Aboriginal
Mission Stations and Reserves
When developing units of work on this particular topic, the following
learnings need to be considered:
- Following rapid colonial expansion, and in response to public
pressure and the massive decline of the Indigenous population in
the colony of Victoria, the Government set up the Central Board
for the Protection of Aborigines in 1860. The Board oversaw the
establishment of four major church mission stations: Ebenezer at
Lake Hindmarsh in the Wimmera (1861), Ramahyuck at Lake Wellington
in West Gippsland (1861), Lake Tyers in East Gippsland (1861) and
Lake Condah in the Western District (1867). As well, government
stations were established at Framlingham reserve, near Warrnambool
(1861) and Coranderrk reserve near Healesville (1863). Cummeragunja
(originally Malaga) reserve, established on the NSW side of the
Murray River in 1889, also became 'home' to many Koorie people.
- With the creation of the missions and reserves, it was hoped by
Victorian Government officials and church officials that through
provision of food rations and a place to live, Indigenous people
would become:
- 'civilised'
- Christians
- educated in western values and lifetstyles (particularly the
children)
- In 1869 the passage of the Aborigines Protection Act gave the
Victorian Government the power to remove Indigenous children from
their families so they could be raised as Europeans. These children
were fostered, adopted or institutionalised. In the latter case
they were usually trained as domestic workers or farm labourers,
and they were poorly paid, if paid at all. The practice of removing
children from their families continued to varying degrees until
the late 1960s.
- During the latter part of the 1800s and early into the 1900s,
there were instances when Indigenous people were moved several times
from one mission station or reserve to another as various factors,
including the European pressure for land, forced the closure of
some stations.
- In 1886 the Aborigines Protection Law Amendment Act, otherwise
known as the Half Caste Act, removed Koorie people under 34 years-of-age
and not fully of Indigenous ancestry from the mission stations and
reserves, in an attempt to force them into mainstream Australian
life. This was also a political strategy by the government to disperse
the resistance to mission life.
- The Koorie people who lived on mission stations and reserves during
the 20th century, and/or who were taken away form their
families, comprise the bulk of the Koorie population living today
in Victoria.
- The reserves and mission stations may have assisted the physical
survival of Indigenous people but at the same time they facilitated
the destruction of Indigenous languages and severely undermined
the culture and independence of the people.
- Many Koorie people today still associate with the mission station
or reserve where they or their family members lived.
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