The Aborigines of Australia

by R.N. Richard Sadleir

In 1837 a party of nine missionaries, who had been enlisted in the work by Pastor Gossner, of Berlin, were directed, through the exertions of Rev. Dr. Lang, to Australia, and came with their families to Moreton Bay. These missionaries taught the children of the aborigines the English language, the use of the hoe, and other useful arts. Their attempts to instil Christianity into their minds do not appear to have been successful. The lives of the missionaries were repeatedly endangered by the plots of the aborigines to rob and murder them. After some years, having been compelled by the absence of external support to devote their attention to the cultivation of the ground for the support of their families, they gradually abandoned the attempt to evangelize the natives. Two of them, Rev. G. Hansmann and Rev. W. Riquet, have been since labouring successfully for the good of their own countrymen in Victoria. Between 1853 and 1856 the Rev. W. Ridley made several missionary tours to the aborigines on the Namoi, Barwon, and Balonne Rivers, and Moreton Bay; in the course of which he collected and made public information relative to the language and traditional customs of the tribes in those districts. Mr. Ridley addressed to the aborigines, in their native language, elementary instruction in revealed truth; and especially among the Kamilaroi-speaking tribes on the Namoi and Barwon—these instructions were received with attention and thankfulness; no evidence, however, appeared of any permanent good being effected by this brief attempt. In the Colonies of Western Australia, South Australia, and Victoria more successful efforts have been made. In Western Australia the Rev. George King carried on a mission for seven years, 1842 to 1848, the results of which continue to this day. Mr. King devoted his attention chiefly to the children; and during the whole course of the seven years from thirteen to fifteen children were frequently under instruction. Mr. King was obliged to discontinue the mission on account of failing health.

Some of these denizens of the bush have become quite industrious, and not only have they adopted the Christian name and a few outward forms of religion, but by active benevolence, by consistent honesty and industry, by patient resignation and suffering, and calm hope in the hour of death, many of them have, as may be seen by the yearly reports of Mr. Hammond, proved the reality of the change which they professed to have undergone. There has also been a mission carried on up to this time, or till very recently, in the Wimmera District, in the Western Province of Victoria, by Mr. Spieseke and other missionaries connected with the German Moravians, from whom accounts have been received of hopeful success in this work, followed by sad tidings of a fatal epidemic among the tribe. For further information concerning this and the Port Lincoln mission we may refer to the Rev. R. L. C., of Melbourne, who has taken a lively and active interest in the work, and who himself educated and took with him to England an aboriginal boy, Willie Wimmera. A school, opened as a trial establishment, was also managed during several years by the Government at Port Franklin, in Victoria, where the Rev. Mr. Hobarton Carvosso laboured with very great assiduity and some success in the teaching of black children. But there are many thousands of aborigines still, on and beyond the borders of the Colony, and there is yet time for a more enlarged, skilful, and persevering effort to raise their condition by Christian missions; while, in reference to the past, the painful fact cannot be forgotten that many of the white men who first came into contact with the aborigines were far more willing to instruct them in evil than in good—a fact which explains to some extent the indisposition so commonly exhibited to learn anything good. In looking to the future relation of Australian Christianity to the aboriginal race, it cannot be reasonably doubted that if the religion of the colonists should become in them a vital power, regulating and inspiring all their actions, it will speedily overcome all the difficulties which have hitherto obstructed the endeavours made to raise the physical and spiritual condition of the Australian aborigines.

It would occupy too much space to enter into a detailed history of all these attempts to civilize and christianize these people. Both the Rev. Mr. Johnson and the Rev. Mr. Marsden and others had attempted to domesticate some of the children, but after a residence of some time, they returned into the bush but little benefited.

Governor Macquarie established a school in Parramatta, in which several children—twenty-seven girls and thirty-seven boys—were partially educated. This school was removed to Blacktown, where land was set apart for the natives, and inducements held out to both blacks and whites to mass them here. Several were educated so that they could read, write, sing hymns, and do needlework; but the white population pressed around, and after some years of labour it had to be abandoned, the Rev. Mr. Walker removing to Bathurst to re-establish the school there. The Rev. Mr. Cartwright mixed the boys with the white boys in the school. They worked well together, but a foolish apprehension that the black children communicated disease to the whites caused its discontinuance.

The Rev. Mr. Threlkeld laboured in Lake Macquarie, a beautiful sheet of water and large grant of land having been set apart for them, but its proximity to Newcastle, and gradual dying out of the blacks, extinguished the mission.

The Church Missionary Society, at the instigation of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, established the Wellington mission. The situation was especially suited, and the labourers diligent and efficient, but after a few years the pressure of the white population put an end to the mission there.

The Rev. Mr. Watson gathered up the remnant, and recommenced the mission on his own station down the Macquarie. Bishop Broughton visited that establishment, and was highly gratified with the success and management, but it also died out, I suspect, with the death of Mr. Watson.

The Moravian Mission in Queensland was established by the Rev. Dr. Lang there, settled at Brisbane, but afterwards removed to the Bunya Bunya country, where natives congregate for the fruit of the pine. The salary promised by the Government was withdrawn, and that, with the influx of the squatters and their threats to the natives, caused the breaking up of the mission.

The Roman Catholic Mission was commenced at Stradbroke Island by Archbishop Polding, in 1842, who brought out two Italian priests to establish it, but they soon became tired of the occupation, and retired from the charge.

The mission of Sir R. Bourke to Melbourne, after some trial, had to be given up, owing to rapid pressure of the white population.