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Bowen

Introduction

Bowen is a large town located on the north coast of Queensland in the Whitsunday region[1]. Several Aboriginal groups identify strongly with the region:  Birri, Jangga, Juru, Gia, and Ngaro peoples[2].

History of Bowen

European contact

Before the establishment of Bowen, Royal Navy hydrographers, explorers, escaped convicts, squatters and shipwreck survivors made sporadic contact with Aboriginal people in the Kennedy district and Whitsunday Islands[3]. Most famously, ship wreck survivor James Morrill lived with the Mount Elliot Aboriginal people for 17 years after he survived the wrecking of the Peruvian in 1846[4].

George Dalrymple, Commissioner of Crown Lands, led an overland party to settle Port Denison (Bowen) in February 1861. Having recognised the pastoral value of the region, the Queensland Government funded the expedition hoping to secure ‘a large increase to the Queensland revenue’[5]. Dalrymple was appointed the local Police Magistrate and the Commander-in-Chief of the Native Mounted Police that accompanied him. Dalrymple’s party travelled overland, while another party led by Captain Henry Sinclair travelled by boat. They met at Port Denison on 10 April 1861 and proclaimed the town of Bowen[6].

Tensions between pastoralists and Aboriginal people were particularly acute when Bowen was established[7]. Dalrymple’s report of 1865 stated that:

‘…reports of murders and depredations committed by the blacks are so frequent and the panic in the district is so great’[8].

Dalrymple continually called for an increased Native Police presence. In response, a permanent barracks was established at Port Denison in 1862[9]. Frontier violence intensified during the 1860s[10]. In 1867, it was desperately suggested that all Aboriginal women and children be removed from Bowen to an island ‘…in order to lure their men to join them to alleviate the violence’[11].

Dramatic reductions in the Aboriginal population in the Kennedy district in the 1860s were documented. Morrill describes how the numbers in his tribe had seriously declined ‘…what with the wars, fights, destruction by the settlers and black police’[12]. By 1869, some pastoralists had begun ‘letting in the blacks’ to offer protection and secure labour for their properties. Notably, Frank Bridgeman convinced the government to establish the first Aboriginal reserve called ‘Gooneenberry’ in the Mackay district. This reserve was the basis of Bridgeman’s attempts to establish an alternative and cheap Aboriginal labour force, and was integral to his election as President of the Association for the Employment and Protection of Aborigines, formed in 1873[13].

In 1878, the Kelsey Aboriginal Reserve was established in Bowen following a decision to clear the Aboriginal camp at the Botanical Reserve to establish ‘Queens Park’[14]. The Kelsey Reserve was not very successful, and reports from 1907 note that Kelsey had fallen into disuse. It was formally de-gazetted in 1931[15]. Some Aboriginal families from Bowen possibly lived at Marie Yamba mission, operated by the Lutherans at Proserpine between 1899 and 1902[16].

Queensland sugar plantations relied heavily on Pacific Island labour, necessitating the establishment of an Immigration Port in Bowen in 1866[17]. Around 10,000 Pacific Islanders were recruited to Queensland and northern New South Wales by 1901[18]. The ‘Kanaka’ trade became notorious for recruitment by kidnapping and other abuses, and stricter legal protections for coastal Pacific Island workers were introduced in 1868[19].

As part of the White Australia Policy, federal legislation was introduced to facilitate the repatriation of over 7,000 Pacific Islanders in 1901. Pacific Islanders who had lived in Australia for more than 20 years, or who were married to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, were allowed to remain. Many Pacific Islanders married Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and remained in Bowen[20].

Under the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897(Qld), Aboriginal people married to Pacific Islanders were ‘exempt’ and could not be forcibly removed. This changed in 1934 when legislative amendments redefined ‘half-caste’ to include Pacific Islanders[21]. This legislation was replaced by the Aboriginals Preservation and Protection Act 1939, which dropped all references to Pacific Islanders. Only 6 people were removed from Bowen during the operation of the 1939 legislation, all of whom appear to have been Aboriginal people[22].

A significant Torres Strait Islander population also developed in Bowen (just under 20% of Bowen’s Indigenous population today identify as Torres Strait Islander or as having both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent)[23]. Under definitions adopted in the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897(Qld) (and subsequent amendment Acts), Torres Strait Islanders were identified as ‘Aboriginals’.

Consequently many Torres Strait Islander people were removed to missions and reserves, and were subject to the same administrative controls as Aborigines under this Act. This changed in 1939 with the introduction of the Torres Strait Islanders Act 1939 and Aboriginals Preservation and Protection Act 1939 which acknowledged the separate identity of Torres Strait Islanders and provided them with increased autonomy[24]. Families comprised of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remained vulnerable, as clauses specifically aimed at these families allowed for their forcible removal under certain circumstances[25].

The first large-scale government removal from Bowen occurred in 1915, when 39 people were removed from Strathmore Station to Yarrabah Mission. Many were the wives and children of men working at the station[26]. Strathmore’s manager persistently wrote to the Chief Protector of Aboriginals to have these people returned, without success[27]. Agitation by the wives removed to Yarrabah led to their relocation to Hull River Mission, following the ‘escape’ of around 30 people from Yarrabah, and jailing of 6 Strathmore women at Cairns. In October 1915, the remaining men at Strathmore were removed to Hull River[28].

Around 12 other Aboriginal people from Bowen were removed from Bowen to Yarrabah before the Strathmore people. They successfully gained permission to join the Strathmore people at Hull River Mission[29]. Definite numbers are difficult to obtain, but official removal registers indicate a further 36 people were removed from Bowen and Strathmore Station between 1902 and 1949 (other than those removed in 1914 and 1915). Most of these people were removed before 1925, and were sent to Yarrabah and Palm Island[30]. Some removals were not officially recorded. Oral history refers to the removal of many Aboriginal people from Bells Gully (Bowen) to Yarrabah in 1912[31]. No official record of this initial removal has been located, but other government records support this oral account[32].

End notes

  1. Including Proserpine, Airlie Beach, Bowen, and Collinsville.
  2. Prior on behalf of the Juru (Cape Upstart) People v State of Queensland (No 2) [2011] FCA 819. Further information can be found in the section ‘Native Title’.
  3. B Breslin, Exterminate with pride: Aboriginal-European relations in the Townsville-Bowen region to 1869 (James Cook University, Townsville; 1992); see also various letters and reports by Native Mounted Police and George Dalrymple included in the Colonial Secretary’s records are available from the Queensland State Archives.
  4. Morrill’s account provides an alternative interpretation of events leading to the establishment of Bowen: James Morrill, 17 Years wandering among the Aboriginals, (D Welch, Virginia, 2006) 20, 50, 55; TRE/A6, 65/1509, Letter reporting the death of James Morrell.
  5. GOV/22/60/34, 12 April 1860; GOV/22/60/54, 10 July 1860; COL/A11, 1861/162.
  6. COL/A13, 1861/1261, 1861/1262 & 1861/1263.
  7. COL/A22, 61/2785; R Evans, ‘Queensland’s First Aboriginal Reserve’ (1971) 2 Queensland Heritage; Ray Evans, A History of Queensland (Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2007) 95.
  8. COL/A63, 1865/160, Letter from the Bowen Police Magistrate (Dalrymple) dated 12.01.1865.
  9. COL/A26 (62/817), COL/A17 (1861/1527), COL/A91 (1867/1433), COL/A62 (1864/3412), GOV/22/60/34 (12 April 1860), GOV/22/60/54 (10 July 1860); J Richards, A Question of Necessity: the Native Police in Queensland (PhD thesis, Griffith University, Brisbane, 2005) 353; COL/A46, 1863/2655.
  10. Morrill above n 2,42-43.
  11. COL/A100, Colonial Secretary’s correspondence, 1868/56, letter from Commissioner of Police dated 6.01.1868, Report re proposed deployment of police for the northern districts for the coming year (referring to doubling of conflict between local Aborigines and colonists in Port Denison) & Report by Inspector Marlow of Port Denison.
  12. Morrill above n 2, 71; COL/A23, 61/3175 (Letter from Dalrymple dated December 6, 1861 advising that Mr Humphreys, who was with a party exploring the Upper Burdekin, is missing and believed to have fallen "prey to the aborigines"); One Bowen resident commented ‘…we know that our town is cemented in blood’ - see Author unknown, ‘Shall we Admit the blacks’, Port Denison Times, 1 May 1869; The Port Denison Times reported that ‘…not long ago, 120 aboriginals disappeared on two occasions for ever’; the Government received complaints ‘…the number of orphans was greatly on the increase through the war of extermination’ and ‘kidnapping’ and mistreatment of Aboriginal children by employers – see COL/A121, 1869/1453, COL/A738, 1893/7126, Quote taken from COL/A111, 1868/2974 (Letter from the Reverend Black of Trinity Parsonage at Bowen requesting the assistance of the government in ameliorating the condition of black children in the Kennedy district).
  13. The Association successfully petitioned the Queensland government to adopt their recommendations to appoint trustees to control Aboriginal ‘tribal movements’ and ‘supervise work contacts’ in 1874. The use of Aboriginal reserves was integral to this system. The Mackay petition led to the establishment of an Aboriginal Commission in September 1873 to ‘inquire what can be done to ameliorate the condition of aborigines and to make them more useful’. While initially ineffectual under Macalister’s premiership the Commission was disbanded after presenting its recommendations. The Commission was re-established in 1874 after criticism from Britain about the ‘Aboriginal problem’: R Kidd, The Way We Civilise (University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1997) 24-25; R Evans, ‘Queensland’s First Aboriginal Reserve’ (1971) 2, 4, Queensland Heritage, 29-30; R Evans, ‘Queensland’s First Aboriginal Reserve’ (1971) 2, 5, Queensland Heritage, 10.
  14. Queensland, Queensland Government Gazette, 29 June 1878, 1506; Frank Bridgeman was the first appointed trustee of the Kelsey Reserve, under the direction of the Aboriginal Commission. In December 1876 Bridgman was directed to report on Aboriginal conditions and prospects at Bowen and Mackay: Ray Evans, ‘Queensland’s First Aboriginal Reserve’ (1971) 2, 5, Queensland Heritage, 3-4; In 1900 Northern Protector of Aboriginals W. E. Roth was appointed trustee of Kelsey – see Queensland, Queensland Government Gazette, 3 February 1900, 314.
  15. Annual Report of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals for the year ending 1907, 1; Queensland Government Gazette, 5 September 1931, 759.
  16. COL/139, 1888/9301 (Letter number 1887/7064); COL/139, 1888/9301(Letter number 1887/9874); COL/139, 1888/9301 (Letter number 88/243); COL/139, 1888/9301 (Letter number 88/2469); Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for the year 1902.
  17. Queensland Blue Book 1866, 36.
  18. Clive Moore, ‘The South Sea Islanders of Mackay Queensland’, in Fitzpatrick, Judith M., (ed.), Endangered Peoples of Oceania: Struggles to Survive and Thrive (Greenwood Press, 2001) 167-181.
  19. Key legislation related to the regulation of Pacific Island labourers includes - Polynesian Labourers Act 1868 (addressing recruitment and introducing minimum wage and three year contract), later repealed by the Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1880 (restricted Pacific Island labourers to the sugar industry on the coast), and the Pacific Island Labourers Amendment Act of 1884. For further reading: Ray Evans, Queensland’s First Aboriginal Reserve (1971), Queensland Heritage, Volumes 2 No. 4, and & Volume 2 No. 5 (Parts 1 and 2 respectively). Ray Evans, Queensland’s First Aboriginal Reserve, 1971, Queensland Heritage, Volumes 2 No. 4, p.33; Kidd, above n 11, 32 - 34.
  20. Australian Human Rights Commission, Australian South Sea Islanders – A century of race discrimination under Australian Law (date unknown)  at 29 November 2012; Patricia Mercer, White Australia Defied: Pacific Islander settlement in North Queensland (1995) 75-110.
  21. Circular to all protectors of Aboriginals and Superintendents of Government settlements and missions, A/69094, General correspondence, Protector of Aboriginals Forsyth, (specifically advised that ‘half castes’ was to include ‘…all cross breed elements of Aboriginal or Pacific Island extraction, who live or associate with Aboriginals’).
  22. See Community and Personal Histories Removals database (Queensland, Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships).
  23. Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011 Bowen Census Community Profile (2012) http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/communityprofile/ILOC30800101?opendocument&navpos=230 at 29 November 2012.
  24. Torres Strait Islanders Act 1939, s11(1).
  25. Under the Aboriginals Preservation and Protection Act 1939 the definition of ‘half-blood’ could include children born to an Aboriginal parent and an Islander parent, who could be placed under the ‘Act’ if ‘declared by a judge, police magistrate or two or more justices after trial, to be in need of the protection of this Act’ or if they ‘live as wife or husband with an [A]boriginal…or habitually associates with [A]boriginals’; In addition, any ‘resident of a reserve’ or ‘child living on a reserve with an [A]boriginal mother’ could also be placed under the ‘Act’ (Aboriginals Preservation and Protection Act 1939 s5(2)).
  26. Chief Protector of Aboriginals, Removals Register - A/64786 (1942 – 1971).
  27. Removal of Strathmore people and others from Bowen / Strathmore to Yarrabah and Hull River: Chief Protector of Aboriginal, Register of Inwards correspondence, various entries beginning in 1914, A/58997, Other Departments, Progressive 2937 through to 1915, A/58998, Removals Deportations, Progressive 3903.
  28. Removal of Strathmore people and others from Bowen / Strathmore to Yarrabah and Hull River: Chief Protector of Aboriginal, Register of Inwards correspondence, various entries beginning in 1914, A/58997, Other Departments, Progressive 2937 through to 1915, A/58998, Removals Deportations, Progressive 3903.
  29. Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Torres Strait Islander and Multicultural Affairs’ Community and Personal Histories removals database and other government records.
  30. Queensland, Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships’ Community & Personal Histories Removals database.
  31. Renata Prior, Straight From the Yudaman’s Mouth (James Cook University, Townsville;1993) 3.
  32. Ibid, 6-7.
Last updated:
8 April 2015
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