Pages 9 - 77 (1600kb) - Eurobodalla Shire Council

EUROBODALLA ABORIGINAL CULTURAL HERITAGE STUDY
South Coast NSW
The number and description of the aborigines in this district is as
follows: - About two hundred and fifty; one hundred and sixty males,
sixty females, and thirty children… [They have] Diminished about fifty
per cent… Few children are now reared, and many adults have died
lately… [From] Cutaneous and venereal diseases principally… About
two years back, a virulent cutaneous disorder was raging amongst
them, and a surgeon resident in this neighbourhood provided them with
medicines at his own expense, for which the Government have since
refused to remunerate him. When ill, they generally apply to the white
residents in the district, who doctor them according to their ability. 51
In his ‘Report on the condition of the Aborigines in the year 1847’ Commissioner
Lambie stated that:
The Aborigines are fast decreasing in numbers, and it is needless to say
that generally they retain their old wandering and unsettled habits and
seem as much as ever disinclined to remain long in any particular
place. There have been no collisions with the Whites that I have heard
of ; but it has been reported to me that five died of Influenza, during the
time this disease was so prevalent among the White people a short time
ago. 52
Three years later Commissioner Lambie was even more explicit in his belief that the
Aboriginal population of the area was being decimated by disease:
“They are few in number on the Table Land of Maneroo; somewhat
more numerous along the seacoast, but everywhere decreasing
rapidly… There is every probability of the few Aborigines belonging to
this District soon becoming extinct, from the number that die annually
of Influenza, and Consumption.” 53
This belief amongst Europeans that the Aboriginal population of a particular area, or
of the country generally, was “rapidly dying out” was a widespread one in the
nineteenth century. This belief was closely associated with racial and racist theories
and assumptions and continued to be held by Europeans well into the twentieth
century despite clear evidence that the Aboriginal population was no longer
decreasing, had indeed begun to increase. Nonetheless in certain periods, and the mid
nineteenth century was one of them, it would appear that European commentators
were reporting on a real and devastating population decrease amongst many
Aboriginal peoples as a result of introduced diseases.
51 Response to Circular Letter from Francis Flanagan, Esq., J.P., Broulee, Report from the Select
Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines with Appendix, Minutes of Evidence and Replies to a
Circular Letter, Government Printing Office, Sydney, 1845, p.38.
52 ‘Report on the Condition of the Aborigines in the Maneroo District for the year 1844’, Commissioner
of Crown Lands Mr. J. Lambie to Colonial Secretary Thomson, 6 th January, 1848, Historical Records of
Australia, Series 1, Vol.XXVI, pp.402-403.
53 ‘Annual report on the Aborigines of the Maneroo District for the year 1850’, Commissioner Lambie to
the Chief Commissioner, Crown Lands Office Cooma, 28 th January, 1851, Colonial Secretary Papers
‘Special Bundles. Annual reports on state of the Aborigines in the various districts, 1851-3’, 4/1146.4,
State Records of New South Wales.
Goulding Heritage Consulting Pty Ltd
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