Thank you, CSteele,

I'm working through some mob called iPage, and until I learn better, what I hope to do is consolidate files (up to say, 1 mB) and rotate all the files I have, after a week at a time. In other words, two or three thousand pages up each week - I have enough that way for about a month, then I start all over again :)

I have to thank everybody who has contributed to these discussions - I've learnt a great deal from everyone, to know where they are coming from. But I'm more convinced than ever that genuine Aboriginal history can only progress on the basis of solid evidence- and there is oodles of it around, just maybe not the 'evidence' that people were hoping for, or that they are comfortable with.

Cheers,

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Dear Loudmouth,

I usually work with Joomla but feel Word Press is probably better suited to what you might be trying to achieve, so perhaps keep it in mind for the future. You really shouldn't be limited to how many files you upload unless it is part of the iPage policy.

I realise they are cheap but a decent Word Press site on a hosting service like Arvixe is still only $5.00 per month and should afford you pretty well unlimited access and uploading.

There are quite a few confronting letters in the short time I had to skim through your collection but this one certainly struck me.

Quote.

28th September 1898
The Secretary to the
Board for the Protection of Aborigines
Melbourne

Dear Sir,

I have to thank you for the copies of your last annual Report, which you were good enough to send me – I regret to see that the Native population in Victoria has decreased so much in number, notwithstanding the care & attention bestowed upon them by your department.
I enclose you some returns giving the latest information respecting our Aborigines, and the efforts made in their behalf.

End Quote.

I'm wondering if there was a substantial difference in the rate of Aboriginal population decrease between Victoria and SA and if so what differences in approach you might have identified.

Thank you CSteele,

I'll check out Wordpress ASAP.

Yeah, there are a lot of surprises in those letters. Dozens of ration stations, in every part of the Province.

No evidence of people being 'herded onto Missions'. Not many Missions, really.

Dozens of boats provided to Aboriginal people, on every waterway, with the government paying half the cost of repairs, as they did with guns too. Who would have thought ?

Very few children being taken into care, going by these letters and by school records and certainly no 'stolen generation', at least not before 1912.

And, at least from these letters, nobody being driven off their lands, quite the reverse: well, that was the point of providing for a multitude of ration depots, after all.

I don't know much about Victorian history, but I get the idea that it was much more violent in the early days than here in SA, especially in the South-West, the North-West, Gippsland, along some of the rivers - pretty much everywhere, really. Perhaps, given the comparative lushness of the environment, people were much more settled in their country, maybe Victoria's convict and bushranger past made it a more violent place - Eureka, and Ned Kelly, after all.

The authorities seemed to have relied on the Missions, Ramahyuck, Coranderrk, Ebenezer, Lake Condah, Lake Tyers, even Maloga/Cummeragunga on the Murray but in NSW, etc. rather than setting up a network of ration depots like over here, in other words, a much more segregated society from the outset, I don't know.

On the other hand, from the early twentieth century, it seemed to have the most enlightened policies of all the States. But that's all for some Victorian researcher to follow up :)

There is so much material out there, and so much to learn ! And so much, I suspect, which confounds our prejudices.

Cheers,

Joe

Just as an aside 50 years ago
I knew an illiterate station owner (Brunette Downs, Sundown Murders) who used to collect, into his bank account, the social security payments (of the day) for whatever numbers of aborigines he guessed were somewhere on his property.
He would then give them flour, sugar, tobacco, metho and orange juice and tea every second Thursday when they came into the station.
They would leave their sick behind and disappear back into the wilderness. Needless to say he was a very wealthy man.

Hi Chris,

If what you say is correct, the people might not have done too badly out of it either, for the times. And those supplies would have cost him something, especially to transport them out to such a remote area.

So he looked after the sick ? The Native Welfare Department contracted and paid for him to do that ? And people were paid Social Security payments every fortnight ? I didn't think Aboriginal people, of 'no fixed address', could get Social Security payments. In SA, Aboriginal people on Missions and government stations couldn't even get Unemployment Benefits until 1969. Governments hummed and ha'ed about giving women Child Endowment payments.

Are you sure he wasn't just bragging ? I suspect that there has been a hell of a lot of that over the years.

Sorry for being such a suspicious b@stard, Chris :)

Best wishes,

Joe

Dear Joe,

I went to look at the annual report for that year regarding the situation at the first mission you mentioned Ramahyuck.

It had one birth for that year but 7 deaths. That represented 10% of the population of the mission.

Georgina King - 25 years – Consumption
Alice Grace King – 10 months – teething
Adolph Donald Moffat – 1 year and 6 months – Decline
Lousie C Login – 22 years – Fits
Mary Scott – 57 years – Consumption
Alice Login – 1 year and two months – Decline
William Logan – 24 years – Inflammation of the bowels

These were not victims of violence, nor it appears of alcohol, “There has been very little drinking noticed among the people of this station”. For the children to be dying of 'Decline' and 'Teething' speaks to something else.

It was interesting to note 2/3rds of the land had been stripped from the Aboriginal Reserve by the Department of Agriculture the year before leaving it just 850 acres. The manager writes “The total income of the station has again been small, and naturally will remain so in the future on account of the reduction of the reserve.”

Some of the other stations fared better but over all the missions there were three times as many deaths as births. This should be seen in light of the fact that the Board for the Protection of Aborigines managing to spend nearly the same amount on stationary as they did providing medical services for those under their care and nearly twice as much on travel expenses.

You are right Joe, the facts do speak for themselves. It appears rorting was not a modern phenomena and that the charge of 'managed genocide', which I had tended to dismiss, may not be that far from the truth, at least in Victoria.

http://archive.aiatsis.gov.au/removeprotect/25107.pdf