healcountry

A Brief History of Widgee For thousands of years, the Widgee area was home to the Kabi Kabi aboriginals of the Wide Bay region, with one tribal group, the Kaiabara, particularly associated with Widgee. Unfortunately, the advent of European settlement resulted in much friction between the local aborigines and the settlers early on, finally resulting in the local tribes being driven from the area. Their former presence is marked today by a number of bora rings and by many of the local place names. The first European settlers arrived in Widgee in the late 1840s following William Tooth and Company's successful tender for two runs in the area. Tooth and Company's Widgee Station was renowned in its early days for the quality and quantity of beasts fattened in the area, and for the exploits of the local horsemen. The tradition of horsemanship lives on today in the annual Bushman's Carnival held each May. Source: www.widgee.info/widgee_history.htm

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)

The community of Cherbourg, formerly known as Barambah, is located in the South Burnett district of south-east Queensland. According to research conducted by anthropologist Norman Tindale, Cherbourg is situated on the traditional lands of the Wakka Wakka Aboriginal people.[ In 1843, Barambah station was taken up by the pastoralists J S Ferriter and Edmund Uhr. The arrival of the pastoralists led to the dispossession of local Aboriginal people and widespread frontier violence. In the Wide Bay and Burnett districts, 28 squatters and shepherds were killed by Aborigines between 1847 and 1853. By 1850, the squatters had called for Native Police protection; in the interim, reprisal killings by the squatters continued. By 1853, a report from the Burnett District stated that: ‘this district is looking well, the blacks are perfectly quiet, sheep all healthy, and greatly on the increase…the native police are most efficient.’ [9] After the hand over to the Queensland Government, living conditions and facilities at Barambah failed to improve and the Aboriginal residents of Barambah lacked adequate housing, sanitation, education and medical facilities. They were issued basic rations by the government, but the quality of the food was often poor.[16] As a result of these factors, Barambah suffered a high death rate in its initial decades, and epidemics of tuberculosis, whooping cough, dengue fever and measles were regular occurrences at the reserve.[17 Government control was also increasingly exerted through the establishment of the dormitory system for Aboriginal children at Barambah. The Reformatory Schools (Industrial) Act 1865 authorised the government to remove ‘neglected’ Aboriginal children from their families and raise them in state controlled dormitories. The first girls’ dormitory building at Barambah was built in 1909 and a boys’ dormitory was completed in 1910. The first dormitories at Barambah had no beds or mattresses and the children slept on the floor. Over time, the dormitory system at Barambah was expanded to include older girls and mothers with young children. Source: www.qld.gov.au/firstnations/cultural-awareness-heritage-a...