July 15.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
White incredulity – “Absolute slaves”
The writings were genuine!
As early as 1859, Aboriginal people in Victoria had organised their own delegation to make direct representation to the government for rights to land. [1] Between 1875 and 1883, Aborigines at the Coranderrk reserve north of Melbourne waged a concerted campaign against the dismissal of the fair-minded manager John Green, the threatened re-allocation of Coranderrk to pastoral interests and the likely consequent removal of the Aboriginal people to a distant new site. Their political astuteness and literary accomplishments amazed most Europeans. It was thought that their letters and petitions had been written by the Rev. Hamilton or other white sympathisers who supported Aboriginal rights and were antagonistic to the Board for the Protection of Aborigines. Detective Mahoney, planted as an undercover agent at Coranderrk, discovered that the writings were genuine, most of them the work of an Aboriginal man Thomas Dunolly. [2] The Melbourne Leader reported an 1882 Aboriginal deputation in detail:
Can these be black fellows? - there must surely be a mistake. Where are the dirty opossum rugs, the waddies and the spears? Where is the restless, furtive, hunted look about the eyes which we have been wont to regard as one of the most characteristic of Aboriginal features and as a sure index of the Aboriginal nature? Neither in facial expression nor in outward garb is there aught here to indicate the presence of the black fellows as we have hitherto known him. From each face there comes a calm, steadfast, civilised look; each of these manly figures is costumed in civilised and decent fashion; the attitude of each individual is not slouching but erect, as that of a self respecting man, conscious of his manhood. And how is it that these black fellows...are...interviewing a Minister of the Crown, within the precincts of Parliament, and presenting to the Minister a memorial?
Strange to say, too, the memorial has been actually concocted amongst themselves, has been actually written by one of their number and is actually signed by every adult male of the community, whose sentiments are embodied in the document. Another strange thing is that...[they] express themselves intelligibly in decent English speech. They are able to make us understand that they feel deeply the injustice with which they have been treated for many years... [3]
Christie, 1979: 157.
Detective Mahoney's report, 21 March 1882, cited in Christie, 1979: 188.
Leader [Melbourne] Supplement, 15 July 1882, p.5.
Acknowledgment: John Harris, One Blood, pp. 611-612, 681 n.6, n.7, n.8.
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The [Queensland] Bill made them absolute slaves.
Were the wretched remnants of an illtreated race to be treated as if they were worse than criminals? For that was what the Committee was asked to do. Were those poor creatures who had been all but exterminated either by bullet or disease by the European to be treated in that way and deported from place to place at the sweet will of the Government. [1]
By removing the Aboriginal against his will they were virtually denying his right to live at all. The Bill made them absolute slaves; they could do nothing without protectors, and the protectors could do just as they liked ... To take them away from the bush and put them on distant reserves is everything that is stupid and bad. [2]
B.D. Morehead, Legislative Council, Queensland Parliamentary Debates 1901, vol. 87, p. 1144. 2.
John Webber, Legislative Council, Queensland Parliamentary Debates 1901, vol. 87, p. 1144.
Acknowledgment: Thom Blake, ‘Deported...At the sweet will of the government: The removal of Aborigines to reserves in Queensland 1897-1939’, Aboriginal History, Vol. 22 (1998) p. 51.