August 15.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
“...little better than slavery”
A system which was little better than slavery
On the voyage [John Brown] Gribble wrote Black but Comely, his description of Aborigines and the Warangesda mission, which he published in England with the assistance of the Archbishop of Canterbury... [1]
On the way to Perth, Gribble displayed the fierce and instantaneous defence of Aboriginal people for which he was already well known in the east and which was to characterise his efforts in the west. In the port of Bunbury, he reacted strongly to criticism 0f Aborigines, recording as follows in his diary in 15 August 1885:
Dr Rogers of Albany...told me that it was his candid opinion that a blackfellow was not susceptible to the higher influences of Christianity and I told him that I had done with him. A Mr Gardner said he thought the Aborigines were very little better than monkeys and I told him he himself was certainly not much superior than a monkey. At this he threatened me serious bodily harm. [2]
On Gribble's arrival in Perth, the Church of England Diocesan Missions' Committee appointed him to work in the Gascoyne River region, around Carnarvon, 1,000 kilometres north of Perth. The Committee, although impressed with Gribble's record as a spokesman for Aboriginal people, was well aware of the potential friction his presence could cause in the conservative pastoral white population of the region...
An article in the West Australian on 26 August 1885 argued that missions removed Aborigines from the labour force and that, if missions had any value at all, it was to teach 'the value of obedient, steady and intelligent toil'. The article advised Gribble that in order to succeed, he would require tact and 'a practical unprejudiced and sympathetic understanding of the relative positions of whites and blacks'. [3] Tact, however, was not a virtue which Gribble cultivated, nor was he inclined to accept 'the relative positions of whites and blacks'.
Gribble's NSW experience, although it was with Aboriginal people, hardly prepared him for what he was to face in Carnarvon. Although he had confronted the mistreatment of Aborigines before, Gribble's NSW work had very largely consisted of the rehabilitation of people stricken by alcohol, disease and prostitution. Here, in the north-west, a severely oppressed and mistreated Aboriginal population were locked by extreme force into a labour system which was little better than slavery. His presence would only be tolerated if he confined his efforts to conducting religious services in the town and tending sick and elderly discarded Aboriginal workers. [4]
On arrival in Carnarvon, Gribble set out almost immediately on a long inspection of the condition of Aboriginal people in the inland. It did not take long for him to assess the injustice and oppression. He saw much on his trip that disturbed him: Aboriginal women the assigned property of white stockmen, shocking employment conditions and inhuman disciplinary measures. The forced labour system was brutally simple provided there was solidarity between those who enforced it and those who benefited from it.
J. Gribble, 1884
J. Gribble, Diary, 15 August 1885.
West Australian, 26 August 1885.
Su-Jane Hunt, “The Gribble affair: a study in colonial politics” in Reece, Bob & Stannage, Tom (eds), European-Aboriginal relations in Western Australian History (Studies in Western Australian History VIII) UWAP, Nedlands, 1984: 44.
Acknowledgment: John Harris, One Blood, pp.416-417, 453 n. 115, n.116, n.118, n.119.