No Road Out: Yarrabah Mission

By Kathleen Denigan

From across north Queensland Aboriginal people were systematically rounded-up by police and forced onto missions and settlements including Yarrabah Mission.
Well-cared for children as young as five-years-old were arrested by police and charged as neglected under an act of legislation that discriminated against their Aboriginal mothers. Placed in dormitories, denied adequate nutrition and health care, and poorly educated, they were prevented from seeing their parents and banned from speaking their languages.
As adults, Yarrabah inmates were excluded from mainstream society, and required permission to marry or change employment. Hundreds of Aboriginal children, men and women from Yarrabah provided slave labour to the settlers of far north Queensland while their wages were siphoned into the government's coffers and they lived in poverty.
Through the personal stories of individuals and families who were removed to the mission—as documented through government and church records—the true story behind the Anglican Church controlled mission comes to light.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Denigan
• Release date: May 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780987558800

Kathleen Denigan

Kathleen’s interest in Aboriginal affairs came about while she was attending primary school in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. During a social studies class—that involved the production of a diorama enacting the First Fleet landing at Sydney Cove—she made black pipe-cleaner people, which were placed at the back of the diorama. Her curiosity about Indigenous Australians was ignited when her teacher told her they were all dead, but within a few months—after a family relocation to Darwin in the Northern Territory—she discovered they were alive and well. It was a memorable moment in her life that triggered a desire to know the full history of her country of birth, and understand why so much of it was hidden away. Kathleen's first book, Norman Baird—a spark within is about an Aboriginal Anzac. Norman Baird once wrote that he was prepared to advocate for the Kuku Yalanji people as long as there was ‘a spark left within’. As a young man Norman fought to defend the rights of Australians in World War I only to come home and fight for his own freedom and that of his children. As an old man and almost blind, Norman recorded an ancient language and preserved part of a unique Australian culture. Kathleen's second book Reflections in Yarrabah is the story of the removals of Aboriginal people to an Anglican mission. Despite its idyllic location between tropical reef and rainforest, Yarrabah was essentially a dumping ground for Aboriginal people, especially ‘half-caste’ children and women. Queensland Government records combined with oral histories reveal the circumstances surrounding the removal of some of the original inmates and provide evidence to support the well lamented accounts of starvation, poor education and slave labour. This beautiful hard-cover book contains scores of historical photos. Kathleen works in communications, marketing and public relations and has completed a Master of Arts (Writing).

Book preview

No road out: Yarrabah Mission

by Kathleen Denigan

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Kathleen Denigan

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Table of contents

Foreword

Preface

A man on a mission

Two articles of clothing

No road out

Unprincipled white men

What's in a name?

Aboard the Rio Loge

Slave labour

Death in the night

A penal settlement

Nuisance to the settlers

Purposely not high

A criminal case

Blackbirding ships

The custody dispute

Free from the act

The murder of Little Jack

Protector's blackfellow marriage

A threat to white society

Under the microscope

Carcass of a goat

Almost one of the family

The explosion on the beach

Fourth grade meat

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

About the author

Other books by the author

Foreword

My granny was sent to Yarrabah in 1902. She was fourteen when she was baptised and given the name Grace. Her mother had named her Bessie, but at age four her first white boss called her Dolly. I wonder if she looked like a doll next to the boss’s children.

When my grandmother arrived at Yarrabah, no information about where she came from, or the names of her parents was recorded. Contact with her homeland was cut when her usefulness as a domestic came to an end and she was pushed onto the mission to be excluded from the progress of white Australia. When she had children of her own, she passed on the only information linking her to her heritage: a surname and a place name. It is a common story for Aboriginal people and tracing our family history can be a journey filled with dead ends.

Since that time, there has been little or no opportunity for our people to share our stories and see how they fit into Australia’s history. Our ability to speak out was stifled under threats by missionaries and local protectors, who were supposed to protect us but instead denied us our basic rights. And our ability to tell our stories has been hindered by a lack of resources and poor record keeping. While there have been many oral history projects undertaken, and some published, a result like this book is a significant achievement for us.

Early in 2008, the Australian Government said sorry to the stolen generations; people like my mother, who were forced into the dormitory as a young girl. Leading up to the apology I heard a lot of discussion about our history: comments about how children were removed for their own protection; that it was in their best interests. Others said it was the past generation who are to blame and nothing to do with modern Australia.

I can see how people may have come to these conclusions. There has been a lot of covering up going on. In our schools, the history of our people is barely mentioned. If it is, we are separated from the general Australian history and simply set the scene for European achievements and adversity. As a backdrop we play the role of savage natives who challenge the progress of brave white explorers or interfere in the advancement of the settlers.

But something is missing. Around Queensland we see places like Blackfellow Hill and Nigger Creek, not towns or suburbs named after our hard working and honest Aboriginal people who helped build this nation and fight our wars. Yet most of our people made contributions, some small and some big. Many gave more than they received: people like the ones you will read about here.

My only regret is that most of these people are no longer with us. They will never get to know the story of their family’s removal to Yarrabah. They never saw the departmental records about their removal and had no opportunity to ask questions, to challenge statements, to piece together clues, or to trace lost family.

I know they would be happy to share their stories with you as they were sharing people. They possessed all the good qualities of human beings; principles of respect and love and compassion, principles lacking in the broader community that so harshly judged them and denied them the most basic human rights.

They would be especially happy for their descendants, the young people whose lives are so very different, to know and understand their history, and that of the place we know as Yarrabah. With this knowledge we can work together to re-build a strong Aboriginal society and strive to achieve great things for our people. In doing so, we can honour the struggles of our ancestors.

Roy Gray

Preface

Researching and writing this book has been a journey of contradictory emotions into the lives of people I have never met, and only come to know through their descendants, and a trail of archival records.

There were moments of elation at having discovered a link to a missing ancestor. I often started conversations with other researchers by saying: I’m clutching at straws but what if … And how exciting it was when a hunch became a tangible piece of the jigsaw! Some discoveries, though seemingly small after the event, were large in terms of what it meant to a family. They often had little information about a grandparent, except a first name and a place they were associated with. Even this was tenuous, considering nearly every child who came to Yarrabah had their name changed. It was very rewarding to locate a previously unknown record of marriage, a removal order, or an entry in a protector’s report providing answers to the many questions.

With the valuable evidence in my hands a new set of emotions emerged.

When I read the letter Maude Ludwick wrote to Chief Protector Bleakley, begging him to return her children, I felt such compassion that tears inevitably came. Her experience at the hands of the protector was so unjust. Even though the events had occurred seventy years before, I felt an overwhelming sense of urgency to do something: write a letter, make a phone call, petition on her behalf … something. But I was powerless to change anything. When I discovered that at the height of the depression, with seven children to support and no husband, Maude had been charged with possession of goat meat, I felt ashamed. Where was the fair go Australians brandish about as a primary characteristic of our national heritage?

The circumstances of Maude’s story are not unique and as I went from one batch of files to the next, I was similarly moved.

Topsy Madarka was genuine in her repeated attempts to get custody of her son Harry. Lottie Wallace was happy and secure in her employment on the McIvor, and Walter Singleton had every right to expect better from the superintendent. In reading the correspondence generated about these people, I felt troubled by the pattern that emerged.

The stories came together, and drafts were discussed and finetuned with the families. Sometimes I felt disappointment at not being able to find the missing clue to link families back to their heritage. Even when so much information pointed in a specific direction, the last piece of the jigsaw remained out of reach, and the link remained broken.

Often I found previously unknown information