nationalaboriginalandtorresstraitislanderdayofcelebration

Taroom Aboriginal Settlement is a heritage-listed Aboriginal reserve at Bundulla, Taroom, Shire of Banana, Queensland, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 May 2011.[1] It is also known as Taroom Aboriginal Reserve and Taroom Aboriginal Mission. It was established as a government-operated reserve on a site on the Dawson River, east of the township of Taroom in 1911. The settlement was established under the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, which enabled direct government control over the lives of Aboriginal people in Queensland, including forced removals to designated reserves. Under the direction of a superintendent, the settlement housed Aboriginal people from different language groups and regions of Queensland, who lived within a highly regulated and tightly controlled institutional environment until its closure in 1927. By segregating Aboriginal people from the rest of the community, the removals process was highly effective in fulfilling the government's objectives of increased control and regulation of the state's Aboriginals, enforced on settlements through a range of administrative and disciplinary measures. While humanitarian concerns were used as a justification for removal by advocates of the reserve system, Aboriginal people were forcibly removed for a wider range of reasons including illness; lack of employability or refusal to work; old age; as punishment; and after a jail sentence had been served.[20] While many groups had already been moved off their traditional land and were residing in fringe camps at settlements and stations, the removals program further severed many Queensland Aboriginals' capacity to maintain connections to country and traditional customary practices. Social and family networks were also profoundly altered, with children taken from their parents, wives from husbands and families split up and sent to different reserves. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taroom_Aboriginal_Settlement

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...

Some Aboriginal people work for the settlers. They are dressed in European clothes, fed European food, and live in camps near the homestead. They play a vital role in the development of the Queensland pastoral industry. The owners of Booubyjan had a good relationship with the Aboriginal people who lived and worked on the station. They commissioned FW Whitehouse to paint the portrait of Cobbo, which was hung on the homestead. Source: cherbourgmemory.org/booubyja-cobbo-at-booubyjan-station-1...