Digging in
German humanitarians in early Queensland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/qre.2014.21Keywords:
German settlers, Queensland, Aboriginal mission, ProtestantismAbstract
The first group of German settlers arrived in Queensland before it existed on any maps. They came not primarily to seek a better future for themselves, but with the express intention of conducting an Aboriginal mission. This group germinated three of the first four mission attempts in Queensland, and their failure left a significant gap in Queensland’s mission effort until the 1870s, by which time the frontier wars were practically over.
References
J. Jupp, Immigration (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998); R. Haines, Nineteenth century government assisted immigrants from the United Kingdom to Australia: Schemes, regulations and arrivals, 1831–1900 (Adelaide: Flinders University, 1995), pp. 25–31.
Andrew Bonnell and Rebecca Vonhoff, ‘Introduction’, in Germans in Queensland: 150 years (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2012), p. 1.
Walter Veit (ed.), The struggle for souls and science: Constructing the fifth continent. German missionaries and scientists in Australia (Alice Springs: Strehlow Research Centre, 2004); Susanne Zantop, Colonial fantasies: Conquest, family and nation in precolonial Germany, 1770–1870 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997); J. P. Weiss, In search of an identity: Essays and ideas on Anglo-Australians, German-Australians and others (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2000); R. Wendt (ed.), Sammeln, Vernetzen, Auswerten. Missionare und ihr Beitrag zum Wandel europaischer Weltsicht ¨ (Tubingen: Narr, 2000); G. W. Stocking (ed.), ¨ Volksgeist as method and ethic: Essays on Boasian ethnography and the German anthropological tradition (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996); Anna Kenny, The Aranda’s Pepa: An introduction to Carl Strehlow’s masterpiece Die Aranda-und Loritja-Stamme in Zentral-Australien (1907–1920) (Canberra: ANU Press, 2014).
Alas, the records of the early years of the Gossner mission college, from which the Zion Hill group came, have been lost. Two extended searches and visits in the archives of the Evangelisches Zentralarchiv in Berlin convinced me that these records most likely fell victim to fire in the bombing of Berlin at the end of World War II.
Christine Lockwood, ‘The two kingdoms: Lutheran missionaries and the British civilizing mission in early South Australia’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 2014).
These data are emerging from an ARC Future Fellowship on German missionaries in Australia (2011–15), and will eventually be published at http://missionaries.griffith.edu.au, where much of the material below already appears. Researchers and co-authors of the already published material regarding these early missions were third-year history students at Griffith University in 2009: Catherine Langbridge, Robert Sloan, Lilia Vassilief, Karen Laughton, Zoe Dyason and Jillian Beard.
The only exception was a short-lived attempt at Somerset, Cape York, by two members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1867–68.
The party consisted of five married artisans — weaver Ambrosius Theophilus Wilhelm Hartenstein (1811–61) and his wife Christina; butcher and cook Johann Gottfried Haussmann (1811–1901) and Wilhelmina (nee Lehmann); stonemason and bricklayer Johann Peter Nique (1811–1903) and Maria (n ´ ee Bachmann); joiner and cabinetmaker Franz Joseph August Rode (1811–1903) and Julia (nee Peters); and blacksmith Johann Leopold Zillmann (1813–92) and Clara — and four single artisans — shoemaker and bookbinder August Christopher Albrecht (sometimes rendered as Olbrecht) (b. 1816), gardener Ludwig Doge, tailor Friedrich Theodor Franz (1814–91) and shoemaker Johann Gottfried Wagner (1809–93). Reverend Wilhelm Schmidt, accompanied by his wife Hanna Louisa, was placed in charge, assisted by Reverend Christopher Eipper (1813–94) with Harriet (nee Gyles). Medical missionary Moritz Schneider (?–1838), also Basel-trained, was accompanied by his wife Maria (nee Weiss), who later married Wagner. In 1844, Carl Friedrich Gerler and J. W. Gericke arrived to replace Albrecht and Doge. ¨
For a useful comparison with contemporary missions, see also Neil Gunson, ‘The Nundah missionaries’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 6(3) (1961), 511–39.
Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld had been prevented from establishing a mission at Moreton Bay. Neil Gunson (ed.), Australian reminiscences and papers of L. E. Threlkeld, missionary to the Aborigines, 1824–59 (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1974), pp. 43–4, 84.
Australischer Christenbote, in M. Lohe (ed.), Pastor Haussmann and mission work from 1866 (Adelaide: Lutheran Archives, 1964).
J. D. Lang, Reminiscences of my life and times (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1972), p. 143.
The Colonist, 10 March 1838, 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31720572.
Eipper’s journal states that they ‘were under the guidance of three natives, Wunkermany and the two brothers, Wogann’. It also refers during the same journey to Wagner’s brother Anbaybury, ‘my brother Dunkley’ and Jemmy Millboang.
‘Observations made on a journey to the natives at Toorbal, 2 August 1841 by the Reverend Christopher Eipper, of the Moreton Bay German Mission: Journal of the Reverend Christopher Eipper, Missionary to the Aborigines at Moreton Bay 1841’, http://missionaries.griffith.edu.au/excerpts-christopher-eipper.
John Harris, One blood: 200 years of Aboriginal encounter with Christianity: A story of hope (Hamburg: Albatross Books, 1990), p. 111; Niel Gunson, ‘Schmidt, Karl Wilhelm Edward (–1864)’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography (2006), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/schmidt-karl-wilhelm-edward-2635. Ray Evans specifies that this incident occurred on 21 March 1840, and Dennis Cryle, in the same volume, refers to John Steele to say that several were wounded. Ray Evans, ‘The Mogwi Take Mi-an-jin’, in Rod Fisher (ed.), The Brisbane Aboriginal presence 1824–1860 (Brisbane: Brisbane History Group, 1992), pp. 7–30; Dennis Cryle, ‘Snakes in the grass’, in Fisher, The Brisbane Aboriginal presence 1824–1860, p. 72; John Steele (comp.), Brisbane town in convict days, 1826–42 (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1975), p. 268.
‘Polding to Murphy, Moreton Bay, 2 July 1843’, in Reverend Osmund Thorpe CP, First Catholic mission to the Australian Aborigines (Sydney: Pellegrini, 1950), p. 191.
‘Polding to Franzoni, Sydney, 10 April 1845’, in Thorpe, First Catholic mission, p. 194.
Three of them intended to join the planned Benedictine mission in Western Australian (New Norcia), but were placed in South Australia instead. ‘Vaccari in Sydney to Mgr Pione Colmo, 15 March 1843’, in Thorpe, First Catholic mission, p. 209.
‘Evidence by Tom Petrie’, in Native Police Force Report, 1861, Queensland Legislative Assembly, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/_files/archive/removeprotect/92123.pdf.
‘Polding to Cardinal Franzoni’.
‘Evidence by Rode and Zillmann’, in Native Police Force Report, 1861, Queensland Legislative Assembly, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/_files/archive/removeprotect/92123.pdf.
It is not possible to specify which language Bracefield spoke. Tindale shows several languages in that region, including Turubul spoken by the Jagara, and the Batjala and Kabi-Kabi further north. See http://archives.samuseum.sa.gov.au/tindaletribes/jagara.htm. Bracefield (or Bracewell) returned from Wide Bay in 1842 and died in 1844. Niel Gunson, ‘A missionary expedition from Zion Hill (Nundah) to Toorbul, Moreton Bay District, in 1842–43: The journal of the Reverend K. W. E. Schmidt’, Aboriginal History 2 (1978), 114–21.
J. D. Lang, Cooksland—or the Moreton Bay District of New South Wales (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1847), pp. 471–2.
The curtain of silence over known incidents of flour poisoning in Queensland is discussed by several contributions in Fisher, The Brisbane Aboriginal presence 1824–1860.
Fisher, The Brisbane Aboriginal presence 1824–1860.
‘Polding to Cardinal Franzoni’.
Wagner, Rode, Zillmann, Franz, Hartenstein and Gerler became residents of German Station.
Moreton Bay Courier, classified advertising, 22 April 1854, 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3713922.
Jeanette Nolan, ‘Pastor J. G. Haussmann: A Queensland pioneer, 1838–1901’ (unpublished Honours thesis, University of Queensland, 1964).
These pressures were evident even earlier: Geelong Advertiser, 25 July 1842, 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92673790.
B. Hedges, ‘German settlement in the Beenleigh area in the nineteenth century’ (unpublished MA thesis, University of New England, 1994), p. 38.
Franz, Gericke, Rode, Gerler, and Zillmann attended the meeting. ´
Moreton Bay Courier, 17 February 1855, 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3709402.
Jonathan Richards, The secret war: A true history of Queensland’s native police (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2008).
‘Evidence by Zillmann, Q.73’, in Native Police Force Report, 1861, Queensland Legislative Assembly, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/_files/archive/removeprotect/92123.pdf.
‘Schmidt, Karl Wilhelm Edward (–1864)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (2006), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/schmidt-karl-wilhelm-edward-2635.
An excellent discussion of Nathaniel Pepper is in Robert Kenny, The lamb enters the dreaming—Nathanael Pepper and the ruptured world (Melbourne: Scribe, 2007).
Nolan, ‘Pastor J. G. Haussmann’, p. 95.
‘Evidence by Zillmann’, in Native Police Force Report, 1861, Queensland Legislative Assembly, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/_files/archive/removeprotect/92123.pdf.
Wagner, Nique, Hausmann, Gerler and Gericke achieved ordination. ´
Queensland Daily Guardian, 1 November 1864, letter to the editor from ‘Anti-Humbug’ (not digitised), cited in Nolan, ‘Pastor J. G. Haussmann’.
Haussman ordained A. D. Hartwig (1875), C. Berndt (1876) and the Gossner-trained candidates F. Copas (1865), F. W. Burghardt (1866) and C. Gaustadt (1869). For Gaustadt, ordained by Haussman according to Nolan, the LAA Directory of Lutheran Pastors is uncertain of time and place of ordination. Nolan was uncertain about the ordination of Christian Berndt, who is listed in the LAA directory as a Haussman candidate: ‘As a result of controversy with Pastor Haussmann his name was struck off the roll of Lutheran ministers. He was then registered as a “Congregational Lutheran” minister in Queensland and served the only “Congregational Lutheran Church” in Australia (and most likely the world) at Hillside (Hatton Vale). He was married, but no details are available.’ LAA Directory of Lutheran Pastors.
Philip Holzknecht, ‘A priesthood of priests? The German Lutherans in Queensland’, in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill (eds), The German presence in Queensland (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1988), pp. 155–73.
Nolan, ‘Pastor J. G. Haussmann’, pp. 106–7.
Holzknecht, ‘A priesthood of priests?’, pp. 155–73.
Nolan, ‘Pastor J. G. Haussmann’, p. 86, citing Reverend Scheer’s speech at St Peter’s in Beenleigh on the fiftieth anniversary of the German settlement at Waterford.
Nolan, ‘Pastor J. G. Haussmann’, p. 86.
The only other attempt in Queensland during the 1860s was at Somerset (1867–68). Edward Fuller began itinerant missions at Fraser Island and elsewhere in 1871.
According to Nolan, the Gossner trained candidates arriving in January 1866 ready for ordination were Theodor Langebecker, Gottlieb Wilhelm Guhr, Friedrich Wilhelm Burghardt and John Hausmann. Holzknecht (‘A priesthood of priests?’) also lists Gottfried Hampe, Friedrich Copas, August Fahr, David Pfunder and Hermann Mix, but does not mention John Hausmann.
Hausmann, Australischer Christenbote, February 1867, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
Hausmann, Australischer Christenbote, November 1866, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
The LAA Directory of Lutheran Pastors records that John Hausmann (1843–1900) returned to Queensland in 1866 after receiving university theological training in Germany and theological practice at the Gossner Mission Society in Berlin. It does not record his ordination, and indicates that he was a member of the Immanuel synod in 1866, serving in Rockhampton and Mackay, and that he spent a short time as a Presbyterian bush missionary. (The LAA Directory only records Lutheran activity.) In 1874, he was one of four commissioners investigating the condition of Aborigines in Mackay. The report makes no reference to an ordained status, but also does not indicate the prominent positions of his three co-authors. Holzknecht (‘A priesthood of priests?’) describes him as a ‘registered Presbyterian’.
Friedrich Wilhelm Burghardt (1844–1917) from Silesia was ordained in 1866, became a member of the Immanuel synod (1866–90), assisted Haussman at Beenleigh 1866–67, ministered at German Station (1867–73), taught at St Paul’s in Toowoomba (1874–82), at Highfields Christ (1882–94), at German Station and Zillmere (1895–99), and Highfields Holy Trinity (1900–17). LAA Directory of Lutheran Pastors.
Gottlieb Wilhelm Guhr (1842–1919) from Tannenberg, Silesia, became Haussman’s assistant at Bethesda mission (1866–70). He taught at St. Paul’s in Toowoomba (1871–86), was ordained in 1887 and then became an itinerant pastor in various Queensland parishes (1887–90) and at Gombungee (1888–1908) and Glencoe (1890–1905). LAA Directory of Lutheran Pastors.
Hausmann, Australischer Christenbote, February 1867, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
Hausmann, Australischer Christenbote, July 1869, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
Hausmann, Australischer Christenbote, February 1867, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’. On the question of Aboriginal understandings of Christian rituals as ‘human sacrifice’, Debbie Rose and Stefano Girola also offer interesting observations. Deborah Bird Rose, ‘Signs of life on a barbarous frontier: Intercultural encounters in North Australia’, Humanities Research 2 (1998), 17–31; and S. Girola and E. Franchi, ‘Constructing otherness and past through creative mistakes: Ancient initiation war and contemporary human sacrifices’, in G. Proietti and E. Franchi (eds), Forme della memoria e dinamiche identitarie nell’antichita greco-romana (Trento: University of Trento, Department of Philosophy, History and Culture, 2012), pp. 229–66.
On the Aboriginal understanding that they were getting paid for praying and listening — see, for example, C. Anderson, ‘A case study in failure: Kuku-Yalanji and the Lutherans at Bloomfield River, 1887–1902’, in T. Swain and D. B. Rose (eds), Aborigines and Christianity: Anthropological and historical studies (Adelaide: Australian Association for the Study of Religion, 1988), pp. 321–37; Chris Anderson, ‘Was God ever a boss at Wujal-Wujal? Lutherans and Kuku-Yalanji: A socio-historical analysis’, Australian Journal of Anthropology 21(1) (2010), 33–50; Kay Saunders (Kay Evans), ‘Missionary effort towards the Cape York Aborigines, 1886–1910: A study of culture contact’ (BA (Hons) thesis, University of Queensland, 1969); John and Leslie Haviland, ‘“How much food will there be in heaven?’ Lutherans and Aborigines around Cooktown to 1900’, Aboriginal History 4(1–2) (1980), 119–49.
It is tempting to read ‘Papo’ as a typing error for the German ‘Papa’. However, the Aranda at Hermannsburg called Carl Strehlow ‘Pepa’, which means both ‘paper’ and ‘law’ and refers to his evangelical position of power. Kenny, The Aranda’s Pepa.
Hausmann reported only in the Victorian Lutheran newsletter Australischer Christenbote.
Nolan, ‘Pastor J. G. Haussmann’, p. 100, referring to Australischer Christenbote, October 1868.
‘After a two-day journey we arrived there. My two native friends soon found the camp of natives and Kingcame informed the natives who I was and what I wanted. They asked me to remain with them, as they wanted to live with me . . . My two native guides and friends decided to remain here so that they could be a mediator between the various tribes.’ Hausmann, Australischer Christenbote, July 1869, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
On 21 August 1871, an ‘Official Notification’ appeared in the Brisbane Courier).
Australischer Christenbote, 3 October 1871, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
In 1877, Haussman assembled a credible and much larger Nerang Mission committee and a small band of volunteers: C. Thiedeke from Toowoomba (with wife and three children), bachelor Kabisch and a Reverend Tedekin, recently arrived from Germany and locally ordained (also referred to as Mr. Dedekind). The latter left shortly afterwards, and by the end of 1878, only Kabisch was left. Australischer Christenbote, February 1878, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
Report by W. L. G. Drew, A. C. Gregory, Charles Coxen and John G. Hausmann, ‘Aborigines of Queensland: Report of the commissioners for the purpose of taking into consideration certain questions opened up by a petition from a number of residents in the district of Mackay, relative to the employment and protection of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the district’, Queensland Legislative Assembly, 1874, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/files/archive/removeprotect/92128.pdf.
In 1876, there were three camps: Goonenberry, about 6 miles from the mouth of Sandy Creek (commenced in 1875); Carrobaya, about 2 miles from the mouth of Sandy Creek (commenced in 1876); and Tullaboi, at the mouth of the Creek; see ‘Report of Board of Inquiry appointed by the Secretary for Lands to inquire into and report upon the state of the Aboriginal reserve at Mackay, 1876’, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/_files/archive/removeprotect. The Mackay reserve was declared in 1877: Ros Kidd, The way we civilize (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1997. It was cancelled in 1880: Kathy Frankland, A brief history of government administration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in Queensland, http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/data/assets/pdf_file/0008/93734/Admin_History_Aboriginal_
and_Torres_Strait_Islanders.pdf).
See the government correspondence with McNab in the 1876 Queensland Legislative Assembly, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/_files/archive/removeprotect/92144.pdf.
Kidd, The way we civilize, p. 27.
This was the experience of the Moravians in Victoria in the 1870s, Daniel and Janet Mathews at Maloga in the 1880s and the Trappists in the Kimberley (1890–1900). As Victorian Protector of Aborigines, the Moravian Hagenauer had to explain this policy to Johann Flierl, seeking to place the Lutheran missions in north Queensland on a secure footing, capable of surviving government policy shifts. ‘Board for Protection of Aborigines, Melbourne, to Johann Flierl, Tanunda, November 24, 1898 in 1.6.35 Reuther, Georg, 1861–1912’, Pers. Korresp. Vorl. Nr. 4.93/5, Neuendettelsau.
Reverend Matthias Goethe, Australischer Christenbote, August 1877, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
‘Letter by six German-descent citizens of Walloon, 6 September 1875’, Herrnhut Archives, R.15.V.I.a.7.8 Verschiedene Plane und Versuche—Queensland. The letter is signed by Haussmann, F. W. Burghardt, Christopher Gaustadt, Gottfried David Hauser, August Daniel Hartwig and E. G. H. Lehmann. It refers to the failed attempts of an ‘eager young preacher’ (Edward Fuller, see below).
Nolan, ‘Pastor J. G. Haussmann’, 97, citing the Jubilaumsschrift for Haussman’s ninetieth ¨ birthday. Holzknecht (‘A priesthood of priests?’, p. 164) relates that Haussmann ordained a layman, Christian Berndt, in 1879 and later had a falling out with him that led to a congregational three-way split.
Australischer Christenbote, 1881, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
Australischer Christenbote, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
The Queensland missions that lasted less than a year were the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Ministers at Somerset (1867–68) and Edward Fuller at Fraser Island (1871), Noosa River (New South Wales, 1872), Hinchinbrook Island (1873) and Bellenden Plains in North Queensland (1874).
The long-term mission projects were the Pacific Island missionaries stationed in the Torres Strait by the London Missionary Society in 1871 to encourage copra production, the Church Missionary Society at Bowen (1878–1901) and Catholic Reverend Duncan McNab at Durundur (1877–1885). According to Kidd (The way we civilize, p. 27), the Durundur reserve was formally closed in 1905 and its remaining residents transferred to Barambah.
Lockwood, ‘The two kingdoms’, pp. 163–8 suggests that any mission operating for under ten years is not likely to produce baptisms.
‘Biographical notes’, Lutheran Almanac (1965), 27–37.
Jock Schmiechen, ‘The Hermannsburg Mission Society in Australia 1866–1895: Changing missionary attitudes and their effects on the Aboriginal inhabitants’ (unpublished BA (Hons) thesis, University of Adelaide, 1971), pp. 2–4.
Lockwood, ‘The two kingdoms’.
Lockwood, ‘The two kingdoms’.
Australischer Christenbote, in Lohe, ‘Pastor Haussmann’.
