the Aboriginals left. An article titled ‘Education in Lismore’ found in the RRHS “Aboriginal” file records that in 1908, the APB set aside about 480 acres about ten miles from Lismore on the Dunoon Road as an Aboriginal Reserve, which people referred to as the ‘Pinnacle’.52 In 1909, partly in response to demands from white settlers for segregated schooling, the APB started a ‘special’ school for Aborigines on the Reserve.53 There was no direct supervision at the school until 1914 when the APB appointed a manager and the Reserve was converted to a ‘station’. A series of conflicts ensued between the new manager and the Aboriginal residents, with these conflicts escalating in response to the alarm of residents at threats to remove children, to the point where many moved off the reserve to unreserved lands closer to Lismore.54 These disputes led to the resignation of the manager, the closing of the school in late 1916 and the reversion of the status of the ‘station’ to that of an unsupervised reserve.55 By 1917, as it became clear that the manager would not return to the reserve, Aboriginal people from as far away as Cabbage Tree Island and Runnymeade Station moved to the Dunoon Reserve in order to escape the surveillance and interference of the APB in their lives.56 In an attempt to counter this movement, the APB tried to revoke the reserve in 1922 after they stated they received many complaints about the reserve’s condition.57 However, these efforts were met with sustained protest as the Aboriginals believed they should be able to make their own decisions about where they could live and that they were promised that the reserve (when it opened) would be their home in perpetuity.58 As a compromise, the APB revoked only part of the reserve and left a ten acre strip of land around the existing village, while issuing Lismore police with instructions to discourage new arrivals.59 These efforts were in vain, as the population of the Dunoon Reserve continued to grow, resulting in the re-opening of the ‘special’ school in 1926. At the same time the APB increased its levels of surveillance at Dunoon, prompting some residents to move to an unsupervised campsite at Tuncester (later Cubawee) near Lismore and send their children to the public school in town.60 By 1928, the segregation of this school was reasserted and in 1932, the APB decided to shift the school at Dunoon to a new reserve which they had created around the Tuncester campsite. APB officials encouraged people to move to the new Reserve resulting in the closure of Dunoon Reserve. The Cubawee Reserve then became the main reserve for Aboriginals in the area and grew to a large size. On 31 August 1940, the reserve held an Aboriginal Convention, believed to be the first of its kind in Australia. 61 However, like the Dunoon Reserve, by the late 1930s there were reports from the Aboriginals of attempts to force them from the reserve and further inland.62 S 14T(1)(d), S 14T(1)(f), S 14T(1)(g), S 14T(3)(a), S 14T(3)(b), S 14T(5)(b)
.63 Such forced moving of Aboriginals was common at the time
52
Photocopy of an article titled Education in Lismore. Undated. RRHS File BE-3 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 53
56 57
Ibid. Brisbane Courier News, 24 June 1922. Accessed via www.trove.nla.gov.au
58
Ibid. Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Cairns Post, 2 September 1940. Accessed via www.trove.nla.gov.au 62 The Australian Abo Call, 1 August 1938. Accessed via www.trove.nla.gov.au 63 Pers Comm S 14T(1)(d), S 14T(3)(a), . 59
49 Proposed Dunoon Dam – Heritage Impact Assessment
