farnorthqueensland

The Aboriginal community of Hope Vale on Cape York Peninsula was established as the Cape Bedford Mission by the Johann Flierl, a missionary of the Lutheran Church in 1886, with the settlement at Elim on the beach. Due to worries that the Aboriginal people might cooperate with the advancing Japanese in World War II, the total population was evacuated south to various communities by the military. The German Lutheran missionaries were sent to internment camps. Most of the people were sent to Woorabinda, near Rockhampton, in Queensland. In just one month, 28 people lost their lives, with nearly a quarter of the people dying over the next 8 years. Hope Vale was re-established as a Lutheran Mission in September 1949. Aboriginal people from the Hope Valley and Cape Bedford Missions settled there. A work crew was allowed to return in 1949 and the first families came home in 1950. Hopevale is no longer run as a mission by the church, but by its own elected Community Council. In 1986 it received a "Deed of Grant in Trust" (or "DOGIT") which "granted title to 110 000 ha of land which was previously Aboriginal Reserve Land held by the Under Secretary as trustee, to the Community Council to act as trustees of the land for the benefit of the residents." The Aboriginal Land Act 1991 (Qld) transferred into Indigenous ownership all previous reserve land under DOGIT (Deed of Grant in Trust) titles. Source: www.pocketoz.com.au/cairns/hope-vale.html

" Indigenous knowledge and manipulation of plants is neither simple nor pre-agricultural, and can only be understood by detailed study of the particular cultural and biological systems within which they operate. These patterns can be extremely dynamic and can affect both people, and the environment through occupational continuity. Most importantly, some plant communities may have been not merely modified by Created by Aboriginal cultural activity. Aboriginal interaction with plants are the outcome of strategies that include not only physical resource exploitation but as well systems of locality and territoriality that recognize ties between particular individuals and groups and particular home environments." Source: Plants, Sites and Domiculture: Aboriginal Influence upon Plant Communities in Cape York Peninsula R. A. Hynes and A. K. Chase, 1982 www.jstor.org/stable/40386578

This was the first mission on Cape York Peninsula, and became the oldest surviving mission in north Queensland. It was initiated by Lutheran staff from Cooper Creek (South Australia) who established Elim and it became a stable community with the assignment of two young Neuendettelsau missionaries, Schwarz and Poland who stayed for 55 and 20 years respectively and added the Hope Valley site. The whole community was evacuated during World War II, because of its German missionary and lugger connections with Japanese. After the war Hope Vale was established on a new site. Outspoken and indomitable Missionary Schwarz is still remembered at Hope Vale which has remained a cohesive community and is home of a number of active and high profile indigenous activists. Source: missionaries.griffith.edu.au/qld-mission/cape-bedford-mis...