Myora Mission

Myora Mission was established as a mission station in 1892 in the Colony of Queensland, at Moongalba on Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island). It became an Aboriginal reserve and "industrial and reform school" in 1896, was used as a source of cheap labour, and eventually closed in 1943.

An earlier mission was established at Moongalba by Passionist priests under Archbishop Polding in 1843, but their attempts failed and they left the island not long afterwards.^[1][2]

The Queensland Aboriginal Protection Association established the mission on the island and known as Minjerribah by the local Aboriginal people, the Quandamooka. In October 1892, an area of 20 hectares (49 acres) was reserved for a mission station at Moongalba, near the northern tip of what is now North Stradbroke Island (after the original single island was divided into two by wave action).^[3]

On the 26 November 1892, Myora Mission was proclaimed a "Reserve for Mission", signed by Queen Victoria. "Assimilation through institutionalisation" began from October 1893, with the staff enforcing European cultural practices and values. The Mission was declared an "industrial and reformatory school" and a Mission Superintendent and Mission Matron were appointed by QAPA, but paid by the Queensland Government.^[4]

The older boys and girls were trained to be "made useful and profitable to the mission and to society", and punished if they transgressed. The mission later ceased to be a school, the dormitories were closed, and the children classified as orphans and removed to Deebing Creek Mission.^[4]

It was then re-proclaimed a "Reserve for the use of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the State" changing its official status from mission to Aboriginal reserve. The reserve came under the control of four Chief Protectors of Aborigines between 1897 (the year of the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897) and 1940. By 1905, there were about 48 permanent residents at Moongalba, including five South Pacific Islander men married to local women. The residents were used as cheap or free labour at the Benevolent Institution, whose Medical ran the mission from 1906 to 1917, as well as the fish cannery, abattoir and the Moreton Bay Oyster Company. They also worked as nursing assistants, domestic servants and fishermen on the island.^[4]

Myora reserve closed in 1943, and the land was handed over to the Benevolent Institution. The residents were moved to Moopi Moopi Pa (One Mile) and Goompi (Dunwich). In 1947 the Benevolent Institution was moved to Sandgate, taking all of its amenities and opportunities for employment.^[4]

BBC Radio 4 presenter Lucy Worsley, with the assistance of local Aboriginal woman Vanessa Turnbull Roberts, produced a podcast episode in the series Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley chronicling and reflecting on one incident. This was the mistreatment and the subsequent death of a beating of a forcibly removed Indigenous child, Cassey, by the Danish matron of the institution, Marie Christensen, on 14 September 1896. The presenters describe the societal prejudice that impacted the investigation, trial, and punishment of Christensen. The episode was made with the help of the Minjerribah Moorgumpin Elders-In-Council and North Stradbroke Island Museum on Minjerribah.^[5] Christensen was subsequently charged with manslaughter^[6] Christensen was sentenced to two years hard labour at the Toowoomba Gaol, the sentence was suspended on condition that the defendant would enter a good behaviour bond of £100. This was partly because in the doctor's opinion, the blows struck by Christensen could not alone have been responsible for Cassey's death; the child was very sick and emaciated. However, there was some key evidence by an Aboriginal woman that was left out.^[7]