Some information can be gleaned from distant locations. Bruce Pascoe in Dark Emu notes that relations between Europeans and Aborigines were often quite harmonious at first (though some Europeans were told forcefully to go away), but almost invariably they soon deteriorated.

Probably the first Europeans to make contact with Wonnarua in what was to become the Maitland area were convicts who had escaped from the penal settlements of Sydney and Newcastle. Some of these men joined local Aboriginal groups and took "wives". It is possible that some were welcomed for what they brought with them skills, perhaps, or useful iron tools. But they would have needed Indigenous assistance to survive in an unfamiliar environment. Some, having caused offence (for example by molesting women), were returned to captivity in Newcastle by Indigenous men.

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There were some notably benign interactions. One is noted in Ian Bowrey's The Ploughman, which tells of George and Rachel Mead who farmed on the Bolwarra Flats from about 1848. Bowrey notes that local Aborigines, walking through the local farmlands, peered at Rachel through the cracks in the walls of the Meads' slab hut. They were merely curious; no harm resulted.

There is evidence that some settlers were considerate of Aboriginal people who helped by imparting information. Cameron Archer records in The Magic Valley that a settler (William Scott) regarded the people of the Port Stephens area as both courteous and kind to Europeans during the 1870s. No doubt some Europeans were kind in return. A few even learned their language and songs, as Abraham Unicomb of Goulburn Grove near Largs is said to have done.

The Maitland Mercury, mostly paternalistic in its comments on Wonnarua people, used words like "mild" and "inoffensive" about them. But the general tenor of settler attitudes held Aborigines to be inferior, even "non-people" who did not own or have rights to the land: this justified the doctrine of 'Terra Nullius'. To the colonists, it was axiomatic that European civilisation with its science, economy, culture and religion was far superior, and Aborigines were "savages".

Few settlers saw a need to respect or seek information from Wonnarua people. Accordingly there is little evidence of settlers having sought advice that might have been useful in terms of farming practices for example on seasons or the frequency of floods and droughts. They thought the Indigenous people had no real knowledge of the land.

It is also said that local Indigenous people advised against building Maitland at the site at which the town took root, because of floods. They were ignored.

From the settlers' superior attitude, mistreatment and exploitation followed. A souring of any early friendly relations was bound to occur. The interactions virtually always had negative effects for the Wonnarua. Sometimes the impacts were appalling, as shown when mass killings began during the 1820s.