtain these much valued items. JF Hughes, a Castlemaine pioneer, described how possum skin and kangaroo skin rugs were 'sold to settlers and lucky gold diggers at five pounds a-piece'.⁵² Miner James Arnot bought a possum rug in Melbourne made of 72 skins sewn together with sinews, also for 5 pounds sterling.⁵³ Aboriginal people from the Mitta Mitta and the Little River districts, to the east of the Ovens goldfield, paid regular visits with possum rugs for sale.⁵⁴ Miners and others writing in this period have left glowing reports about the benefits of obtaining possum skin rugs from the Aboriginal people. As Annear describes it: 'One rug imparted as much warmth as a dozen blankets and in summer they were stored until colder months returned.'⁵⁵ George Henry Wathen, a visitor on the Victorian goldfields, also extolled the virtues of possessing a possum rug and acknowledged, if grudgingly, that the settlers considered them to be undoubtedly the most highly valued inter-cultural trade item in Victoria:

... l was soon asleep on the ground, by the fire, under an overbowering banksia, wrapped in the warm folds of my opossum rug. For a night bivouac, there is nothing comparable to the opossum-rug; and it is perhaps the only good thing the white man has borrowed from the blacks.⁵⁶

With thousands of miners congregating in towns across Victoria, the volume of trade in possum skins increased exponentially. Frequent references in miners' accounts attest to the acumen of Indigenous people in the colony. Edward Tame, a traveller on the goldfields, noted that the skins of possums 'form good articles of commerce' for the 'Aborigines' he frequently encountered.⁵⁷ HW Wheelwright confirmed Tame's opinion, writing in the 1850s: 'for of all the coverings in dry cold weather, an opossum-skin rug is the best, as I can well testify'. He recommended that, 'If any blacks are handy, it is best to get them to sew the skins, for a black's rug beats any other'.⁵⁸ Reports from a number of Aboriginal Station Managers across Victoria describe the lucrative trade being conducted. In December 1870 the manager of the Condah Mission in Western Victoria wrote: 'Some of them earn a little money by making and selling baskets and mats, and occasionally an opossum rug'.⁵⁹ According to John Green, the manager of Corranderrk, the Aboriginal station in Healesville, the high quality of the rugs, and the speed with which the Aboriginal people could manufacture them, combined with their ready sale, enabled some Indigenous Victorians to achieve a degree of economic independence:

In the course of one week or so they will all be living in huts instead of willams [traditional housing]; they have also during that time [four months] made as many rugs, which has enabled them to buy boots, hats, coats etc., and some of them has [sic] even bought horses.⁶⁰

Similarly, Andrew Porteous, an Honorary Correspondent for the Aborigines in the Ballarat District (1860-77), reported that the demand by Europeans for Indigenous manufactured goods continued to be economically sustainable in 1866, 1867, 1869, 1871 and 1872:

[1866] The tribe still continue to make possum rugs, and, if steady, might make a good living by it, as they generally get 20s. to 30s. for each rug, which they can make in 14 days. The women also employ themselves in making baskets and nets, which they sell to the European.

[1867] They continue to hunt such game as can be found in the district. The opossum is plentiful, and they make rugs with the skins. They sell the opossum rugs, and sometimes offer fish for sale, with the proceeds of which they supply themselves with rations, and sometimes with clothes, such as hats, handkerchiefs, and some of them with boots ... they have been travelling amongst the stations, only a few calling for rations.

[1872] they still fish when fish can be got, and hunt the oposuum, and make rugs of the skins. The women continue to make baskets and nets, but unfortunately, they still indulge in intoxicating drink.⁶¹

Newspaper reports both at home and abroad also reveal a strong interest in Indigenous manufactured goods, particularly in possum skin rugs. An 1865 report in the London Times noted a request by a Welshman for a possum rug to be made (by Wathawurrung people of the Ballarat district) so he could show his country people what 'the pioneers of the goldfields frequently used to sleep in'.⁶² A Wathawurrung couple obliged and were paid 30 shillings. In 1861 the Ballarat Star carried a satirical article supposedly attributed to 'A Blackfellow' which beseeched the Colonial Government to provide market protection for the Indigenous trade in possum skin rugs:

... You write guv'nor and ask him why protection on the wallaby track looking for grubs 'mong whitefellow? You say whitefellow no make um blankets this colony, blackfellow make 'possum rug, which whitefellow ought to buy 'stead of blanket; possum rug all along same as whitefellow's blankets;- why not give blackfellow monopoly of making and selling 'em and protect real native industry.⁶³

Two Sides of the Coin
There was often a fear, certainly after 1860, that the Aboriginal recipients of money might spend it on alcohol. Honorary correspondents such as Andrew Porteous was one who ascribed to this view:

A few of the young men are generally employed on stations, and receive a small remuneration, but all they receive, both for labor and opossum rugs, is spent on intoxicating liquors, and l fear they will not leave off this evil habit unless prohibited from visiting the gold fields and are allowed to settle on some portion of land where they would take an interest in improving it.⁶⁴