Re-enactment pageant sparked ‘day of mourning’ protest
In 1938 aborigines asked whether consciences were clear in regard to treatment of Australian blacks by Australian whites.
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MARY was 38 and mother of six children when she died of pneumonia, “neglected & starving & terribly ill” at Cowra’s Erambie Aboriginal mission in 1937.
Her former employer Joan Strack was outraged, especially as Mary was due to appear in January 1938 before a NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the NSW Aboriginal protection board.
Convened in November 1937, the inquiry had already heard of ongoing tuberculosis deaths at Cowra and Menindee missions. At Brewarrina, director Edwin Dalley reported that
90 per cent of mission residents had eye complaints, but were otherwise in good health. Mary had wanted to give evidence on mistreatment of girls sent anywhere in the state at age 14 on “domestic apprenticeships”, which frequently left them pregnant and unpaid when sent back to missions in disgrace.
While the inquiry pondered evidence of sexual abuse, health neglect and withholding of food and payments, American-born actor and theatre manager Hugh Ward was arranging a pageant to parade through Sydney on January 26, 1938, to celebrate the NSW sesquicentenary.
The sesquicentenary committee, headed by NSW labour and industry minister John Dunningham, had already decided to “omit all reference to convicts in its official festivals”.
Costume designer Thelma Thomas was recruited from Adelaide to design outfits for actors to re-enact Captain Arthur Phillip’s landing at Farm Cove 150 years earlier. “Descendants of many of Sydney’s pioneer families are expected to take part in the pageant, with professional and amateur actors in leading roles,” the committee enthused. Although not historically accurate, the committee also wanted Aborigines to perform a corroboree on beach sand dumped at Farm Cove for the “arrival” of First Fleet ships Sirius and Supply; the Aboriginal protection board then arranged to bring men from Menindee mission.
But in December 1937 Dubbo witness William Ferguson, founder of the Aborigines Progressive Association, told the parliamentary inquiry the Aborigines Protection Act was “a dreadful measure” that “provided for conditions which were close to slavery”. Ferguson argued that the Board existed to suppress Aborigines, rather than to protect them.
He then shocked the inquiry by announcing that “in Brewarrina, it is common knowledge that the son of the manager has access to the dormitory of the half-caste girls with whom he misconducted himself. I am told that this is talked of generally by white and coloured residents.”
Ferguson read a reply from the Board that explained the allegations “have been carefully inquired into and found to be without any foundation. The son is a well-conducted and respectable citizen”.
But Ferguson insisted he had two girls who were “prepared to come forward and corroborate the charge. It was a very serious charge and should be gone into.” Despite also hearing that Dalley found it useful to carry a revolver around the mission, and that a Board Trust account held “large sums of money”, some endowment money owed to Aborigines, that was sometimes diverted to general Board expenses, including homes owned by Board members, the inquiry was prematurely disbanded.
Aboriginal Progressive Association members, led by president Jack Patten, Ferguson, Pastor Doug Nicholls, Pearl Gibbs and Margaret Tucker, had already joined Victorian Aboriginal activist William Cooper to declare the sesquicentenary celebration a Day of Mourning. The Protection Board, fearing their re-enactment cast would be swayed by Ferguson’s protesters, housed them for a week in temporary wooden huts with blankets and palliasses, or large bags of straw, at Redfern Police Barracks. The men were reportedly confined, with police dogs patrolling outside, and unlike other actors, were not paid for their roles that also required them to scramble for beads thrown by Phillip.
After 150,000 spectators watched the official parade pass along George St, Ferguson and Cooper led about 100 Aborigines on a march to Australian Hall function centre on Elizabeth St, Surry Hills. They launched a manifesto, Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights, that stated: “The 26th of January, 1938, is not a day of rejoicing for Australia’s Aborigines; it is a day of mourning. This festival of ... so-called ‘progress’ in Australia commemorates also 150 years of misery and degradation imposed upon the original native inhabitants by white invaders. We, representing the Aborigines, now ask you to pause in the midst of your sesquicentenary rejoicings and ask yourself honestly whether your ‘conscience’ is clear in regard to the treatment of the Australian blacks by the Australian whites.”
Originally published as Re-enactment pageant sparked ‘day of mourning’ protest
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