The Beeliar were a group of Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 belonging to the Noongar

Noongar

The Noongar are an indigenous Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast...

 people of the South West region of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. Robert Lyon

Robert Lyon (Australian settler)

Robert Menli Lyon was a pioneering Western Australian settler who became one of the earliest outspoken advocates for Indigenous Australian rights and welfare in the colony. He published the first information on the Aboriginal language of the Perth area.-Early life:Robert Menli Lyon was born Robert...

 referred to the Beeliar people as one of the five groups of the Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

 metropolitan area, but it is now thought that they may have been a family subgroup of a larger group, which Daisy Bates

Daisy Bates (Australia)

Daisy May Bates, CBE was an Irish Australian journalist, welfare worker and lifelong student of Australian Aboriginal culture and society. She was known among the native people as 'Kabbarli' .-Early life:...

 refers to as "Beelgar". When British settlers arrived to establish the Swan River Colony

Swan River Colony

The Swan River Colony was a British settlement established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia. In 1832, the colony was officially renamed Western Australia, when the colony's founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling,...

 in 1829, there were about 60 Beeliar people, including Midgegooroo

Midgegooroo

Midgegooroo was an Indigenous Australian of the Nyungar nation, who played a key role in Indigenous resistance to white settlement in the area of Perth, Western Australia...

 and Yagan

Yagan

Yagan was an Australian Aboriginal warrior from the Noongar tribe who played a key part in early indigenous Australian resistance to British settlement and rule in the area of Perth, Western Australia. After he led a series of burglaries and robberies across the countryside, in which white...

. The Beeliar group no longer exists, and although some present-day Noongars trace their ancestry to Yagan, they identify as Noongars rather than Beeliar .

The Beeliar people had customary land usage rights over the land from the Swan

Swan River (Western Australia)

The Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow....

 and Canning

Canning River (Western Australia)

The Canning River is a major tributary of the Swan River in south western Western Australia.-Source and route:With headwaters on the Darling Scarp, the Canning meanders through suburbs of Perth on the Swan Coastal Plain, including Cannington, Thornlie, Riverton, Shelley, Rossmoyne and Mount...

 Rivers south to Mangles Bay. This area was sometimes also referred to as Beeliar.