AnAboriginal reserve, also called simplyreserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement forAboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along withmissions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th century to the 1960s to keep Aboriginal people separate from the white Australian population. The governments passed laws related to such reserves that gave them much power over all aspects of Aboriginal people’s lives.
Aboriginal reserves were used from the nineteenth century to keep Aboriginal people separate from the white Australian population, often ostensibly for their protection.[1][2]
Protectors of Aborigines had been appointed from as early as 1836 inSouth Australia (withMatthew Moorhouse as the first permanent appointment as Chief Protector in 1839).[3] TheGovernor proclaimed that Aboriginal people were "to be considered as much under the safeguard of the law as the Colonists themselves, and equally entitled to the Privileges of British Subjects". Under theAboriginal Orphans Ordinance 1844, the Protector was made legal guardian of "everyhalf-caste and other unprotected Aboriginal child whose parents are dead or unknown". Schools and reserves were set up. Despite these attempts at protection, Moorhouse presided over theRufus River massacre in 1841.
The office of Protector was abolished in 1856; within four years, governments had leased 35 of the 42 Aboriginal reserves in South Australia to settlers.[4]
In the second half of the 19th century, in an attempt to reducethe violence on the frontiers, devastation by disease, and to provide a "humane" environment for Aboriginal people, perceived as a dying race, the colonial governments passed legislation designed to "protect" them. The idea was that by legislating to create certain territory for Aboriginal people, the clashes over land would stop. Officials that the Aboriginal people could farm in their reserves and become less reliant on government rations.[1][2]
Queensland passed theAboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, for the "better protection and care of the aboriginal and half-caste inhabitants of the colony"; it established the positions of regional Protectors and later Chief Protector.[6] Further amendments and other Acts followed, but the effects were similar, until 1991.[7]
InSouth Australia, the protection of the Aboriginal people was mostly left to missionaries from 1856 to 1881 (after the office of Protector was abolished, the work being done by Sub-protectors reporting direct to the Commissioner of Crown Lands[3]), when another Protector was appointed.[4] In 1912, the Aborigines' Office (which had operated under a succession of different ministers) became the Aborigines' Department, initially a change in name only. In 1918, an Advisory Council of Aborigines was appointed under powers given by theAborigines Act 1911, to take control of the existing missions. TheAborigines Act Amendment Act 1939 abolished the office of Chief Protector of Aborigines and the Advisory Council, and created theAborigines Protection Board, of whichCharles Duguid was a founding member.[3]
TheNorthern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910 was an Act of theSouth Australian parliament,[10] after having made no legislative provision for Aboriginal people in the NT for 47 years, soon before the NT was transferred to federal control. It was repealed by theAboriginals Ordinance 1918 on 13 June 1918, which combined and replaced theNorthern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910 and theCommonwealth Aboriginals Ordinance 1911.[11] These Acts established theNorthern Territory Aboriginals Department and created the office of Chief Protector. The department was responsible for the control and welfare of Aboriginal people in the Territory, and under the Act, the Chief Protector was appointed the "legal guardian of every Aboriginal and every half-caste child up to the age of 18 years", and had the power to confine such children to an Aboriginal reserve or institution.[12] The 1939 version of the Ordinance, intended to give effect to the change in policy (from protection to assimilation), did not allow for self-determination either.[11]
The Aboriginal laws gave governments much power over all aspects of Aboriginal people’s lives. They lost what would later be consideredbasic human rights like freedom of movement, custody of children and control over property. In some states and the Northern Territory, the Chief Protector hadlegal guardianship over all Aboriginal children, ahead of the parents. These policies were at their worst in the 1930s. "In the name of protection", suggest the authors of the 1997Bringing Them Home report, "Indigenous people were subject to near-total control". The forcible removal of children from their families led to what became known as theStolen Generations.[1][2]
Broadly speaking, there were three types of spaces formally set aside by the government specifically for Aboriginal people to live on:
Aboriginal reserves: Aboriginal reserves were parcels of land set aside for Aboriginal people to live on; these were not managed by the government or its officials. From 1883 onwards, the Aboriginal people who were living on unmanaged reserves received rations and blankets from theAborigines Protection Board (APB), but remained responsible for their own housing. Such reserves included Forster and Burnt Bridge.[13]
Aboriginal missions: Aboriginal missions were created by churches or religious individuals to house Aboriginal people and train them in Christian ideals and to also prepare them for work. Most of the missions were developed on land granted by the government for this purpose. Around ten missions were established in NSW between 1824 and 1923, although missionaries also visited some managed stations. Many Aboriginal people have adopted the term ‘mission’ or ‘mish’ to refer to reserve settlements and fringe camps generally.[13]
Aboriginal stations: Aboriginal stations or ‘managed reserves’ were established by the APB from 1883 onwards, and were managed by officials appointed by that Board. Education (in the form of preparation for the workforce), rations and housing tended to be provided on these reserves, and station managers tightly controlled who could, and could not, live there. Many people were forcibly moved onto and off stations. Managed stations included Purfleet, Karuah and Murrin Bridge near Lake Cargellico.[13]
Many other Aboriginal people did not live on Aboriginal missions, reserves or stations, but in towns, or in fringe camps on private property or on the outskirts of towns, on beaches and riverbanks. There are many such places across the state that remain important to Aboriginal people.[13]
Several Aboriginalmissions, includingPoint McLeay (1916)[14][15] andPoint Pearce (1915) became Aboriginal reserves, as recommended by the 1913 Royal Commission on the Aborigines in its final report in 1916.[16][17][18] Included in the recommendations was that the government become the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children upon reaching their 10th birthday, and place them "where they deem best".[16] Seven years after the Final Report of the Commission, theAborigines (Training of Children) Act 1923, in order to allowIndigenous children to be "trained" in a special institution so that they could go out and work.[18]
Before theAboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, various religious organisations had established a number of mission stations, and theColony of Queensland government had gazetted small areas as reserves for Aboriginal people to use. Once the Act was passed, all Aboriginal reserves became subject to the Act. For several of these reserves, Superintendents were appointed to carry out the provisions of the Act, andmissionaries who had been running Aboriginal settlements also became Superintendents. However, the majority of reserves in Queensland were never "managed" reserves; they had no Superintendent and were usually controlled by the Local Protector of Aborigines.[19]
Victoria had a number ofAboriginal stations andNative Police reserves (run by the colonial government), andmissions (run by religious organisations). In 1860, the missions were taken over by the state, becoming stations, though were still often administered by the same religious groups. The stations were run bySuperintendents (earlierAssistant Protectors).
The government also operateddepots, (run byGuardians) which provided food, clothing and blankets, but not somewhere to live. A number of closed stations were subsequently used as depots.
From 1886, after a contested situation atCoranderrk, the stations were progressively shrunk and closed. Only Lake Tyers and Framlingham were left by the early 1920s. At this time,Framlingham became an unsupervised reserve where many Aboriginal people lived. In 1958 and 1960, two new Aboriginal settlements were built by the government in northern Victoria to provide transitional housing for people living in camps. Within a few years, the residents had chosen to transition to mainstream Housing Commission housing, and the settlements closed. In 1971, Lake Tyers and Framlingham were given to Aboriginal trusts to own and manage.
^abcdNeumann, Klaus; Tavan, Gwenda (2009), "Chapter 4. 'A modern-day concentration camp': using history to make sense of Australian immigration detention centres",Does history matter?: making and debating citizenship, immigration and refugee policy in Australia and New Zealand, ANU E Press,ISBN978-1-921536-95-3
^Horton, D. (1994)The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture; Vol. 2 M-Z, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies: Canberra.ISBN0855752505.
^Jenkin, G. (1979)Conquest of the Ngarrindjeri, Rigby: Adelaide.ISBN0-7270-1112-X. Page 930.
"Mission and reserve records".Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. 27 November 2015. Archived fromthe original on 2 March 2020. Retrieved5 February 2020.
