Graffiti accuses elite Catholic Brisbane private school All Hallows' of slavery

An elite Brisbane all-girls private school has been accused of slavery after an Indigenous Facebook page shared images of graffiti accusing it of keeping Aboriginal children as slaves well into the 1960s.

Police are investigating after an Indigenous activist Facebook page took aim at an elite Brisbane all-girls private school – posting photos of graffiti accusing it of keeping Aboriginal children as slaves well into the 1960s.

Indigenous activist page Refugee Solidarity Meanjin posted photos of graffiti at All Hallows'’ School in Brisbane claiming the school kept Indigenous child slaves.

The post has gained significant traction online with over 500 likes, 110-plus comments, and more than 180 shares.

All Hallows'’ School is a Catholic day school for girls, located in Fortitude Valley. It was founded in 1861, follows in the tradition of the Irish Sisters of Mercy, and caters for more than 1400 girls from Years 5 to 12.

According to police, All Hallows’ School was vandalised between January 27 and January 28. All Hallow’s School reported the graffiti to police the morning of January 28, 2022.

Indigenous activist page Refugee Solidarity Meanjin posted photos of graffiti at All Hallows'’ School in Brisbane claiming the school kept Indigenous child slaves. Photo: Facebook.

Police are currently investigating, but so far no charges have been laid.

It’s understood the graffiti has since been removed.

An All Hallows'’ School spokesperson confirmed the police investigation but did not comment on the nature of the graffiti.

According to Refugee Solidarity Meanjin’s Facebook post from February 1 2022, the photos were anonymously submitted.

“All Hallows'’ kept Aboriginal children as slaves as late as the 1960s,” the Refugee Solidarity Meanjin Facebook post read.

A poster was attached to the wall to accompany the graffiti and read: “There was no slavery in Australia — Prime Minister Scott Morrison”.

“In 2020, Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed that slavery never existed in so-called Australia.

“In Queensland, with a long history of ‘blackbirding’, human trafficking, and indentured servitude of Pacific Islander and Aboriginal peoples, we know this claim to be false.

“There was no slavery at All Hallows'’ School,” the poster read.

“Although the school has never officially made this claim, it may as well have. There has been no formal acknowledgment or public recognition of the school’s racist history and those children who were forced to work as slaves on its grounds.

“A few years ago, it was revealed that young Aboriginal women were stolen from their families and taken to work as slaves at All Hallows'’ School.

Indigenous activist page Refugee Solidarity Meanjin posted photos of graffiti at All Hallows'’ School in Brisbane claiming the school kept Indigenous child slaves. Photo: Facebook.

“All Hallows'’ claims to have acknowledged the Turrbal people as the traditional owners of the land on which the school stands.

“But when will the school acknowledge its own involvement in the Turrbal people’s dispossession?

“This Invasion Day, we remember that the colonisation of Turrbal and Yuggera lands has not ended. There has been no justice for any of these people, whose land remains stolen.

“We stand in solidarity with them.

“Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.”

Past All Hallows'’ students have shared collective outrage at discovering the school’s possible links to slavery.

Indigenous activist page Refugee Solidarity Meanjin posted photos of graffiti at All Hallows'’ School in Brisbane claiming the school kept Indigenous child slaves. Photo: Facebook.

“At not one single point of my schooling there – in which we learnt in depth history of the school – was I taught about this,” said a past student who graduated in 2018.

“So much white wealth is built off the unpaid labor of black and brown people,” said another past student who also graduated in 2018.

“Pay the rent and pay the wages.”