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• ◇McIvor/MacIvor▲aboriginal context□corridor placeline 77

  Station, but there are no white men there, and the owner resides at Somerset. All these stations are on / western waters. The whole eastern watershed of the peninsula, north from the McIvor, is, with the

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the mildness of his retaliation, we may say that the Australian aboriginal has shown more forbearance
and forgiveness for his enemies than any other known race—certainly any civilised race—would have
displayed under similar conditions.
It seems time to cease applying the word "savage" to the primitive races of mankind, and confer
it with far more justice on such "civilised" nations as those conspicuous for their deeds in Europe at
the present time.
The Batavia and Ducie tribes are clean-skinned healthy people, with fine eyes and beautiful
teeth. The men are chiefly of good physique, and many are 6 feet in height. Some of the women
are tall and graceful, and others are small and slight. They are elegantly made, walk erect as palm
trees, and are active as cats. In the dry season they have a fair supply of food, but in the wet months
they are frequently half starved. If they spear a horse or bullock occasionally at such a period they are
doing what most white men would do if they and their wives and children were suffering from hunger.
I would suggest that at least three of these overland telegraph stations be always in charge of officers
friendly to the aboriginals. They ought, for obvious reasons, to be married men, if only to disarm the
suspicion to which single men of even the most blameless character would be inevitably exposed. They
require to be married for other reasons. The stations referred to are Mein, Moreton, and McDonnell.
A bullock could be killed once a week at each station and given to the blacks. This would only mean
fifty-two bullocks in the four wet months. Even for the whole year it would represent only 156
bullocks, and as the squatters offer to supply them at £2 per head, the total annual cost would be £312.
I have authority for saying that the four squatters north of the Archer approve of this proposal, that
each is prepared to make a present of so many cattle, and will co-operate to secure a successful result.
This would reduce the cost.
If this work is properly done, it would not only supply the blacks with food and bring them into
harmonious relations with the whites, but ensure protection to both races and secure safety for the lives
and property of the settlers.
It would establish peace where they has been perpetual discord not creditable to anyone concerned.
The past order of things demands an early change. The attitude of mutual hostility between the
two races ought not to continue a day longer than it can be effectually altered. The system of native
police is urgently in need of radical reconstruction. For the police of this colony, as a class, I have ever
had a specially friendly feeling, and the admiration honestly deserved by an honourable and effective body
of men; but there are some who, for various reasons, are utterly unfitted to have any voice or power of
action or any business whatever with the aboriginals either in peace or war, and ought under no
circumstances whatever to be placed in charge of native police, or in any position requiring the finer
feelings of humanity and the sense of justice necessary in dealing with a wild race to whom the
administration of our law, and the law itself, is a hopeless conundrum.
The native police have been maintained at a heavy cost, as the Estimates and expenditure records
will show. One-third of that cost expended for the friendly benefit of the blacks would have been
immeasurably more effective in promoting peace, and have left an infinitely nobler record behind. The
system is an anomaly in the present period of Queensland history, and requires the earliest possible
abolition. If possessed of a correct knowledge of the work of this force, I am certain the present
Government would not tolerate it for another year, nor would the present Commissioner of Police.
Under a proper friendly system, quite practicable if properly administered, and certain in its
results, the whole aboriginal population of the Cape York Peninsula and Gulf Rivers could be effectively
controlled, induced to readily give up their own criminals, and peace maintained between them and
the settlers for one-third of the cost of the present unsatisfactory order of things. The new system
would of course protect whites from blacks, and blacks from whites, with equal impartiality, and ensure
the same penalty for the white man who murders a black as the black who murders a white man.
The native women are everywhere a source of discord between the races. Kidnapping of boys
and girls is another serious evil. Both have been the causes of many murders and many crimes very little
better than murder. Boys and girls are frequently taken from their parents and their tribes, and
removed far off whence they have no chance of returning; left helpless at the mercy of those who
possess them, white people responsible to no one and under no supervision by any proper authority.
Some are admirably treated, and others are badly used. Stringent legislation is required to
prevent a continuance of abuses concerning the women and children. To realise the effect of these
abuses on the aboriginal men it would be necessary for some race stronger than ourselves to come here
and treat our own women and children in a similar manner. What would the fathers, husbands, and
brothers of Queensland do under the circumstances? Scattered all over Queensland are aboriginal boys
and girls, or grown men and women, in the service of people for whom they have been obtained by various
means, honest or otherwise. You will readily understand the false position of these boys and girls growing
up to the age at which they require mates, in situations isolated from all members of their own race, and
with no prospect of mating honourably with any other, even if such a union were at all desirable.
In many places I found aboriginal women kept by kanakas who had rented land from white men,
or are in the employ of white men, and others frequenting the abodes of Chinamen. In no case were
these women obtained with the consent of their own tribes or relatives. At one place, where a station
property was in charge of two kanakas and three aboriginal women, the lawful owner of one of the
women had twice tried to spear one of the kanakas, and was on the watch to make a third attempt. The
kanaka never moved outside the house without his rifle. He even stood it beside the fireplace when
cooking. If the husband of the abducted woman succeeds in spearing him, as he probably will, we shall
hear of another "treacherous murder by the blacks," and the usual form of punishment without the least
inquiry into the right or wrong of the question.
In the Cape York Peninsula, north of the 17th parallel, there are at present probably 20,000
aboriginals, of whom at least 12,000 have so far had no intercourse with the white race. From the Archer
River northwards the total occupation by whites is represented by four cattle stations, the most northern
being York Downs, on the head of the Embley River. Farther north, on the Ducie, is Bertie Haugh
Station, but there are no white men there, and the owner resides at Somerset. All these stations are on
western waters. The whole eastern watershed of the peninsula, north from the McIvor, is, with the