In good faith? : governing Indigenous Australia through god, charity and empire, 1825-1855

234 Pages·2011·3.177 MB·English

by  Jessie Mitchell

In Good Faith?
Governing Indigenous Australia through God,
Charity and Empire,
1825-1855

In Good Faith?
Governing Indigenous Australia through God,
Charity and Empire,
1825-1855
Jessie Mitchell
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
E PRESS
E PRESS

Published by ANU E Press and Aboriginal History Incorporated
Aboriginal History Monograph 23

This title is also available online at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/good_faith_citation.html

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author: Mitchell, Jessie.
Title: In good faith? : governing Indigenous Australia through god, charity and empire, 1825-1855 /
Jessie Mitchell.
ISBN: 9781921862106 (pbk.) 9781921862113 (eBook)
Series: Aboriginal history monograph ; 23
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects: Indigenous peoples--Government relations.
Philanthropinism.
Aboriginal Australians--Politics and government.
Aboriginal Australians--Social conditions--19th century.
Colonization--Australia.
Dewey Number: 305.89915
Aboriginal History Incorporated
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Cover image: Missionary Register, September 1834, L & G Seeley, London. National Library of Australia,
N266.3CHU.
Cover design and layout by ANU E Press
Printed by Griffin Press
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This edition © 2011 ANU E Press and Aboriginal History Inc
Contents
Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
‘This land of Barbarians’:
missions and protectorates begin 13
‘Godless political experiments’:
philanthropy and governance 39
‘All white masters belong to your King’:
race, identity and empire 65
‘Our country all gone’:
rights, charity and the loss of land 87
Deserving poverty?
Rationing and philanthropy 109
Keeping body and soul together:
creating material ‘civilisation’ 129
‘Can these dry bones live?’
Religious life and afterlife 151
‘This bitter reproach’:
destruction, guilt and the colonial future 173
Conclusion 195
Bibliography 199
v

Illustrations
Figure 1. Map showing the locations of Indigenous communities and missions
in Australia. Prepared by Karina Pelling, Cartographic and GIS Services,
Australian National University.
Figure 2. During the 1830s, the Church Missionary Society published tales of
bush life, cultural clashes and missionary work at Wellington Valley. As the
picture indicates, many aspects of traditional Wiradjuri life were continuing,
to the fascination and concern of the missionaries. Missionary Register,
September 1834, L & G Seeley, London. National Library of Australia,
N266.3CHU.
Figure 3. British missionary publications were even more dismissive of pre-
colonial life than were their Australian counterparts, as this juxtaposition
of Indigenous people and native animals suggests. ‘An Australian Group’,
Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, Wesleyan Juvenile Offering,
February 1853, Wesleyan Mission House, London. Mitchell Library, State
Library of New South Wales, 266.705/W.
Figure 4. By the 1840s, philanthropists’ reports were becoming pessimistic.
As this choice of illustration in a missionary journal shows, Indigenous
Australians were increasingly portrayed as hopeless and doomed. ‘Burial
of one of the natives of Australia’, Wesleyan Missionary Society, Papers
Relative to the Wesleyan Missions, and to the State of Heathen Countries, no
CXI, March 1848, London. National Library of Australia, Petherick NK5726.
vii

Acknowledgements
This work began life as a doctoral thesis in history at the Australian National
University, and became a book during my time as a staff member with the
Australian National University and the University of Sydney, working as part of
a Discovery grant funded by the Australian Research Council. I also was assisted
greatly by a creative fellowship with the State Library of Victoria.
Particular thanks must go to Ann Curthoys for her keen, thoughtful and
generous supervision of this project, and to Peter Read and Jay Arthur of the
Aboriginal History monograph series, for their encouragement and support. I
am also grateful to the Australian Historical Association, who helped to promote
this work through the 2006 Serle prize.
Thanks must go to the manuscripts staff at the State Library of Victoria, the
Mitchell Library of New South Wales, the National Library of Australia and
the Public Records Office of Victoria for their assistance and permission to use
images, to Geoff Hunt for his editorial work, and to Karina Pelling of the ANU’s
Cartographic and GIS services for putting together such a useful map. I am
grateful, too, to Lynette Russell for making me welcome during a brief stay
at the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University, and to
Jane Lydon, Tom Griffiths and Verity Archer for their insights and enthusiasm.
Thanks, finally, to my family, for all their love and encouragement.
ix