2021

Doomadgee is a largely Indigenous community located in the Gulf of Carpentaria, approximately 140km from the Northern Territory border and 93km west of Burketown. The community is positioned alongside the Nicholson River and provides access to the coast, freshwater rivers, and Lawn Hill National Park, one of the Gulf’s most popular natural tourist attractions. The Waanyi and Gangalidda people are recognized as the Traditional Owners of the region surrounding Doomadgee. The original mission, known as ‘Old Doomadgee’, was established in 1933 by a non-Indigenous family, the Akehurst family, with the support of the Christian Brethren Assemblies and Chief Protector of Aboriginals[2]. The mission was located at ‘Dumaji’ at Bayley Point Aboriginal reserve, on Gangalidda land. Archival records and personal accounts by residents describe the restrictive and difficult conditions at Doomadgee. In 1950, a government report severely criticized practices in use in the dormitory. At the time, mission policy required that all children over 6 years old lived in dormitories[14]. Boys left the dormitory around the age of 14 to take up station work. Girls were trained in domestic duties and often remained in the dormitories until they married. By the late 1950s, many residents left Doomadgee and went to the Mornington Island mission, where the practice of separating children from parents in dormitories had been abandoned. During the 1960s, older, unmarried girls began returning to their parents[16]. The dormitories closed at some point in the late 1960s. Source: www.qld.gov.au/firstnations/cultural-awareness-heritage-a...

‘On the Albert – 1893 – A day out with tribe and King – with Hon. C. Lambert’. Group, including Cyril Lambert (standing at rear), Polly Boyd nursing her daughter Milly, Jimmy Boyd, Sarah Clarke, Jackey Jackey, Billy Gallen, and Kipper Tommy Andrews. Albert River, 1893. Photograph by Will Stark. Who was Jackey Jackey? The man that is well documented in several photographs wearing the breastplate inscribed ‘Jackey Jackey – King of the Logan and Pimpama’ lived in the region of south-east Queensland near where the town of Beenleigh now stands on the lower Logan River. While a record identifying his birth has yet to be found, we estimate from his appearance in photographs in the years just prior to his death, as well as when his daughter Emily was born around 1853, 17 that he was born around 1820. He lived in the region from before the first European settlers arrived in the Beenleigh district in the 1860s until his death in around 1900. Source: press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n9914/pdf/01_aird_...

In Australia, a stockman (plural stockmen) is a person who looks after the livestock on a large property known as a station, which is owned by a grazier or a grazing company, traditionally on horseback. In this sense, it has a similar meaning to "cowboy". A stockman may also be employed at an abattoir, feedlot, on a livestock export ship, or with a stock and station agency. Aboriginal Australians were good stockmen who played a large part in the successful running of many stations. With their intimate bonds to their tribal places, and local knowledge they also took considerable pride in their work. After the gold rushes white labor was expensive and difficult to retain. Aboriginal women also worked with cattle on the northern stations after this practice developed in northern Queensland during the 1880s. A Native Administration Act later stopped the employment of women in cattle camps. Aboriginal people often received only food and clothing to retain their labor,[3] until they began to be paid a small cash wage in the 1950s and 1960s, much less than their white counterparts. In 1966, Vincent Lingiari led Gurindji workers on the Wave Hill walk-off, a strike on the large Vesteys cattle station in the Northern Territory, which brought about wage parity two years later. In the 21st-century class actions for these "stolen wages", as they have been dubbed, have taken place in Queensland, Western Australia, and the NT.[4] Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockman_(Australia)