The Failure of Noble Sentiments: Bogimbah Mission on Fraser Island

Abstract

In the 1890s, as the Australian Aboriginal population appeared to be declining, and as debates raged over how to 'save' them and find a place for them in colonial society, two men, Archibald Meston and Ernest Gribble, proposed answers to this pressing 'problem' in Queensland. Their solutions were quite different, one involving the state, the other the churches via the Australian Board of Missions, and they clashed fiercely as each tried to make their own solution work. This dissertation examines the background, the philosophy and the methods of the two men during the years from 1895 to 1905 with particular focus on the administration of Bogimbah Reserve and Mission on Fraser Island in Queensland and its impact on the Butchulla people of the Wide bay district. It will be shown that while Meston wished to segregate Aborigines as a means of preserving a certain semblance of their traditional life, Ernest Gribble, a missionary, wanted to civilise and Christianise them, and was given the opportunity to do so after Meston's state-funded experiment had allegedly failed. The tensions between the two men, and their respective treatments of the Aborigines entrusted to their care, are explored here in order to understand the differences between their approaches. Ultimately it will be shown that from the perspective of the Butchulla people who were subjected to the methods of the two men, both Meston and Gribble's vision were failures.