Aborigines and Europeans

South Australia was settled at a time when humanitarian principles were being well promulgated in England and it was anticipated that in this colony the Aboriginal people would be treated more humanely than they had been in order parts of Australia. As a result of forceful representations made by the Colonial Office and Lord Glenelg, the Colonisation Commissioners, in their first annual report in 1836, remarked, with little enthusiasm, that the subject of Aboriginal rights 'cannot but be regarded as of the first importance in the formation of the new settlement of South Australia'. They declared that the 'colonisation of Southern Australia will be an advent of mercy to the native tribes …[In Australia] they are now exposed to every species of outrage, and treated like cattle of the field; they will in future be placed under the protection of British laws, and invested with the rights of British subjects'.

In the light of such apparent commitments, the Colonisation Commissioners recognised, theory if not in fact, that the Aboriginal occupants of South Australia had rights over the land. They also stated in their report that the Aborigines would be protected 'in the undisturbed enjoyment of their proprietary right to the soil'. This was to apply 'whenever such right may be found to exist' and wherever the Aborigines were 'not disposed to make a voluntary transfer' of this land. Further, 'all bargains and treaties made with the natives for the cession of lands possessed by them' would be recognised. These promises were easily repudiated in the practice.

Not only did the Commissioners plan to occupy land only by agreement with the Aboriginal inhabitants but, in addition, it was proposed that one-fifth of every 80-acre section of land ceded should 'be resumed as a reserve for the use of the Aborigines, and the remaining four parts, or 64 acres, to remain with the proprietor as his freehold'. Furthermore, small pockets of land were to be designated within the settled areas as refuges for Aboriginal people.

Unfortunately, the proposals contained in the report were not consistent with the provisions of the South Australian Colonisation Act of 1834, which regulated the sale of land in the new colony. As George Fife Angas said, when pleading for the rights of Aborigines before the House of Commons Select Committee on South Australia in 1841, 'With respect to the Act, I conceive that those words in the preamble, which declared that South Australia consists of waste and unoccupied lands, clearly exclude the Aborigines from any advantage whatever arising from the land; it does not even recognised their existence. They have no existence in a legal point of view, therefore no provision could be made for them by the commissioners. The natives cannot purchase or hold land.'

Governor Hindmarsh and Commissioner Fisher ignored the 1836 suggestions by the Colonisation Commissioners. However, Governors Gawler and Grey made some attempts to protect the rights of Aborigines over land, even though the lack of a legislative framework meant that only a few small areas of land were reserved for Aborigines during the early years of settlement. It was not until the passing of the (Imperial) Waste Lands Act of 1842 that the Governor was given power to set land aside 'for the use or benefit of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the country.

The map of Aboriginal lands shows the areas which were recorded as having been allocated for Aboriginal use between 1836 and 1860, the time of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council upon 'The Aborigines', and between 1861 and the 1913-15 (South Australian) Royal Commission on Aborigines. By 1860, over forty reserves had been declared, many of them in and around Adelaide. These pockets of land were generally small and totally inappropriate for Aboriginal methods of land-use. On the excuse Aborigines were not properly using the land, much of it was subsequently resumed and then leased or sold to European settlers. After 1860, few attempts were made to grant land directly to Aborigines, and little, if any, consideration was given to compensation of any kind.

Instead, areas on which Aborigines were collected together as the settlement frontier moved outwards tended to be leased to mission societies for the 'benefit of Aborigines' rather than being granted directly to them.

By 1915, only two kinds of land remained for Aboriginal use in settled areas. First, very small pockets of land unwanted by Europeans had been left, accidentally, under individual Aboriginal title. These were mainly located near the mouth of the River Murray. This resulted in a somewhat anomalous situation whereby a few Aboriginal familiars inherited land from their parents under general European law. Second, relatively substantial areas, often land considered to be poor or unsuitable for European use, were owned or lease by missionary societies.

Beyond the settled areas, the situation was somewhat different. Even as late as the Royal Commission of 1913-15, Aborigines in the western half of the State had been largely overlooked. Fortunately for them, their land was not thought suitable for either agricultural settlement or pastoral use, and they were therefore left in relative peace to follow their traditional patterns of land use. Here it was eventually possible - in the 1980s - to give Aborigines land title in compensation for land alienation.

Missions and Government Stations

Missionary bodies operated in South Australia from the earliest days of settlement. The first missionary school was started in 1839 by C.W. Schürmann and C.G Teichelmann of the Evangelical Lutheran Missionary Society of Dresden. This was established at the Native Location, a site set aside by the government on the banks of the River Torrens, just opposite Trinity Church on North Terrace. The Society opened a second school at Encounter Bay in 1841 to counteract the harmful effect of the Europeans at the whaling station upon local Aborigines. A third mission school for Aboriginal children was opened in 1844 at Walkerville, now a suburb of Adelaide.

Mission societies continued to purchase or lease as well as use Crown Land in various parts of the province, as the colonists moved inland and settled in areas further away from Adelaide. Poonindie, north of Port Lincoln, was the first extensive area of mission land. The site, comprising land suitable for grazing and agriculture, was purchased by Archdeacon Hale in 1850. Other land was added later to establish the Poonindie Native Training Institution. In 1859, the Aborigines' Friends' Association was inaugurated and acquired land at Point McLeay to cater for Aborigines who were found to be in a 'miserable' state in the vicinity of Goolwa.

The next acquisition of land for mission purposes was well beyond the frontiers of settlement in the Far North at Kopperamanna, an exchange post for Aboriginal trade. Here, on Cooper Creek, two mission societies acquired land and commenced missionary activities in 1866. Closer to the areas of agricultural settlement, a group of residents in the copper towns of Kadina and Moonta purchased land on Yorke Peninsula in 1868 and set up the Point Pearce Aboriginal Mission.

Of these early missions, only Point McLeay (renamed Raukkan in 1982) and Point Pearce have continued as Aboriginal settlements. On the recommendation of the Royal Commission of 1913-15, both were taken over by the government in 1914 and finally transferred to Aboriginal control in the 1970s.

Missions were established until the 1950s at places such a Nepabunna, Ernabella and Yalata. During the 1960s, there was a shift towards greater government involvement in Aboriginal affairs resulting in the establishment of three non-mission reserves at Amata, Indulkana and Davenport. The government also assumed control of some of the remaining missions.

Today, every populated mission and reserve is controlled by the local Aboriginal community and land is vested in the Aboriginal Lands Trust.

Ration Stations

Token compensation for the loss of land and food resources was provided for Aborigines from the earliest days of settlement. This compensation took the form of food and clothing. Initially, rations were distributed spasmodically by settlers, sometimes in exchange for labour, but distribution became more regular with the appointment of the first Protector of Aborigines in 1837. Rations were seen as a currency of communication; a means by which, it was believed, the confidence of Aborigines could be obtained. In 1839, the custom of providing an annual distribution of food and clothing on the Queen's Birthday was begun by the government. Matthew Moorhouse, who was appointed Protector in 1839, disapproved of such gifts, believing they made Aborigines 'idle and unsettled'. He had hoped that rations could be used as a reward for labour and as a means of 'training the Aborigines to habits of useful industry'.

Governor Grey began the systematic distribution of rations in 1841 as a means of pacifying Aborigines. Following conflicts between Aborigines and settlers on Eyre Peninsula and conflict between Aborigines and overlanders travelling along the River Murray, he approved the establishment of ration depots at Port Lincoln and at Moorundie on the River Murray, just south of the present location of Blanchetown. It was decided that flour should be distributed every second full moon to all Aborigines who chose to assemble on the condition that Aborigines do not attack settlers or their animals The distributions were soon made on every full moon. Beside flour, they sometimes included sugar, tea and blankets. Grey and Moorhouse hoped the rations should remove any need that Aborigines might have felt through force of hunger to attack the settler's stock or steal their provisions. The monthly distributions were also a time when government instructions could be issued and the police, who were the main distributors of these provisions, could get to know and identify local Aborigines.

Over the next fifteen years, new depots were established along the expanding frontier of settlement. By 1850, ration depots had been opened on Eyre and Yorke peninsulas, at the head of Spencer Gulf, at two points on the River Murray, and in the lower South-East. In most cases, the depots were police outposts set up in response to specific instances of violence between Aborigines and settlers, or in fear of the possibility of violence.

Although rations were initially given to all those who chose to attend, they were eventually restricted to only the sick and infirm. This change in policy coincided with the Victorian gold-rush in the early 1850s and the consequent exodus of a large part of the colony's work force. This created a labour void which the Aborigines partially filled. The government did not want the distributions of rations to interfere with this. In 1856, the Protector's Office was abolished and its functions, severely reduced, were taken over by the Crown Lands and Immigration Office. Subsequently, most of the depots were closed.

Following the report in 1860 of the Select Committee, the Protector's Officer was re-established and rations depots were again promoted, this time as a means of alleviating the hunger and disease Aborigines were now facing. Thus, in a little over twenty years, the role of the distribution of rations changed from a device of pacifying strong and threatening people to a means of easing the dying pangs of a rapidly declining population.

The map of ration stations for 1866 shows the rapid proliferation of depots as the European settlement frontier moved outward. Although rations were usually issued by Sub-Protectors or police, they were also given out on all missions, at post offices and some pastoral stations. The progress of white settlement can be judged from the change distribution of Aboriginal ration depots. By this time, the issue of rations was filling a dual role; in the more remote districts, Aborigines were still being bought or 'pacified' with such gifts, but in the settled areas they constituted a form of welfare.

Between 1880 and 1920 the number of depots gradually established at forty or fifty. The practice then developed of sending rations to towns and settlements as circumstances demanded, and of withdrawing them when no longer required. The distribution of rations is a practice some Aborigines would recall even today because it continued until 1964 when Aboriginal people became eligible for normal forms of pensions and social security.