A memorable moment in the hearings of the Yoorrook Justice Commission Victoria was the appearance of Suzannah Henty, a descendant of the Portland Hentys, early colonisers of Gunditjmara Country. She spoke of 'how obsessed the settler colony is with creating a narrative around its legitimacy, which is, like I said, based on lies'.
A Yoorrook researcher drew my attention to another connection, the role of the Victorian Board for the Protection of the Aborigines. Attached is the 49th report of the Board, dated 14 November 1921 and presented to both Houses of the Victorian Parliament in 1922. Appointed to the Board in May 1916 was HJM Campbell, MP for Glenelg, my great-grandfather, known to his family as 'Papa'. Papa was no longer a member of the Board when it reported this time, having lost his seat in 1920 and died in October 1921.
The report is brief, only seven pages. (The 1921 report was the Board's first since 1912.) Here are some excerpts (link is below):
At the inception of the newly-constituted body [the Board] the general policy to be adopted was considered, and after very full discussion it was decided that in the interests of economical management the remaining blacks and such half castes as are unable to maintain themselves should be housed on one station ... On the 7th August, 1917, after all stations had been inspected and a visit had been paid to the principal New South Wales station at Cumeroogunga (Moama), it was resolved that all blacks and half castes needing assistance should be concentrated at Lake Tyers as soon as the necessary accommodation was provided. The station was chosen on account of the fine climatic conditions, its isolation, and the few hotels in the locality ...
As trouble is caused from time to time by the blacks at Lake Tyers obtaining liquor, the Government has been requested to introduce an amendment of the Licensing Act with a view to tightening up the provisions of law regarding the sale of liquor to half castes or quadroons within 20 miles of any station.
There followed a table of '[t]he number of aborigines and half castes who have been maintained or partly provided for during the year ended 30th June, 1921': a total of 331 in nine localities, the total divided into 'Blacks', 'Three-quarter Caste', and 'Half-Caste and Under'. Then, there were tallies of births, deaths and marriages, again classified by caste fractions ('Full', 'Three-quarter', 'Half'), expenditure and revenue, and land reserves. Educational progress of children at two state schools was 'satisfactory'.
I suspect that Papa Campbell's role on the Board was not big news in his family at the time. Certainly, HJM's granddaughter, my mother, born Bessie Campbell in 1915, did not mention it when I asked her around 1965, 'What happened to the Aborigines, Mum?' Her answer: 'They died out'.
Perhaps that was an accurate description of the 'destruction by fractionalisation' that the Board oversaw. Others would have called it 'breeding out the colour', by either kidnapping or isolation, followed by partnering with Whites, to produce 'less black' offspring better able to assimillate into White society.
Three-quarter castes, Half-castes, Quadroons, Octoroons (that's one-eighth Black). What were those mathematically precise Board members thinking? We need to do better today in dealing with the effects of colonisation.
More on HJM Campbell, including a picture on the steps of his mansion in about 1910, with extended family. My mother was born in this house in 1915 and lived there with her family until 1921.
Picture credits: HJM Campbell (1854-1921) c. 1918 (author); William Barak, Wurundjeri elder (c. 1823-1903), c. 1866 (Carl Walter/Wikipedia). Barak died at Coranderrk, one of the former reserves consolidated into Lake Tyers in 1917.
