Flesh, Dreams and spirit : life on Aboriginal mission stations, 1825-1850 a history of cross-cultural connections
Date
2005
Authors
Mitchell, Jessie
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Abstract
During the first half of the 19th century, Indigenous Australians suffered rapid and
brutal colonial dispossession, resulting in loss of land, life, health, culture and
independence. Alongside this, though, they also experienced the efforts of a number
of self-styled Christian humanitarians: Protestant missionaries and government appointed
protectors with a mandate to shelter and nurture Aboriginal people
physically, and to change and control them culturally. This work focuses on such
projects in New South Wales and Victoria between 1825-1850; specifically, the
missions at Lake Macquarie, Wellington Valley and Buntingdale, and the Port Phillip
Aboriginal Protectorate. These institutions ran on the assumption that a viable future
would be available only to those Aboriginal people who submitted to missionary
observation and authority. These people were expected to experience (Protestant)
Christian conversion, embrace hard, regular farming work, and allow their bodily
functions and hungers to be regulated by missionaries, whilst learning Christian
shame and self-discipline.
However, missionaries' and protectors' efforts were shaken, weakened and
transformed by the relationships they developed with other white colonists and with
Aboriginal people. During this period, protectors and missionaries often lacked the
political and physical power they would display in later decades, and their writings
were shaped by fears about the forms Australian colonialism was taking and the
possibility that the white civilisation they wished to represent was neither dominant
nor safe. This led to powerful feelings of loneliness and moral siege, affecting
missionaries' views on savagery, civilisation, morality and race.
Moreover, life on missions and protectorate stations was shaped not only by
European attitudes but also by the vital and complex relationships that developed
between missionaries and Aboriginal people. Historical discussions of these early
missions have tended to be dominated by a focus on the reasons for missionaries'
and protectors' "failure" to achieve their civilising aims. However, a more nuanced
understanding of this period can be gained by exploring the different ways
Aboriginal people saw their relationships with missionaries and with the country on which mission stations stood, and their various responses to missionary projects of
evangelism and bodily control. The power of Indigenous ideas, actions and choices,
at a time when missionaries' authority was greatly limited, makes the story of these
early stations in many ways unique and vital to our overall understanding of mission
history and Australian colonialism.
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