The Aborigines of Australia

by R.N. Richard Sadleir

A public breakfast was given to the Rev. Mr. Binney, at Adelaide, previous to his departure, and, in his address of thanks, he stated that he, in his simplicity, coming from England, prayed for the aborigines, prayed for the persecuted natives of the land which we had come to take. It twice happened that a minister said, “I was surprised yet pleased to hear prayer for the aborigines; I have never heard it before; we seem to have got into a state of apathy about them, and given them up as hopeless. So that even the Christian Church had forgotten them before God, and considered them to be a doomed people like the Canaanites of old.”

Mr. B. then drew a vivid picture of the great change which had been effected since the introduction of Europeans to the displacement of the aboriginal population.

“In travelling about the thought struck me, looking at this magnificent country, all this was, little more than twenty years ago, the run of the savage, his trail and his lair. Here, amongst these hills and these plains, amidst these woods, the savage ran and caught his game, erected his wurleys, lay down for the night, passed on without a hand to grasp, or any eye to see, or an understanding to develop, or intelligent faculty to conjecture the meaning of the mystic character, written everywhere upon God’s earth and sky around him. Here he had been living for ages on this magnificent property as it were, but unable to see it, without a hand to touch it, or an understanding to modify it, or to work it into form of utility and enjoyment. He had been so for ages, and he would have remained so, for I do not believe that degraded man himself ever rose to even the first step of civilization.

“Although I could not but feel a pang for the disappearance of the natives, I thought it right that you should take possession of the property, and with your hearts and hands directed by your intelligence, use the rich materials of the earth which God has given you.”

This lucid and poetical passage in the speech suggests much reflection. That the land should be occupied and turned to account there is no question, but as the savage is helpless to raise himself, we ask, is the Church guiltless in leaving him for ages in this condition?

Mr. Foster, from whose work I quote, says it was a special instruction of the Home Government, on the establishment of South Australia, that the aborigines should be properly cared for, and for that purpose a Chief Inspector was appointed at Adelaide, and a Sub-Inspector in the country districts. Aboriginal reserves were made at various places for the natives, and supplies of flour and blankets, &c., were distributed periodically, schools were established and missionary efforts were entered upon, and have been continued up to the present time with, in some cases, gratifying results. The Government did their duty so far, but all these efforts failed as to a general effect, and were only partial, owing to their nomadic habits, undomestic life, and pulmonary complaints, to which must be added European vices and diseases.

Missionary enterprise was dead in the Church, and she failed to discharge her obligation. Any change effected was not by her missions, but by civilization, which carried with it the seeds of death and destruction. New diseases, as lately at the Fijis, where 35,000 have perished by measles, but still worse, the avarice of men in introducing intoxicating drinks, and the lust of men in violating the law of chastity, and the destruction of native food, have been a fearful consequence. Verily, say what we may, as a Christian people, instead of benefiting the race we have destroyed them, as a man told Mr. Binney—he had lived amongst them many years—“that the last man of the tribe died the week before last.”

Four missionaries from Dresden arrived in the Colony in 1838 and 1842, Messrs. Teechelmann, Klose, Meyer, and Schürmann, so that missions were commenced at Adelaide and 12 miles south of Adelaide, at Port Lincoln, and Encounter Bay; and at Walker’s Villa was established a Sunday-school, numerously attended by native children, in which Governor Grey took a great interest.

At Mr. Klose’s school, fourteen children could read polysyllables, fourteen more were in addition, three in subtraction, nine in multiplication, and two in division. Most of the children could repeat the Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments, and narrate the history of the Creation, the fall of our first parents, and other portions of the Old and New Testament. A few could write by dictation, many knew geography, the boundaries and divisions of the earth, proving their ability, and that they are not such demented beings as has been too generally represented. But this progress was discouraged, and that by a portion of the Press, who ridiculed these efforts as worthless for all practical purposes, and as the jargon of the missionaries, and that, if the report of the Protectors were true, they were more deeply versed in the holy mysteries than the Bench of Bishops, by a long chalk.

However, they were not forsaken. The native institutions at Poonindie, at Port Lincoln, under the Church of England, and the native institution at Lake Alexandrina, under the auspices of the Aboriginal Friends’ Association, still exist. Of these I will have to make some further mention.