February 4.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Abuse of girls – Kidnapping of men
Abuse of Aboriginal girls by white stockmen.
[William] Watson found most horrifying the sexual exploitation of children, both boys and girls. [Daniel] Matthews brought young girls of eleven years of age to the Maloga mission who were pregnant to white men, while Watson reported the abuse of even younger girls at Wellington:
The white men at the different stations...have laboured hard to prevent the blacks and their children from coming to me. There is a great spirit of revenge manifested against me because I have opposed the abominable practice of living in adultery and fornication with black women and black girls. Your soul would be horrified in the extreme if you were acquainted with only a fraction of the circumstances that have come to my knowledge. A short time ago we had a little girl about eight or nine years of age...I am told a stockman I know well is living with her as his wife and that this monster of iniquity has sometimes three or four such children living with him at the same time in this manner. Three weeks ago a girl came here and remains (perhaps she is ten or eleven years of age) with us. She had the disease and told me it was given her by a stockman about three miles from me.
William Watson, 4 February 1833, AJCP, M233, NLA.
Acknowledgment: John Harris, One Blood, pp. 237-38, 251 n.184.
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Kidnapping of indigenous labour.
Police Magistrate Milman reported that kidnapping of Aborigines was 'rife' and urged that he be allowed to visit the fisheries. The concern shown by [Sir Samuel] Griffith and rejected by his subordinates indicated in part the motivation behind the 1884 Native Labourers Act which ineffectually attempted to control recruiting.
It is clear from these examples and the comments of experienced government officials that kidnapping was very common and that this abuse had a deleterious effect on Aboriginal-European relations. The early reports of Walter Roth, first Northern Protector of Aborigines, indicated that the situation had not changed significantly by the end of the century. Thus, in February, 1898, he wrote:
The whole story of this beche-de-mer trade which, until my arrival here and opportunity of enquiry, I could scarcely have credited, is one long record of brutal cruelty, bestiality and debauchery: my heart almost bleeds at what has come to my knowledge. I am determined however to remedy matters, and though it may take time, and many difficulties will have to be contended with, I feel confident of ultimate success.
Roth devoted a large section of his published report for 1899 to abuses associated with the pearlshell and beche-de-mer fisheries. [1]
W.E. Roth, N.P.A., to Pol. Comm., 4 February 1898, encl. Q.S.A. COL/139 'Typescript Copies of Reports of W.E. Roth at Cooktown 1898' [hereafter 'Roth's 1898 Reports']; Report of the N.P.A. For 1899', 1900 V. & P., Vol. 5, pp. 583-5.
Acknowledgment: Noel Loos, Invasion and Resistance pp.132, 281 n.36.
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On the 4 February 1792 France abolished slavery... [But] under Napoleon they reestablished slavery in 1802 along with restitution of the “Code Noir”, prohibiting Blacks, mulattoes and other people of color from entering French colonial territory or intermarrying with whites.
Reference: African American Registry.