Shirleene Robinson

The Unregulated Employment of Aboriginal Children in
Queensland, 1842-1902

European colonists employed significant numbers of Aboriginal children in a diverse range of occupations in the Moreton Bay District after 1842. The Queensland government, however, did not pass legislation controlling this employment until 1902. During this unregulated period, working Aboriginal children were very susceptible to abuse because they were members of a dispossessed indigenous population and because of their youthfulness. Large numbers of employed Aboriginal children experienced both psychological and physical trauma. Many were kidnapped and removed from their traditional localities, abused and did not receive remuneration for their labour. During this unregulated period, the state government instituted legislation to control the employment of European state children and this article considers whether similar legislation relating to working Aboriginal children would have reduced cases of mistreatment and abuse. It concludes that further legislation in this period would not have helped working Aboriginal children because European officials would probably have been reluctant to invoke these laws.

In 1903, Dr Walter Roth, Queensland's Northern Protector of Aboriginals, described the experience of an Aboriginal girl, Dolly, whom he had sent to Yarrabah Aboriginal mission the previous year.¹ At only 13 years of age, Dolly had been employed at Normanton for the past ten years. She had never received any wages, possessed only two articles of clothing and was seven months pregnant.² As Roth had dealt with the mistreatment of this child prior to the 1902 passage of legislation controlling the employment of Aboriginal children, Dolly's employer could not be legally compelled to help her in any way.³ Dolly's situation was far from unusual. In the period from the commencement of free settlement in the Moreton Bay District in 1842, until the Royal Assent of an Amendment Act controlling Aboriginal child labour in 1902, significant numbers of Aboriginal children performed labour for Europeans. These children were extremely vulnerable to exploitation because of their position as members of a colonised population and because of their youth. During the period from 1842 to 1902, large number of Aboriginal children were kidnapped and removed from their families and traditional localities for employment, received no remuneration and suffered abuse by their employers. This paper examines the unregulated use of Aboriginal child labour in Queensland from 1842 to 1902. It questions whether further legal regulations would have controlled some of the abuses against Aboriginal child workers which occurred in this unregulated period, and suggests that even if laws controlling Aboriginal child labour during this period had existed, the Queensland government would have been reluctant to invoke them. 1

     Aboriginal children who worked in Queensland during the period from 1842 to 1902 were members of two disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. In the first instance, they belonged to a dispossessed indigenous population.⁴ European officials viewed these children as Aborigines first and children secondly. Historians have conducted a considerable amount of research on the position of Aboriginal workers in nineteenth century Australia.⁵ Early historians tended to highlight the destruction of Aboriginal society by European colonists and the way that this destruction compelled Aboriginal workers to enter the European economy.⁶ More recently, historians have tended to argue that in many cases, Aboriginal workers were actively attracted to the material acquisitions they could gain from entering the European economy and that their entry into the European economic system represented more of a voluntary movement than had previously been considered.⁷ Aboriginal workers in colonial Queensland certainly showed a great deal of courage and initiative by manoeuvring within the European economy. Overall, however, these workers were moving within a system that had been set up by a colonial power after the destruction of their traditional society. The historian Bill Thorpe has convincingly argued that the broader social situation of colonialism meant that the Aboriginal workforce in nineteenth century Queensland constituted an unfree workforce best described as colonised labour.⁸ 2

     Aboriginal children were not only members of an indigenous society experiencing massive social disruption. Their youth meant that they occupied another vulnerable position in the colonial society.⁹ In any relationship between children and adults, the adult firmly controls the power-balance. The exaggerated balance of power meant that even European children were unable to enter into equal free and equal engagements of labour with adult Europeans in colonial Queensland. Child labour is psychologically damaging and fundamentally exploitative.¹⁰ While this paper does not focus on the working lives of European children in colonial Queensland, other evidence indicates that these working European children also experienced a great deal of mistreatment at the hands of their employers. Laraine Goldman, who has written on the experiences of state children in colonial Queensland, highlights many instances of European child workers being abused and underpaid.¹¹ Goldman ably proves that many of these children suffered greatly from their working experiences. It is important not to dismiss or underplay the suffering of working European children but it is also important to acknowledge that there were more mechanisms in place to deal with the abuse of European children and that European officials were more likely to take action to prevent the abuse of European children. Working Aboriginal children occupied a uniquely oppressed position in colonial Queensland because of their categorisation as both Aborigines and children. 3

     Defining the age when childhood ends and adulthood begins is difficult because childhood is a historical construction.¹² This chapter follows the definition of childhood that has been adopted in recent overviews of government policies towards Aboriginal people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and studies of childhood in Australia's past. These works have demarcated people under the age of eighteen as children for the purposes of their studies.¹³ Detailing the exact number of Aboriginal children, that is, Aboriginal people under the age of 18, who worked for Europeans in Queensland in the period from 1842 to 1902 is an almost impossible task. Throughout most of the colonial period, no official records of Aboriginal workers were kept. Provisions included in the Pearl-Shell and Beche-de-mer Fishery Act of 1881, forced government agents to make a cursory attempt at registering Aboriginal people employed in these marine industries.¹⁴ Even these official records of Aboriginal workers in marine industries were poorly kept and incomplete. In most cases, no distinction was made between Aboriginal workers and Torres Strait Islander workers.¹⁵ Furthermore, because John Douglas, the Government Resident at Thursday Island, had an aversion to the employment of Aboriginal women and children in the industry, most of this employment would have been conducted without government awareness.¹⁶ No other records were kept of Aboriginal labour in any other field of employment until the passage of the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897. 4

     Official notes made in the course of observing the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897 enable some estimations about the number of Aboriginal child workers in the colony to be made. The 1897 Act instituted regional Protectors of Aboriginals who were responsible for keeping records of Aboriginal people employed in their districts. The earliest official estimation of the number of Aboriginal workers employed in any region of Queensland was made by the Southern Protector of Aboriginals, Archibald Meston, in 1899. Meston considered that at least 2,000 Aboriginal workers were employed in the southern half of the colony alone in that year.¹⁷ Given that whenever records are available, they indicate that more Aboriginal workers were employed in the northern half of the colony than the south, it appears reasonable to assume that at least another 2,000 Aboriginal workers were employed in the northern half of the colony in 1899. Some assumptions can be made from this total figure of 4,000 Aboriginal workers. Later records which do indicate the ages of employed Aboriginal workers suggest that Aboriginal children aged 17 and under constituted at least one-third of registered workers.¹⁸ Therefore, based on these figures, it seems reasonable to assume that throughout this period, at least 1,300 Aboriginal children were employed in Queensland. Later statements made by government officials confirm this figure. 5

     My own search through archival material, manuscripts and memoirs yielded the details of 178 individual Aboriginal children who were employed in Queensland between 1842 and 1902.¹⁹ A further 15 children were listed as residing with Europeans, away from their Aboriginal families. Although it is most likely that these 15 children were employed by the Europeans they were residing with, it is not explicitly stated. Therefore these children have not been included in this study. 6

     There are several significant reasons why the details of most Aboriginal child workers in Queensland between 1842 and 1902 would never have been recorded. Employers of Aboriginal labour were not compelled to register the number of Aboriginal workers they employed until after the passage of the 1897 Act. This Act instituted regional Protectors of Aboriginals who were responsible for keeping records of Aboriginal people employed in their districts. These records, however, are flawed for three main reasons. First, the system was honesty-based and required employers of Aboriginal labour to report to the regional Protector of Aboriginals the number of Aboriginal workers they were employing. Following this, the Protector was responsible for collecting wages and ensuring the fair treatment of Aboriginal workers in the district. For this reason alone, a large proportion of Aboriginal workers in Queensland during the colonial period never had their employment registered. Secondly, even when employers did officially register their Aboriginal employees, regional Protectors were very lax with their record keeping. The vast majority of records kept by regional Protectors provide only the first name of Aboriginal workers and an address. The age of workers, was, in more cases than not, omitted from official records. Thirdly, under the provisions of the 1897 Act, regional Protectors were not obliged to record the details of Aboriginal workers who were employed casually. 7

     Due to these factors, most recorded cases of Aboriginal children working were only mentioned in colonial sources because of their connection to other events. The fact that Aboriginal children were employed was not, in itself, considered to be extraordinary or noteworthy. For example, in 1852 the Moreton Bay Courier newspaper only mentioned that an eight-year-old Aboriginal girl was employed as a domestic servant because the child had been working in a European residence when a European child was attacked. Clearly, the editor of the newspaper did not believe that her employment warranted further comment. 8

     Given the large number of Aboriginal children who were employed in Queensland and the exploitative conditions under which most of these children laboured between 1842 and 1902, it is important to consider the broader factors that guided this exploitation. There were four primary reasons that Aboriginal child workers were used so prolifically in Queensland in the period from 1842 to 1902. In the first instance, European settlers employed Aboriginal children because of shortages of other labour in the colony.²⁰ The historian Jan Walker has asserted that the major problems facing European pastoralists in the Moreton Bay colony in the 1840s were the shortage, cost and indolence of other European labour and the fear of Aboriginal attack.²¹ The 'letting in' of Aboriginal labour as quickly as was practicable solved both of these difficulties. Secondly, as the historian Rosalind Kidd has adeptly argued, settlers believed that indigenous children could be civilised through the performance of labour for Europeans.²² The origins of this philosophy can be traced back to eighteenth century Britain where moral reformists advocated the removal of children from situations perceived as demoralising, and their subsequent retraining. Thirdly, settlers accrued financial benefits from the employment of Aboriginal children. Until the passing of the 1902 Amendment Act, settlers were not legally obliged to pay their Aboriginal child workers. Finally, settlers employed Aboriginal children because they considered them to be pliable workers. While recent scholarship has highlighted the degree of agency that adult Aboriginal workers accomplished,²³ employers of Aboriginal child workers did not have to consider the agency of Aboriginal children, as the power-base was firmly and indisputably controlled by adult employers. 9

    The recorded cases of Aboriginal children working in Queensland from 1842 to 1902 provide a reliable sample of the general composition and nature of the total Aboriginal child workforce in Queensland during this period. The statistics that are available indicate that more male than female children were employed. Of the 178 cases found, 100 of the employed indigenous children were male, 69 were female and the gender of the remaining nine children is not known (see Table 1). 10

Table 1
Gendered breakdown of Aboriginal children employed in Queensland, 1842-1902

Source: see Endnote 19.

The largest proportion of female child workers in my sample were aged between ten and 12 years of age, with the youngest employed female child recorded being two years of age. The largest proportion of male child workers were aged between 12 and 14 years of age, with the youngest employed male child recorded as being five years of age (see Table 2).

Table 2
Ages of employed Aboriginal children in Queensland, 1842-1902

Source: see Endnote 19.

The fields of labour in which these Aboriginal children worked were quite diverse (see Table 3) with domestic service being the largest single field of employment. The pastoral industry was the next largest field of employment for Aboriginal children followed by the pearling and beche-de-mer industry. A significant number of Aboriginal children were also listed as being companions and guides for explorers and settlers in remote areas. They were also employed as labourers, interpreters and circus performers.

Table 3
Occupations of Aboriginal children employed in Queensland, 1842-1902

Source: see Endnote 19.

Before examining the multitude of abuses that accompanied the employment of Aboriginal children in Queensland between 1842 and 1902, it is necessary to consider the legal position of these indigenous child workers. From 1842 to 1902, the Queensland government made no effort to regulate the employment of Aboriginal children. Indeed, as Raymond Evans has proven, even adult Aboriginal workers were accorded scant protection by the legal system.²⁴ Legally, Aboriginal child workers experienced very little protection in Queensland between 1842 and 1902. Walter Roth, the Northern Protector of Aboriginals, conceded this in 1900, admitting that, although he was aware 'of the accompanying evils and abuses' with regard to Aboriginal children being employed, he was 'as yet unable to prevent and control' these abuses.²⁵ In effect, up until May of 1902, there were no provisions which forced employers of indigenous child workers to pay these workers.

     The situation for European state children in this period was quite different. Although European employers also controlled the power-base in this situation, the government had more provisions in place to protect these children. Before state children started employment, their employers had to apply to the government for permission and for a check on their suitability.²⁶ After 1884, state children were not sent out to service younger than 12 years of age.²⁷ After these children had begun employment, their situations were monitored regularly by Inspectors. In 1899 alone, there were 534 hired-out state children and inspectors made 1,152 visits to inspect their situations.²⁸ Furthermore, the colonial government was responsible for the collection of the wages of these children. The minimum rates of wages payable to these children were set in 1880.²⁹ The situation of employed Aboriginal children in this period was the same as that of employed Aboriginal adults. As previously discussed, up until the passage of the Pearl-Shell and Beche-de-mer Fishery Act of 1881, there was no regulation of any Aboriginal labour in the colony at all. Following the passage of this Act, some small attempts were made to regulate the employment of Aboriginal people in marine industries. 11

     Some European officials were aware that working Aboriginal children were in need of legal protection. Prior to the drafting of the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897, the Commissioner for Police, W. E. Parry-Okenden, had suggested that Aboriginal children under 12 years of age should be prevented from working and that minimum wages, clothing and food should be provided for employed children over 12 years of age.³⁰ These suggestions, however, were absent from the Act that was passed in 1897, mainly due to sustained pressure from settlers who resented having restrictions placed on their employment of Aboriginal workers. Legally, the government was not without other options for preventing the employment of Aboriginal children. The government was well-aware that the citation of the 1875 Education Act , which required all children in the colony to receive an education until they were 14 years of age,³¹ could prevent the employment of Aboriginal children.³² Furthermore, the Industrial and Reformatories Schools Act of 1865 had a provision which enabled the government to remove children of Aboriginal and 'half-caste' mothers to Aboriginal missions and reserves. The irony of this Act was that it allowed the removal of Aboriginal children from the nurturing surroundings of family, but was not used to remove them from harshly exploitative employment situations. While the government refused to pass any laws protecting Aboriginal children in employment, it was quick to enforce employment agreements that Aboriginal children had supposedly made with settlers. In 1898, a 12-year-old Aboriginal boy, Charlie, was charged at the Croydon police station with breaking such an employment agreement after he ran away from his employer.³³ Charlie was only released from the watch-house after he agreed to return to his employer and keep to his agreement.³⁴ 12

     Aboriginal children were highly sought after employees in colonial Queensland for the reasons previously mentioned. These workers, however, had scant legal protection and a multitude of abuses accompanied the employment of Aboriginal children. One particular evil which accompanied the employment of Aboriginal children and not European children was kidnapping. While some settlers incorporated the Aboriginal children of their adult employees into the workforce and others relied on missions and reserves to provide their Aboriginal child workers, an even larger proportion of European settlers engaged in kidnapping and illicit trading to obtain these young workers. In 1871, Alfred Davidson wrote to Brisbane's Colonist newspaper, asking if the rumours regarding the frequent kidnapping of Aboriginal children from Aboriginal camps were true. Davidson asked, 'Is it really correct that children are taken out of the native camps for servants? If it is, slavery exists in the colony'.³⁵ Queensland's Southern Protector of Aboriginals, Archibald Meston, later confirmed that the kidnapping of Aboriginal children from the frontier had been common. He wrote of settlers in colonial Queensland who had:

13

Abducted [Aboriginal] women and sent [Aboriginal] children away to distant friends with as much indifference as if they were pet squirrels or tame galahs. They knew or cared not if the wild fathers and mothers loved their wild children, or the wild children loved their parents. They were either not credited with any human instincts or those instincts were entirely disregarded.³⁶

The Queenslander newspaper once featured an article about Maggie, who was taken from an Aboriginal camp at the age of two and by ten 'was a well-trained little maid, neat and quick, and of a willing disposition and wise in the handling of babies'.³⁷ At the age of ten, Maggie was given from one settler to another as a most acceptable wedding present.³⁸

     My own register of Aboriginal child workers in Queensland during the period from 1842 to 1902 indicates that almost 30 per cent of these workers were kidnapped or traded by Europeans. This corresponds with a statement made by the Queensland Figaro newspaper in 1884 that 'there is nothing extraordinary in [kidnapping]. It has occurred hundreds of times in Queensland, is occurring and well may occur again'.³⁹ 14

     The direct correlation between kidnapping and the use of Aboriginal child labour was referred to by a Normanton settler, Isaac Watson, in 1880. Watson wrote to the Queenslander newspaper, complaining that settlers in the Gulf of Carpentaria region were always stealing Aboriginal children for the purposes of making them travel to some stations, or else the township of Normanton, where they are made to work and slave against their will'.⁴⁰ The British writer Anthony Trollope made similar observations about the state of employment of a 14-year-old Aboriginal girl in Queensland in the 1870s. Trollope asserted that 'here at any rate was something like slavery for the girl was not apprenticed, nor her position recognised by any legal transfer of service'.⁴¹ The trade in Aboriginal children was still being conducted as late as 1902. The Protector of Aboriginals in the Normanton district in that year, informed the Northern Protector of Aboriginals that:

15

Settlers in outside districts who have plenty of myalls about their country are often importuned by town residents and others to bring them in a boy or a girl. In due time the child arrives. How the children are separated from their parents is a subject or conjecture and surmise.⁴²

Despite widespread public discussion of the kidnapping of Aboriginal children, the government passed no laws specifically regarding this act and abstained from punishing offenders through other Acts.⁴³

     Government inaction towards kidnappers was not surprising when it is considered that a substantial proportion of kidnapping was conducted by the state-sponsored Native Police Force. In 1880, the Bulletin newspaper referred to that trade in Aboriginal children and the role of the Native Police Force in this process. The paper asserted:

16

In several far northern districts it is by no means uncommon for residents to ask the native troopers to procure young blacks for them; and the writer has frequently seen a long string of native police filing into a township some of them carrying in front of their saddles black children from two to ten years of age.⁴⁴

In other cases settlers would attempt to obtain Aboriginal children by attacking camps on their own. In 1883, the explorer Christie Palmerston described how he obtained his Aboriginal child worker:

On my road back I saw a little boy running away: I soon overtook him, and laying the barrel of my rifle against his neck, shoved him over. He seemed struck with terror and amazement, biting me, spitting and shouting, and by the brashness of his voice, I fancy he was showering me with a volley of oaths. In my present garb I should have been an object of terror to a child of my own race, only a shirt and a cartridge belt on, my legs splattered with blood.⁴⁵

A vast number of other accounts illustrate the violent methods settlers used to obtain Aboriginal child workers. The earliest recollection of an Aboriginal girl, Topsy, was of playing with some other children by the banks of the Mitchell River in the 1880s when a party of white horsemen, armed with rifles, stole her and gave her to another settler to be used as a domestic servant.⁴⁶ Another Aboriginal child, May, saw her family shot down and murdered and was taken by her captor and given to his wife.⁴⁷ It is impossible to capture the vulnerability and helplessness of those Aboriginal children who saw their families and family groups murdered by Europeans, and who were then forced to work for their captors.

     The horrifying experience of witnessing the murder of family members and of being placed into an alien and frightening working environment was often followed by the complete removal of stolen Aboriginal children from their traditional localities. Again, this was an experience that was unique to Aboriginal workers. Sometimes the distance that Aboriginal children were moved by their employers was extraordinary. In 1845, Tetaree, an Aboriginal boy, was removed from his Stradbroke Island home to Scotland. He stayed in the United Kingdom for seven years, performing work with horses in Franconi's circus in Edinburgh. Tetaree's case was somewhat unusual, however, because he was returned to his Stradbroke Island home in 1852. Reporting on his return, the Moreton Bay Courier newspaper remarked that Tetaree was now a proficient bugle player, could dance the polka, sing Ethiopian serenades, write his name and recognise the alphabet and discuss political events in Europe.⁴⁸ The newspaper did not discuss the impact that Tetaree's removal must have had on his family and his sense of identity. Tetaree was not the only Aboriginal child from Queensland who was taken to England. In 1887, an Aboriginal boy, Snowball, was removed from Herberton to England for 12 months by his employer.⁴⁹ While Tetaree and Snowball were returned to Queensland, other employers would often remove children and desert them in their new location. In a case that was far from unusual, Albert, an Aboriginal child, was removed from his traditional area of Cairns by his employer, taken to Sandgate in outer Brisbane and was then left on his own there when his employer went to New South Wales.⁵⁰ Dick Melbourne, aged about seven, was removed from Cairns in 1892 by a circus and was abandoned in Melbourne.⁵¹ He remained in Melbourne until he was about 14 years of age, when some charitable people funded his return to Cairns. He died, however, at Yarrabah Aboriginal mission very soon after his return.⁵² In 1902, Walter Roth described the case of Cameron, who:

17

was taken by a man named C_______ from Cooktown to Rockhampton when quite a boy. He was turned adrift, and remained there for some years, when he was subsequently engaged by Colonel A________ of the Percy Islands, and remained in his employ for a few years. After leaving the employ of A_______ he was wandering about Mackay for some time. It was here that Sub-inspector Martin found him employment, took charge of his wages and thus afforded him the means of getting to Cooktown, where having lost his language and unable to discover relatives, he was only too glad to find shelter with the missionaries at Cape Bedford.⁵³

     While a high proportion of the Aboriginal child workforce between 1842 and 1902 were kidnapped and removed from their families and traditional areas, an even higher proportion were abused by their employers over a sustained period. European children were almost certainly also abused, but European officials were more likely to take action to prevent this abuse. The abuse directed against some young Aboriginal children was horrific; there are even recorded cases of them being murdered by their employers. In 1871, Colin McIntyre killed his 11-year-old male Aboriginal servant after he did not return from the butchers in proper time with beef.⁵⁴ Similarly, in 1876, a small Aboriginal boy, Monday, who was been employed by a bricklayer, was murdered by his employer after an argument.⁵⁵ His remains revealed that he had been 'frightfully beaten about the head and body'.⁵⁶ One can safely assume that these cases were not unique. Like most frontier violence, however, the details of murdered Aboriginal children were very rarely recorded. There is much evidence that a vast proportion of employed Aboriginal children were physically abused and mistreated by their employers. In one case, an Aboriginal girl aged about 15 'had been cruelly treated, sworn at, beaten and kicked' by her employer. ⁵⁷ She showed Walter Roth a scar, 'which she ascribed to her late employer's boot. She apparently had no blanket, and certainly received no wages'.⁵⁸ In yet another case, Gerribah, a ten-year-old Aboriginal domestic servant and nursemaid, told police that her employer:

18

used to thrash me with a riding whip, and hit me in the face. Sometimes I was thrashed because I forgot to do something [I was] told to do, and sometimes I did not know what the thrashing was for.⁵⁹

In yet another case, a nine-year-old Aboriginal girl employed as a domestic servant was forced to sleep under other people's houses at night, was beaten by her employers and was often found wandering about the streets.⁶⁰ Harry, a 12-year-old Aboriginal boy who was employed in the Cloncurry region in 1901, was put on a chain by his employer's wife when she considered that he was misbehaving.⁶¹

     The sexual abuse of employed Aboriginal children was also extremely common.⁶² Like other working children in the colony, Aboriginal children would have been powerless against this abuse. In 1901, Queensland's Secretary for Public Instruction spoke of the sexual abuse of young Aboriginal children that had been carried out in the pearling and beche-de-mer industries. He asserted that:

19

Children of seven and nine years of age had been taken on board pearling boats, and [had been] not only violated, but serious diseases [were] communicated to them, and when any attempt was made to sheet home the offence, in every instance, the case had fallen to the ground.⁶³

There are several cases of young girls being employed by single men and being abandoned in their early teens when they fell pregnant. The historian Anna Haebich has discussed instances of Aboriginal girls, some as young as six, being raped, 'which left them infected with venereal disease, permanently injured and, in some cases, dead'.⁶⁴ Again, little action could be taken against those Europeans who sexually attacked Aboriginal girls because legal proof of the age of the Aboriginal child had to be provided.⁶⁵ This was almost impossible, because the births of Aboriginal children were not registered during this period.

     Aside from being kidnapped and abused, Aboriginal child workers rarely received remuneration for their labour. The historian Dawn May has pointed out that adult Aboriginal workers in Queensland generally did not receive wages in this period either.⁶⁶ While Aboriginal adults, in some instances, may have been able to negotiate items of food or other commodities for their labour, Aboriginal children were more powerless than adults and it does not appear they were able to negotiate terms of payment with their employers. In all the recorded cases of Aboriginal children being employed in Queensland between 1842 and 1902, only one case was found where it was explicitly stated that the child was paid. This child, a 12-year-old boy who was employed in the beche-de-mer trade, was being paid £3 per year and an allowance of alcohol daily.⁶⁷ Some Aboriginal children worked for considerable periods without receiving remuneration. In 1902, Archibald Meston drew the attention of the Under Secretary towards a case where a 14-year-old Aboriginal girl had worked for two years as a domestic servant without receiving wages.⁶⁸ Given that such a high proportion of indigenous child workers were kidnapped, the fact that Europeans did not pay these children wages is hardly surprising. 20

     Although the power-base was firmly controlled by the Europeans who employed them, Aboriginal children were not passive objects of European domination. While there was a limit to the methods available to them, these children did engage in strategies of resistance against their employers. The most common strategy was for Aboriginal children to run away from their employers. This point was conceded to by Walter Roth in 1902. He wrote that 'most of the children will bolt (if old enough, and the distance not too great), and then they are termed ungrateful by their owners'.⁶⁹ These children, however, were usually forced to return to their employers. Anthony Trollope also referred to the elements of coercion and force in preventing Aboriginal children from escaping from their employers. He described how one European woman in colonial Queensland, when asked how she prevented her Aboriginal child domestic servant from escaping, laughed 'at my scruples as to retention and told me with a boast that she could always put a black fellow on the girl's tracks if she made an attempt'.⁷⁰ 21

     Upon being brought back to employment, Aboriginal children often began to 'play up' or rebel against their employers. In one case, an Aboriginal girl, Mulla, who was about 12 years of age, was mistreated by her employer and tried to run away several times. Each time she was brought back to her employer by the police.⁷¹ Eventually Mulla set fire to her employer's curtains. This resulted in her removal from her abusive employer. The police officer investigating the case later observed that 'since [Mulla has been removed] she has behaved very well and does her work in a satisfactory manner and the court is of the opinion that with kind treatment the girl would make a very good servant'.⁷² There are numerous cases of Aboriginal children being dismissed from their employment after becoming 'unmanageable' or getting 'beyond control' by their employers.⁷³ In one case, a young Aboriginal girl was removed from employment after she took 15 shillings from her employer and gave it to local Aborigines.⁷⁴ However, due to the young age of most of the Aboriginal children who were employed and their isolation from their families, the vast majority of Aboriginal children must have felt as though they had no option but to stay with their employers. 22

     When the government finally did pass legislation in 1902 to provide the remission of wages for Aboriginal children, it was motivated more by a desire to save the government money, than to protect Aboriginal children. The same financial motive is very evident when examining the government decision to provide rates of pay for employed Aboriginal children in 1904. When these rates of pay were finally set, the majority of the wage went to the local Protector, who banked it in a Government Savings Bank as a trust account.⁷⁵ A very high number of Aboriginal workers in Queensland were cheated out of their wages by this system.⁷⁶ 23

     Between 1842 and 1902, Aboriginal child workers were the most vulnerable employees in Queensland. They were the youngest members of a colonised indigenous population with both their racial categorisation and their age making them vulnerable to exploitation. A very high proportion of indigenous child workers came into employment with Europeans after being kidnapped, many suffered some sort of physical, sexual or emotional abuse and almost all child workers were never paid. An argument can be made that the inherent powerlessness of these workers meant that they were trapped in a situation which closely resembled that of slavery.⁷⁷ While the Queensland government was certainly aware that these children were being employed in the colony in dangerous situations, they were extremely slow in taking action to protect these indigenous child workers. Indeed, Aboriginal children were working in Queensland for at least 60 years before their situation ever received any legal consideration and before employers could be compelled to pay wages to these children. 24

Endnotes

* I should like to thank my supervisor, DR Kay Saunders, who first suggested that an investigation of Aboriginal child labour would make a rewarding research topic and DR Dawn May, who kindly allowed me to access her private collection of interviews with Aboriginal workers. I am also grateful to the anonymous Labour History referees.

^1. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1902' , Queensland Parliamentary Papers (hereafter QPP ), 1903, vol. 2, p. 461.

^2. Ibid .

^3. The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Acts , 1897 to 1901, Queensland Government Gazette , 16 May 902, p. 1436.

^4. See, for example, C.D. Rowley, The Destruction of Aboriginal Society: Aboriginal Policy and Practice , vol. 1, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1970, pp. 157-186; Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders and Kathryn Cronin, Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination: Race Relations in Colonial Queensland , Australia and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1975, pp. 25-146; Noel Loos, Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-European Relations on the North Queensland Frontier1861-1897, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1982; and Henry Reynolds, Frontier: Aborigines, Settlers and Land , Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1987.

^5. Material on Aboriginal labour in nineteenth century Queensland includes Dawn May, From Bush to Station: Aboriginal Labour in the North Queensland Pastoral Industry 1861-1897 , Department of History, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, 1983; Raymond Evans, '"Kings" in Brass Crescents: Defining Aboriginal Labour Patterns in Colonial Queensland' in Kay Saunders (ed.), Indentured Labour in the British Empire, 1834-1920 , Croom Helm, London, 1984, pp. 183-212; Henry Reynolds, With the White People: the crucial role of Aborigines in the exploration and development of Australia , Penguin Books, Ringwood, Victoria, 1992; and Dawn May, Aboriginal Labour and the Cattle Industry: Queensland from White Settlement to the Present , Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1994. For an historiographical overview of Aboriginal workers in Australia's past, see Ann Curthoys and Clive Moore, 'Working for the White People: an Historiographic Essay on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Labour' in Ann McGrath and Kay Saunders (eds), with Jackie Huggins, Aboriginal Workers , Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Sydney, 1995, pp. 1-29 [ Labour History, no.69, 1995, pp. 1-29].

^6. See particularly Mervyn Hartwig, 'Capitalism and Aborigines: The Theory of Internal Colonialism and its Rivals' , E.L. Wheelwright and Ken Buckley (eds), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism , vol. 3, Australia and New Zealand Book Company, 1978, pp. 107-144; Evans, '"Kings" in Brass Crescents' and Reynolds, Frontier , pp. 107-144.

^7. See particularly Christopher Anderson,' Aborigines and Tin Mining in North Queensland: A Case Study in the Anthropology of Contact History' , Mankind , vol. 13, no. 6, April 1983, pp. 473-497; Ann McGrath, 'Born in the Cattle' : Aborigines in Cattle Country , Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1987; Marie Fels, Good Men and True: the Aboriginal Police of the Port Phillip District 1837-53 , Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1988; and Bain Attwood, 'Understandings of the Aboriginal Past: History or Myth' , Australian Journal of Politics and History , vol. 24, no. 2, 1988, pp. 265-271.

^8. Bill Thorpe, Colonial Queensland: Perspectives on a frontier society , University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland, 1996, p. 62.

^9. For the most extensive piece of work dealing with the specific situation of Aboriginal children in colonial Queensland, see Rosalind Kidd, The Way We Civilise , University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland, 1997.

^10. Alec Fyfe, Child Labour , Polity Press, Cambridge, England, 1989.

^11. Laraine Goldman, Child Welfare in Nineteenth Century Queensland, 1865-1911, MA Qualifying thesis, Department of History, University of Queensland, 1978, pp. 91-116.
^12. This point is made by Jan Kociumbas in Australian Childhood: A History , Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, 1997, p. ix.

^13. For example, Peter Read, The Stolen Generations: The Removal of Aboriginal Children in New South Wales 1883 to 1969 , New South Wales Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, Sydney, 1982, p. 2 and Sue Fabian and Morag Loh, Children in Australia: An Outline History , Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1980, p. 18.

^14. N.A. Loos, 'Queensland's Kidnapping Act: The Native Labourers Protection Act of 1884' , Aboriginal History , vol. 4, part 2, 1980, pp. 150-173.

^15. Ibid ., p. 153.

^16. Ibid ., p. 154. See also 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1901' , QPP , 1902, vol. 1, p. 1132 for more on this topic.

^17. Archibald Meston to the Home Secretary, 14 February 1899, in-letter no. 03618 of 1899, COL/140, Queensland State Archives (hereafter QSA).

^18. See, for example, the most thorough survey of Aboriginal workers undertaken in Queensland, 'Returns of Aboriginal and Half-Caste Females in Employment in 1920' [date and in-letter no. not provided], A/58912, QSA.

^19. A full listing of these cases would require 178 individual notations. A brief listing of the sources follows and a longer version is available upon request. See the following newspapers: the Boomerang , 1888; Mackay Mercury , 1867; Moreton Bay Courier , 1851, Queensland Figaro , 1884-1888, Queensland Punch , 1884, Queenslander , 1870-1902 and Western Star (Roma), 1883. The following archival sources were used: See the following files at Queensland State Archives: A/36305; A/ 44679; A/44680; A/44681; A/58045; A/58643; A/58679; A/58750; A/58751; A/58752; A/58927; A/ 58929; A/58930; A/69417; COL/A200; COL/A333; COL/A489; COL/A617; COL/A713; COL/ A743; COL/A766; COL/139; COL/140; COL/142; COL/144; COL/145; COL/483 (a); HOM/J22; HOS 13/1-32; POL/J14; POL/J15; POL/J19; QS 519/1. The following files at the Mitchell Library, New South Wales, were used: Ernest Gribble Papers, Australian Board of Missions Further Records, ML MSS 4503, Add-on 1822, 16 (6a). The following primary printed sources were used: Queensland Votes and Proceedings , 1897-1901 and Queensland Parliamentary Papers , 1901-1906
(particularly for the annual reports of the Northern and Chief Protectors of Aboriginals); J.H. Binnie, My Life on a Tropic Goldfield , A Bread and Cheese Club Publication, Brisbane, 1944; Mary Durack, Kings In Grass Castles , Constable & Company, London, 1959; James B. Stevenson, Seven Years in the Australian Bush , W.M. Potter, Liverpool, 1880; Anthony Trollope, Australia and New Zealand , vol. 1, G. Robertson, Melbourne, 1873; Arthur James Vogan, The Black Police: A Story of Modern Australia , Hutchinson & Co., London, 1890. The following secondary printed sources were used: F.S. Colliver (ed.), From Spear and Musket: Caboolture Centenary , Queensland: Sunstrip Printers, Nambour, Queensland, 1979; May, From Bush to Station ; May, Aboriginal Labour and the Cattle Industry and Henry Reynolds, With the White People: the crucial role of Aborigines in the development and exploration of Australia , Penguin Books, Ringwood, Victoria, 1990.

^20. Penelope Hetherington, who studied the use of Aboriginal child labour in the Swan River Colony from 1829-50, believed it was shortages of other labour that made Aboriginal child labour attractive in that colony. See Penelope Hetherington, 'Aboriginal Children as a Potential Labour Force in Swan River Colony' , Journal of Australian Studies , no. 33, June 1992, pp. 41-55.

^21. Jan Walker, Jondaryan Station: the relationship between pastoral capital and pastoral labour, 1840-1890 , University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland, 1988, p. 31.

^22. Kidd, The Way We Civilise , pp. 18-35.

^23. For example, McGrath, 'Born in the Cattle' ; Fels, Good Men and True ; May, Aboriginal Labour and the Cattle Industry ; and Reynolds, With the White People .

^24. Evans, '"Kings" in Brass Crescents' , pp. 183-212.

^25. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1900' , Queensland Votes and Proceedings (hereafter QVP ), 1901, vol. 4, part 2, p. 1337.

^26. 'Annual Report of the Inspector of Orphanages for the Year 1899' , QVP , 1900, vol. 5, Part, 1, p. 599.

^27. 'Report of the Inspector of Orphanages for the Year 1884' , QVP , 1885, vol. 2, p. 724.

^28. Ibid ., pp. 600-601.

^29. Supplement to the Queensland Government Gazette , 21 May 1880, p. 1138.

^30. W.E. Parry-Okenden, 'Report on the North Queensland Aborigines and the Native Police, with Appendices' , QVP , 1897, vol. 2, p. 18.

^31. This provision was not made compulsory until 1900.

^32. 'Annual Report of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals for 1905' , QPP , 1906, vol. 2, p. 924.

^33. Entry made on 13 November 1898, Police Station, Croydon, Watch-house Charge Book, 28 February 1898 8 May 1899,, A/36305, QSA.

^34. Ibid .

^35. Colonist (Brisbane), 15 July 1871, p. 2.

^36. Archibald Meston to the Home Secretary, 27 June 1901, in-letter no. 15120 of 1901, Aborigines West of the Warrego , COL/143, QSA.

^37. Queenslander (Brisbane), 2 May 1914, p. 8.

^38. Ibid .

^39. Queensland Figaro (Brisbane), 29 November 1884, p. 674.

^40. Queenslander , 24 July 1880, p. 113.

^41. Trollope, Australia and New Zealand , vol. 1, p. 73.

^42. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1902' , p. 461.

^43. Ibid .

^44. Bulletin (Brisbane), 19 June 1880, p. 1.

^45. Queenslander , 6 October 1883, p. 557.

^46. Ernest Gribble Papers, Australian Board of Missions Further Records, ML MSS 4503, Add-On 1822, 16 (6a), Mitchell Library, New South Wales.

^47. Ibid .

^48. Moreton Bay Courier , 31 July 1852, p. 2.

^49. Police Magistrate, Herberton, to the Colonial Secretary, 14 February 1887, in-letter no. 1268 of 1887, COL/A489, QSA.

^50. Queenslander , 27 August 1893, p. 426.

^51. 'Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1899' , Queensland Votes and Proceedings , 1900, vol. 5, p. 586.

^52.Ibid .

^53. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1902' , p. 461.

^54. Queenslander , 21 October 1871, p. 8.

^55. Queenslander , 1 July 1876, p. 18.

^56. Ibid .

^57. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1900' , p. 1336.

^58. Ibid

^59. Harold Meston to the Colonial Secretary, 9 March 1900, in-letter no. 03622 of 1900, COL/140, QSA.

^60. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1900' , p. 1336.

^61. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1902' , p. 461.

^62. Reynolds, With the White People , p. 179.

^63. Queensland Parliamentary Debates , 1901, vol. 82, p. 1420.

^64. Anna Haebich, Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000 Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 2000, p. 301.

^65. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1900' , p. 1336.

^66. May, Aboriginal Labour and the Cattle Industry , p. 53.

^67. Ernest Gribble to the Commissioner of Police, 12 January 1897, in-letter no. 00770 of 1897, POL/ J14, QSA.

^68. Archibald Meston to the Under Secretary, 11 January 1902, in-letter no. 00532 of 1902, COL/144, QSA.

^69. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1902' , p. 461.

^70. Trollope, Australia and New Zealand , p. 73.

^71. Gus Forrest, Sub-Inspector of Police, South Brisbane, to the Northern Protector of Aboriginals, 3 July 1903, in-letter no. 12665 of 1903, A/58929, QSA.

^72. Ibid .

^73. For example, 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1901' , p. 1138 and 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1902' , p. 461.

^74. 'Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1902' , p. 461.

^75. Ibid . See also Robert Castle and Jim Hagan, 'Regulation of Aboriginal Labour in Queensland: Protectors, Agreements and Trust Accounts 1897-1965' , Labour History , no. 72, May 1997, pp. 66-76.

^76. Rosalind Kidd, Black Lives, Government Lies , University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2000, p. 36.

^77. See Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study , Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982, pp. 17-34. for more on the idiom of power and its relationship to slavery.

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