Mapoon under the Moravians 1891-1919

MAPOON

Under the Moravians 1891-1919

John Harrison

Copyright statement

Published by John Harrison, Smashwords. Edition

Copyright 2018 John Harrison

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e-book ISBN: 9781370221172

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgements

1: The Prelude: Church and State 1885-1891

2: The Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait frontier before 1900: Where adventurers and lawless men congregated

3: Moravian Mission Strategy 1891-1919: A Sound Christian Foundation

4: Moravian Mission Strategy 1891-1919: Complete Isolation and Detachment

5: Mission-Government Relations 1891-1919

6: Opposition 1891-1919

Bibliography

References

In the earnest endeavour to arrive at a just verdict on the work of the mission stations, it is necessary to ignore alike the sneers of thoughtless and malignant enemies, and the too generous adulation of friends who may be guided more by unreasoning enthusiasm than correct knowledge of the subject.

Archibald Meston, Queensland's first Chief Protector of Aboriginals, in Report of Archibald Meston, Special Commissioner on the Aboriginals of Queensland, Votes & Proceedings. 1896, Vol 4: p.734.

The site of the Mapoon Moravian Mission at has been named variously throughout its history. Mapoon means sandhills. The mission was originally named the Batavia River Mission. The Batavia River was renamed the Wenlock River in 1939. The Wenlock is the southern of the two rivers which flow into the sea at Port Musgrave. The other is the Dulcie River. The location of the mission buildings was on Cullen Point, a sand spit on the southern side of Port Musgrave, between the waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Wenlock River.

PREFACE

Mapoon is one of those sites of contestation in the history of relations between Indigenous peoples and Europeans in northern Australia. First, Mapoon is a site of physical contestation. The Mapoon people were forcibly removed from the site of the mission station at Cullen Point in 1963, ostensibly because it was unsustainable. The Presbyterian Church acquiesced in that removal, though it later apologized.

Secondly, Mapoon was a site of constant contestation between extractive industries, in particular the pearl shelling and beche de mer fishery based at Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, and the Indigenous people of the western coast of Cape York. The fishery wanted, at the very least, access to the indigenous people as labour. Missionaries and government contested the claims of the fishery, after their arrival in 1891, the Moravian missionaries attempted to make Mapoon a closed community.

Located today 80 km north of the bauxite mining town of Weipa, Mapoon, its land and people were, and continue to be, part of the contest over mining leases that so affected the neighbouring communities of Weipa and Aurukun to the south from the 1950s onwards.

Thirdly, Mapoon became after 1901, what was termed an Industrial Reformatory, to which were sent mendicant Indigenous people from across Cape York. This changed both the character of the community, and the relationship between church and state. Wedded to a state policy of protection, established under the 1897 Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, Moravian mission administrators clashed with government officials after the passing of the first phase of protectionism, administered by John Douglas and Walter Roth. Succeeding government officials, and as well commercial interests in Thursday Island, contested the right of the mission to control access to, and the supply of, Aboriginal labour. This contest caused considerable, but not necessarily unjustified, damage, to the reputation of the Moravians.

Moravian mission policy on western Cape York is worthy of examination in its own right. The Moravians, a European offshoot of the Evangelical Revival of the 18th century had a communitarian ethos, and were in effect sub-contracted by the Presbyterians to establish the missions on western Cape York – Mapoon in 1891; Weipa in 1989; Aurukun in 1904; and Mornington Island in 1914.

The Presbyterians, still struggling to establish viable congregations among the European immigrants across the huge Australian land mass a century after the arrival of the first Europeans, were happy to engage the Moravians, who also had a reputation for being able to work with indigenous populations in demanding climatic regimes such as Labrador, South Africa and the West Indies.

The year 2011 marks the 120th anniversary of the arrival of the first Moravians at Cullen Point. Renewed interest also in the history of the western coast of Cape York has persuaded me to issue this text in a substantially unrevised form so that it can be used as a source by scholars and others with an interest in the early years of Mapoon. In fact, it is not so much the text, but the sources upon which it is based, which I hope will assist those who follow.

This text contains – regrettably – no Indigenous voice. At the time the original research was undertaken, whitefellas writing history in Australian universities were not yet persuaded of the value – indeed the reliability, let alone the necessity – of oral sources. In this case, the result was one which relied exclusively on the written records of the European protagonists in the story. However, it is hoped that this publication with all its flaws, may progress the hearing of Indigenous voices on the facts, stories, issues and themes addressed here.

The chronological limits of this study were determined by the term of service of the early missionaries. J.G. Ward and his wife, Matilda, arrived with Nicholas Hey in 1891 to establish Mapoon. J.G. Ward died of malarial fever in 1895, and was replaced by Edwin Brown and his wife Frieda, both of whom retired in 1918. Matilda Ward retired in 1917. Nicholas Hey, who had married Matilda Ward's sister, Mary (known as Minnie), at Thursday Island in 1892, retired in 1919. Thus between 1917 and 1919, five of the pioneer missionaries retired from North Queensland, and it seemed useful to conclude this study at that time.

John Harrison

School of Journalism & Communication

The University of Queensland

Epiphany 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For their respective permission to use the Australian Presbyterian Board of Missions records housed in the Mitchell Library and the Presbyterian Church of Queensland Archives, Brisbane: the Rev Dr John P. Brown, the Superintendent of the Board of Ecumenical Mission and Relation, Sydney; and the Rev A.W. Lawrie, Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland.

For their advice and assistance in locating source materials, Rev J. Calder Allan, Rev D.J. Harrison, and Rev J.R. Sweet, of the Board of Local Mission, Presbyterian Church of Queensland.

For his assistance and advice on research and writing during 1974, Rev Dr G.P. Shaw; and for his help in defining the topic during 1973, Mr R.B. Joyce.

ABBREVIATIONS

A.P.B.M. (M.L. MSS 1893): Australian Presbyterian Board of Missions manuscripts, housed in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. Access Number: M.L. MSS 1893.

A.R.C.P.A.: Annual Report of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals.

A.R.G.R.T.I.: Annual Report of the Government Resident, Thursday Island.

A.R.N.P.A.: Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals.

C.P.P.: Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers.

F.A. Minutes: Minutes of Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Federated Churches of Australia and Tasmania 1885-1901. Housed in Gibson-Radcliffe Library, Emmanuel College, The University of Queensland.

F.M.C. Minutes: Minutes of the executive committee for the North Queensland Missions, of the Foreign Missions Board, later the Australian Presbyterian Board of Missions.

L.M.S. London Missionary Society.

MLA: Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.

Q.A. Minutes: Minutes of the Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland.

Q.H.M.C. Minutes: Minutes of the Heathen Missions Committee of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland.

Q.P.D.: Queensland Parliamentary Debates.

Q.P.P.: Queensland Parliamentary Papers.

Q.S.A.: Queensland State Archives.

V. and P.: Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland.

1. The Prelude: Church & State 1885-1891

Nearly half a century after the failure of the first attempt to evangelise the Aborigines of Queensland,¹ the newly federated Presbyterian Churches of Australia and Tasmania, with a view to encouraging the ‘Federal spirit’,² gave serious consideration to establishing a mission to the Aborigines of Queensland. In July, 1886, at its inaugural meeting in Sydney, the Federal Assembly of the Presbyterian Church approved the motion:

That the Federal Assembly approve of a representative committee undertaking to raise the means necessary to establish a mission to the Aborigines of Queensland, with instructions to report to the next Federal Assembly...³

This renewal of interest in the evangelisation of the Aborigines of Queensland in 1885-1886 was shared by several Lutheran missionary groups, and later, by the Church of England. Thus begins a new phase of missionary activity among the Aborigines of Queensland, a movement which received the full and sympathetic support of the Queensland Government, under the leadership liberals such as Sir Samuel Griffith, himself the son of one the colony’s more prominent non-conformist clergymen.

The first phase of missionary activity among Queensland's Aborigines consisted of a series of short and unsuccessful attempts by persons from a variety of denominational groups, to set up self-sufficient agricultural settlements, in which the Aborigines were to be both evangelised and Europeanised. One of the earliest attempts was made in 1838⁴ by a party of German missionaries sponsored by Rev. Dr. John Dunmore Lang. Although the group, which attempted to develop a self-sufficient agricultural community at Zion's Hill near Nundah, included several artisans, a farmer and a medical student, in addition to two clergymen, the project failed, and the clergy were later accepted as ministers of the Presbyterian Church of N.S.W.⁵

W. Scott McPheat has written of this mission, In their specifically spiritual work, the Germans found themselves confronted by almost insuperable difficulties.⁶ A Catholic mission established on Stradbroke Island also failed, as did Father McNab's attempt to start a mission at Durundur in 1877. Fuller's Mission on Fraser Island began in 1873, and Daniel Matthews'⁷ attempt to build an agricultural community on Bribie Island in 1877, two further attempts to isolate the Aborigines completely from contact with whites, also ended in failure.

With the exception of the short-lived mission commenced at Somerset in 1866, by an Anglican clergyman, Rev. F.C. Jagg,⁸ every attempt to establish a mission station took place in south-eastern Queensland. Furthermore, all these attempts failed in spite of the fact that several of those involved, in particular Matthews and Fr McNab, had previously worked amongst the Aborigines in other states, albeit with very little success.⁹

Keith Rayner suggests there were two reasons for the failure of these early missions. First, the Government did not grant the long-term financial support necessary for the stations to become established, and secondly, the majority of the stations were located in areas unsuited to agriculture and were thus unable to become self-supporting.¹⁰ It is interesting to note that in spite of their proven unsuitability for agricultural purposes, three of these early mission sites - Durundur, Fraser Island and Stradbroke Island - were later used by the Queensland Government as Aboriginal reserves.

There is, however, a third reason for the failure of these early mission stations. It was the goal of most, if not all, the early missionaries to establish self-sufficient agricultural settlements. Yet the idea of an agricultural and pastoral settlement was quite alien to Aboriginal culture, and thus the failure of those involved in this first phase of missionary activity to take account of this cultural difference must be regarded as one of the most significant causes of the failure of these early stations. The German missionaries at Zion's Hill for example, in spite of their acknowledgment of the nomadic habits of the Aborigines, and the subsequent appointment of several of their number as teachers to travel amongst the Aborigines, giving instruction in reading and writing to Aboriginal children,¹¹ directed most of their energies to the establishment of an agricultural community, utilising Aboriginal labour. The difficulty of maintaining constant contact with the Aborigines was one reason for the ultimate closure of the mission. Daniel Matthews encountered similar difficulties thirty years later at Bribie Island.¹²

This cultural difference between Aborigines and Europeans caused many of the missionaries to regard the Aborigines as a degenerate race, almost hopelessly beyond the ambit of European culture. One of the missionaries at Zion's Hill wrote of the Aborigines:

Whether the physical or the moral condition of these children of the forest is considered the picture they present is one of gross darkness and misery... There is no man who appears to exercise any authority over them; their obedience to the laws of Britain extends only so far as they see a necessity for submission, from their dread of superior power.¹³

The failure of the first phase of missionary activity in Queensland may be attributed to a combination of factors: the anthropological ignorance of the missionaries concerned; poor choice of sites; and the inability or reluctance of the Queensland Government to provide sufficient financial support for the ventures undertaken.

Spanning the period from the mid-1880s to the outbreak of the First World War, the second phase of missionary activity resulted in the establishment of approximately nine mission stations in Northern Queensland, by the Lutheran, Presbyterian and Anglican denominations.¹⁴

In appointing L.G. Bauer in 1886 as Superintendent of a reserve set apart for Aborigines on the Bloomfield River, 30 miles south of Cooktown, the Griffith Government appears to have taken the initiative in encouraging the establishment of mission stations in Northern Queensland.¹⁵ The Government, however, handed this station over to the Lutheran Missionary Council of South Australia in the following year, 1887.¹⁶

In the meantime, two other stations were established in 1886 under the auspices of the Lutheran Synod of South Australia and the United German and Scandinavian Lutheran Mission: one at Cape Bedford, approximately thirty miles north of Cooktown; and the other at Marie Yamba, north of Mackay.¹⁷All three stations were dependent on Government assistance for the meeting their establishment and maintenance costs. C.A. Meyer, the missionary at the Bloomfield River, wrote to the Colonial Secretary in 1889:

As it seems that it is the intention of the Government to do some substantial good to the Aborigines, I trust thus my suggestion will be kindly accepted. I am in a position to state that, our committee is willing at any time to carry out the object they took in hand, if only the Government will assist them for some time.¹⁸

The South Australian Lutheran Synod had written during the previous year, in similar vein:

It is really toe (sic) much for the Mission societies to spend the collections of the poor Christians for to feed the natives, their object can only be to educate the missionaries to preach and teach the gospel and so collect money for their maintenance. The Australasia missions can only have success by the assistance of the governments, as the poor heathen have nothing to live on and if they can't receive sufficient victuals on the station, they leave the place and nothing can be done to them.¹⁹

Furthermore being responsible for the only stations in existence prior to the establishment of Mapoon in 1891, the Lutherans were compelled to argue almost single-handedly for the acceptance by the Government of the principle of permanent Government subsidies for mission stations. Their representations met with a degree of success, the Government granting monies to be expended on rations for the Aborigines from 1887 onwards. Cape Bedford Station for example, received £200 p.a. for rations between 1888 and 1893.²⁰

The other denomination to be involved in missionary activity in North Queensland at this time, the Church of England, founded Yarrabah, to the south of Cairns, in 1892. The Superintendent, Rev John Gribble, had established a mission station at Gerilderie, Western Australia in 1890, but was compelled, if the account of Bishop Gilbert White is credible, to leave Western Australia, because of the reaction engendered by his outspokenness concerning the maltreatment of aboriginals in that State, endangered his life. The Bishop wrote:

Shortly before this time (1892) he had denounced publicly the cruel treatment of the Aborigines of Western Australia, and the mob