by Sue Williams
Seeking another change and wanting more experience in local government, Jeanette then went to Gympie, 100 kilometres to the east, and worked for the Cooloola Shire Council, as it was then known, in its youth development unit. From there, she transferred to the library to work as the resource officer, starting the area’s first Indigenous resource unit. As part of that, she organised an Aboriginal art and poetry exhibition. The art section of the project came together nicely, but the poetry venture began to founder when she realised she simply didn’t have enough poems. ‘I panicked about it one night, and then just sat down and put pen to paper myself,’ she laughs. ‘I wrote a few poems to fill the gap.’ One of her poems, ‘Mission Impassable’, ended up being read out by the then arts minister, in preference to others penned by such celebrated Aboriginal writers as Kath Walker, Cec Fisher and Maureen Watson. The exhibition went on to travel all around Queensland, to rave reviews.
Homesick again for Cherbourg, Jeanette finally returned again in 2001 and did some voluntary work for a local radio station that had been started three years earlier by the Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Council on a narrowcast licence in a van borrowed by the ABC. The next year, she did more and, by 2003, she was working full-time for the UsMob FM radio station, now installed in the town’s old canteen building. The other major Aboriginal settlement in Queensland, Woorabinda, 170 kilometres south-west of Rockhampton, had its own radio station, and Brisbane had an Aboriginal station too, so it was felt the time had come for Cherbourg as well.
‘I went on a training workshop for people interested in radio and was very enthusiastic about it,’ says Jeanette, who’s now station manager. ‘Radio is a great way to speak to the community and I felt that as well as entertaining people, it’s a great way to inform and educate them too. I was always looking for more opportunities to educate people! It’s about keeping people up to date with what’s happening, and letting them know about health campaigns or giving them the opportunity to become involved in things.’
At the same time, Jeanette, together with her sister Sandra and other friends and family, was becoming more and more interested in the history of Cherbourg, and the stories of the Aboriginal people sent there from its establishment in 1904. But the quest to discover their family and town’s history brought with it more heartbreak than they could ever have imagined.
Jeanette discovered her great-grandparents on her mother’s side, like most Aboriginal people of the time, had been driven off their traditional lands by the influx of white pastoralists. Hungry and frustrated, they’d then raid the cattle of the newcomers they saw occupying their lands, and brutal, bloody reprisals by the white settlers would often follow. Hunting parties of settlers were sent out to kill, and massacres of entire Aboriginal groups were commonplace. Jeanette and her siblings have never been able to find out what happened to their great-grandparents, and they fear they died in one of those well-documented bloodbaths.
They were able to uncover plenty more about their grandfather and grandmother, however. Their grandfather was Charlie Chambers, born in North Queensland in about 1878. At the age of three, he was stolen from his family’s camp by white settlers looking for cheap – or free, in this case – labour, which, a later police magistrate’s report recorded, was ‘a matter of frequent occurrence and a recognised custom in this district’. It seemed he must have later escaped his captors because at the age of 14, he turned up in Cooktown, in Far North Queensland, working for a South African travelling circus, putting on shows all around Queensland with lions, elephants, a tiger and performing monkeys. The circus also visited Sydney and Melbourne, and then departed for South Africa, leaving Charlie behind on the streets with neither food nor money.
He was arrested by the police and then sent off to work on a farm. He managed to get away again but, back on the streets of Melbourne, was arrested once more and dispatched to a mission near Echuca, on the banks of the Murray River in Victoria. After rebelling against his new masters, he eventually, according to them, ‘yielded to the influence of the gospel of Christ’.
He was taken by the missionaries to help them set up an Aboriginal school near the Glass House Mountains, an hour north of Brisbane, but when that didn’t work out, he went to Brisbane. It was 1897, a landmark year in Aboriginal affairs. The state government had assented to the notorious Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, which ushered in a long era of segregation for, and tight control of, Aboriginal people through which they lost their legal status as British citizens and became, in effect, wards of the state. Charlie was promptly sent off to an Aboriginal reserve on Fraser Island, off the coast of Hervey Bay. It was here he met his wife-to-be, Nancy Watson.
At a young age, Nancy had been removed from her home with her parents and siblings in Winton, Western Queensland, and sent to work on a property. It seems she was badly abused and beaten there, as records show that a few years later in 1900, aged 15, she was transferred to an asylum in Brisbane for rehabilitation. After she was judged to have recovered enough, she was also sent to Fraser Island where she worked, spending her days doing domestic chores.
The couple asked for permission to marry, and had their first child, a son, when Nancy was 16. But the settlement was harsh and plagued by malnutrition and disease. When it was inspected by shocked authorities, the decision was made to close the place and move everyone to the Yarrabah mission near Cairns. The pair were taken there along with everyone else and, after a few years, they were transferred to another mission, Barambah – later to become Cherbourg. The two would have had no idea that, unlike other reserves at the time, Barambah had people from so many language groups that it was even more fractured than the other reserves with usually only one or two language groups. Under tight controls, Nancy and Charlie travelled down from Cairns to their new life.
It was little wonder, however, that neither of Jeanette’s grandparents ever talked much about what it had been like in Cherbourg during those early days. Absolutely everything about their lives was controlled by the Protector of Aborigines, who was, in reality, the Commissioner of Police. He ruled where everyone could live, where they had to work, what they could eat, what language they spoke, who they could see, what they could spend their money on, when their babies would be taken from them to live in the children’s dormitories and whether they’d be allowed to visit them afterwards. At school, children were taught domestic or manual duties in preparation for being hired out to employers. The regime was harsh, with punishments for disobedience for the small children including having their heads shaved, while adults were banished to Palm Island for even minor misdemeanours.
The reason given by the government of the day for the removal of people and their forced habitation in reserves like Barambah was for the ‘care and protection of the remnants of a dying race’. Historian Thom Blake, however, says in his book Dumping Ground: A History of the Cherbourg Settlement 1900–1940 that the contracting out of inmates meant they were a useful source of money, especially as they didn’t need to be fed, and that the regime was kept in place through a range of terrible punishments, which included deportation without appeal for crimes that were never committed. ‘Parallels to the African slave trade in North America are easily drawn,’ he says. Others compare it to the old apartheid regime in South Africa, with its ‘pass’ system similarly restricting the movement of the black population.
Starvation and disease in Cherbourg were also endemic, with TB, pneumonia, heart failure and suicide commonplace. From 1916 to 1925, the infant mortality rate was one in three. Between 1906 and 1920, death rates were 10 times greater than for the Australian population as a whole, and four times greater than for the general Aboriginal populace. In short, it was a horrendous experiment in social engineering that was to have dire consequences for everyone there, and for generations to come.
Nancy was assigned to work in the girls’ dormitory and to run the soup kitchen and Charlie was set to work on manual tasks and sometimes on stations in other
parts of Queensland. They had two more sons and three daughters, one of them Jeanette’s mother, Naomi. Life wasn’t much better for her, either. Naomi was sent away by the settlement’s superintendent at the age of 12 to work at a sheep station in Longreach, over 1000 kilometres away. In turn, after she met and married fellow inmate Jack, most of her children, too, were sent off to work as soon as they reached the age of 13. Charlie finally died in 1958, and Nancy, 10 years and three days later, in 1968.
The more Jeanette and Sandra learnt about the early days of Cherbourg, the more they started feeling this hidden history should be brought to the attention of all Australia. With the preparations for the marking of the former reserve’s centenary in 2004, Sandra and another of their sisters, Lesley, were collecting items for a historical display when they discovered the old ration shed still intact, at the bottom of the footy oval. ‘It brought back a lot of memories for us, and we thought it should be preserved for the town,’ says Sandra. ‘So we got it moved and did it up and then started collecting people’s memories and photos and everything about the town. Then we started looking at other buildings, too, that we could use as spaces for people to tell their stories.’
The Ration Shed Museum was opened in time for the centenary celebrations and, run as a not-for-profit venture, immediately became a great source of pride for those in the community and a major attraction for those beyond. It was a place for stories to be shared and survival to be celebrated. ‘It’s been a great achievement for the town,’ says Jeanette, who now juggles her time between helping run the shed and the radio station. ‘It’s really helped put Cherbourg on the map – for the right reasons this time. We’re all very glad our story is finally being told.’
Jeanette Brown. (Photo by Jimmy Thomson)
Jeanette Brown is today celebrating the world premiere of her first film. It’s nothing terribly grand: a 15-minute documentary about a middle ear infection named otitis media, which is common among Indigenous Australians. The short movie was made by project director, Andrew Beckett, with Jeanette working as the assistant manager. ‘It’s about educating people again,’ she says, almost apologetically. ‘These kind of health messages are terribly important for our community, and it’s great to have played a role in getting them out there.’ Now there are plans to run a training program for young people wanting to work in film, and to make other movies, TV programs and music videos.
Andrew, who’s worked with Jeanette on the radio station for the last four years, says she has been a wonderful colleague. ‘She works hard, and works extremely well under pressure,’ he says. ‘But she’s also a lot of fun, too. She gets things done, and has been a driving force at the radio station. She’s a very proactive person.’
In 2008, she also started a small monthly newspaper for Cherbourg, UsMob News. It had all the local news on health initiatives and advances, as well as details of upcoming events and reports on sporting fixtures. At one point, a couple of journalists from Indigenous Community Volunteers, an organisation offering skilled volunteers to Aboriginal groups for certain projects, came to help train Jeanette and her staff in the new skills they needed. Only recently has it been temporarily suspended, in preparation for becoming an online newsletter instead.
‘Jeanette’s been good for this place,’ says Ken Bone, who’s been mayor of Cherbourg, on and off, for 15 years. ‘The radio station has been great and it’s very well supported, and the Ration Shed is very well loved by locals and outsiders. We now get a lot of visitors through and while Cherbourg was known about for a long time, it’s now putting a much more positive angle on it.’
Yet Cherbourg still has far more than its fair share of problems. With parents in the past who were banned from rearing their children, and children who’ve grown up alone without many constants in their life, it’s little wonder that there’s such dislocation in the community and that health problems are common, alcohol and drug abuse are rife, and suicide rates are consistently high. Unemployment is also a problem, with only 31 per cent of the workforce having full-time jobs. There’s still anger over the wages stolen by the government, and there’s a lot of frustration over the regulations that make ownership of Indigenous land or housing nigh on impossible. ‘People can’t buy a piece of land and the house on it, even though they may have been living there for five generations,’ sighs Jeanette. ‘There’s still so much unfinished business. Of course, it was good to get the apology from the Australian government, but there’s so much more that needs to be done.’
The centenary celebrations did a great deal to revive the community and there are always many new projects and programs happening. The Olympic torch coming through Cherbourg on the 10th anniversary of the Sydney Olympics was a huge boost to the town. Yet for Jeanette, now a grandmother of four, change can’t happen quickly enough.
‘The children do have a lot more opportunities now,’ she says. ‘They have education, bikes, movies and events. We didn’t even have a shop when we were growing up here. But there are a lot of issues now with drugs and alcohol that weren’t so common in our time. We’ve achieved a lot and grown, but there’s still plenty to do.’
Bringing together the past and the present to create a better future is a constant challenge, but recently Jeanette and her sisters decided to take some time out to be able to remember the past in a more pleasant way. They took a cruise together from Brisbane up to Cairns, to retrace – in reverse – the journey their grandparents had made all those years ago, coming down from the reserve near Cairns to Fraser Island and then to Cherbourg.
‘It was absolutely lovely,’ says Jeanette with a smile. ‘It was beautiful looking at the scenery and seeing what they must have seen at the time. Our ship, I’m sure, was a lot more comfortable, though! But it was great all being together for the journey. It was like exorcising a ghost in one way, and giving our thanks to those who came before and helped make us who we are today. They won’t be forgotten, but we’ll use their memory to make Australia a better, fairer and happier place.’
14
PODDIES AND PEARLS
Marie Muldoon, Douglas Daly, Northern Territory
It is one of the most exquisite strands of absolutely perfect pearls Marie Muldoon has ever seen. The woman at the other end of the phone line, in her plush apartment in New York’s Manhattan, has fallen in love with the necklace, too. She just doesn’t know whether she can afford it. The discussion has been long, intense and exhausting. Marie, sitting in the dusty outhouse that serves as her office at her property in the red dust of Northern Australia, has been at her very best: passionate, purposeful and patient.
After nearly an hour, the two women edge closer to a deal. The American seems finally on the verge of agreeing to the hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars on the price tag. Marie holds her breath. It’s at last beginning to look like a sale for this precious Paspaley piece. There’s a silence on the line. Both women wait in strained expectation.
A deafening bellow suddenly rends the air. And then another. And another. Marie squirms with embarrassment. ‘I’m so sorry!’ she says down the phone. ‘I’m afraid I work from home, and that’s our young poddy calf, Stella. She just wanted to say hello.’ She holds her breath for the reply.
There’s a moment’s hush before Marie can hear the sound of soft laughter coming from the other end of the line. ‘That’s all right, my dear,’ the woman’s saying. ‘I’ll take the pearls. You Australians! I must get over there one day and see your country for myself . . .’
As part of one of Australia’s best-known Outback dynasties, Marie Muldoon has never strayed too far from the land. She’s had time out over the years to try, and invariably succeed, at a variety of professions, but she’s always managed to straddle the divide between country and town, Outback and city, whether that’s Darwin, Sydney or even further afield – New York, Paris, Rome . . .
Yet however far Marie has roamed, she just keeps on returning to her first love. And considering her background, it’s no rea
l surprise.
Marie Underwood was born the eldest daughter of Terry and John Underwood, the couple who created the isolated Northern Territory property of Riveren, 600 kilometres south-west of Katherine, their nearest town. Sydney nurse Terry had met Territory cattleman John after he stayed at her hospital for treatment of a serious back injury and later accompanied him back into the wilds where she, in turn, became one of the nation’s most unlikely, but well-loved, champions of the Outback.
Marie grew up on Riveren, along with her brothers, Patrick and Michael, and sister, Becky. ‘It was an idyllic childhood, unique for sure,’ she reflects. ‘We were so remote, and while we had one or two governesses to teach us, they never lasted long. It was always back to Mum to teach us. She ended up spending 18 years in that schoolroom!
‘It must have been hard, with four of us little bush kids under the age of eight, all quite wild and free-spirited. As soon as there was a storm on the horizon or a beautiful sunset or something exciting outside, like a muster or a newborn foal, we were all out there and wanting to be a part of it. So we were connected to everything. We loved the animals and the earth and the weather and our upbringing, and we grew up with a lot of really beautiful Aboriginal children. One of my earliest friends was a little black kid the same age as me, Patrick Jamtin. Such a great name!’
All the kids would participate in the musters, take turns feeding the poddy calves and help their dad train his racehorses. At age 11, Marie had her first racing win with a horse she’d trained, and bought a bike with her prize. As far as a social life went, that was confined to a few trips to the races, local gymkhanas or visits to John’s brother’s and sister’s families on neighbouring properties, each around 100 kilometres away.