Kuku Yalanji lands began to be occupied extensively by white colonisers in 1877, after the government opened up their area to selection, and as miners crowded into the area, where the Palmer River gold rush had been underway since news leaked out of a discovery of that mineral in June 1873.time. Within a year over 5,000 Europeans and 2,000 Chinese, mainly from Guangdong, crammed into the Palmer River site, until then the sole preserve of Kuku Yalanji people, to work its riches. Attempts made to uproot the people from their land were resisted, and a Lutheran mission opened up on the Bloomfield River in 1886 failed within 16 years of its establishment. century. Forced removals of some Kuku-Yalanji were undertaken again in the 1930s, with their relocation to missions at Daintree and Mossman. As late as 1957, a further attempt to relocate groups to a mission in Bloomfield took place. The gold rush lasted from 1873 to 1885, with the Palmer population of Chinese briefly skyrocketing to some 17,000 by 1877, until the opportunities for quick takings began to dwindle, with most Europeans leaving by 1880, and the Chinese numbers dropping drastically to 3,000. In response to this overwhelming invasion, the Kuku Yalanji set up a fierce resistance virtually tantamount to guerilla warfare.