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Normanton

Introduction

Normanton, the administrative and government centre for the Carpentaria Shire, is located in north-west Queensland, south of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Indigenous population in Normanton includes members of the Kukatj, Gkuthaarn and Kurtijar peoples.  

History of Normanton

Early European contact

The Dutch East India Company commissioned navigators, including Abel Tasman, to sail the Gulf of Carpentaria during the 1640s to assess commercial opportunities in the area. Tasman sailed through the Gulf of Carpentaria but did not go ashore[1]. It was the exploration of Captain J L Stokes in the Beagle in 1839 that aroused hope for the development of the Gulf region. Stokes made several land excursions and his detailed account of the ‘Plains of Promise’ raised hopes for the development of pastoralism in the Gulf[2].

It was not until 1861 that land exploration began with the arrival of Burke and Wills, who camped near the present site of Normanton. They caught a brief glimpse of Gulf waters before turning back to meet their fate[3]. During the search for Burke and Wills, former Queensland Native Police Commander Frederick Walker named the Norman River[4]. By 1868, the township of Norman River (later Normanton) was established at a site chosen by William Landsborough[5]. The first arrivals included former residents of Burketown who were evacuated to Sweers Island in 1866 (South Wellesley Islands) during an outbreak of ‘gulf fever’[6].

Kurtijar elder Charles Bynoe refers to 7 Aboriginal groups in the Normanton area when Normanton was established[7]. Traditional territorial boundaries were fractured by frontier violence that accompanied the establishment of pastoralism in the Gulf. Aboriginal people survived by incorporating people from neighbouring groups and marrying into others. Over time the number of distinct tribal groups was reduced.

A decline in the Aboriginal population was publicly acknowledged in Normanton during the town’s first decades. Some observers identified frontier violence and ‘dispersals’ by Native Police as the primary cause[8]. 

The Native Police arrived at Norman River in 1868 and maintained a presence until at least 1875[9]. This period came to be known as ‘shooting time’ or ‘no good time’ in Kurtijar oral histories. Skull Hole is believed to be the site of a large massacre during this period[10]. As a result of the ‘shooting time’ traditional land-holding groups were reconstituted, and are no longer referred to. In 1874, the local Police Magistrate considered that the kidnapping of Aboriginal women and children for labour and ‘immoral’ purposes had become institutionalised in Normanton[11]. 

In the 1880s, after the relocation of the Customs Service from Sweers Island to Normanton, and the discovery of gold at Croydon, Normanton became a major service centre and the population began to grow. Merchant businessmen James Burns and Robert Philp were influential at the time. The gold-rush was short-lived and the township declined during the first decades of the new century[12].

By the time the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 (the Act) was introduced, opium addiction was already problematic in the Aboriginal community in Normanton. The payment of Aboriginal labourers in opium ash was common and caused severe health problems, which added to the problems of introduced disease[13]. The Act had little effect on opium supply and mainly facilitated the legalised removal of Aboriginal people from their traditional lands.

By 1920, more than 40 Aboriginal people were removed to government and church run reserves and missions at Mapoon, Yarrabah, Palm Island, Mitchell River Mission and Barambah (now Cherbourg) in south-east Queensland. Most were still under the age of 20 years[14], and those who remained in Normanton lived in 1 of the 6 camps that had formed on the outskirts of the town. The Gkuthaarn and Kukatj people lived in camps on the south-west edge of the town, while northern groups such as the Kurtijar occupied camps to the north of the Norman River[15].

During the 1930s and 1940s, many Aboriginal people worked on stations including Myra Vale, Delta Downs, Lotus Vale and Macaroni. Kurtijar men, Dick Stirling and Jubilee Slattery, are well remembered as extraordinary stockmen from this era. Dick was one of the first Aboriginal men featured in the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, and Jubilee was renowned for participating in a cattle drive on the ‘Strzelecki track’ when he was 13 years old. Station life allowed the continuation of traditional culture and language to some extent, and conditions were reported to be better than those in the town camps forming in Normanton. Kurtijar people remember that the last bora initiation held in the area occurred in the 1930s[16].

In 1930, the Australian Inland Mission arrived at Normanton and began providing school lessons to Aboriginal children from the town camps[17]. A proposal to introduce mainstream schooling to Aboriginal children in Normanton was rejected in 1937, after the Protector of Aboriginals offered his opinion that the proposal held no benefit. Residents of Normanton actively protested against the inclusion of Aboriginal children in the public school system until 1956, when the Australian Inland Mission left Normanton[18]. It was then that 2 children from the Richie family became the first Aboriginal children to attend Normanton State School[19]. 

The first Aboriginal reserve to be established in Normanton came to be known as ‘Cornwall Camp’. It was situated on the northern side of the Norman River near the racecourse in 1939[20]. The reserve was moved in 1948 to ‘Ridge Camp’ or ‘Hospital Ridge,’ located on the town side of the river bounded by Burke Street[21]. In 1944, the government decided to use the savings of reserve residents to purchase 4 prefabricated galvanised tin sheds for housing and amenities.

Eventually erected in 1957, 3 of the sheds were divided into 10 rooms, and 8 earth closet toilets and 4 cold water showers were also installed, for the population of around 100[22]. Sanitation issues and social problems developed. In 1959, it became necessary to appoint a camp orderly to ensure compliance with sanitation programs. A policy of excluding all non-Aboriginal people from the reserve was maintained until the 1970s[23]. 

By the early 1970s, the government began providing housing for the Aboriginal community in town, and began destroying humpies built on the reserve[24]. Long-term housing shortages inspired the formation of the Bynoe Community Advancement Co-operative Society in 1975. This society provided housing to many families in the community[25]. 

In 1982, Kurtijar elders helped to form the Morr Morr Pastoral Company. The company later purchased Delta Downs Station, which located on their traditional land. Morr Morr is one of the largest Aboriginal-owned pastoral companies in Queensland and offers culturally appropriate training programs to improve the employment prospects of young Indigenous people[26].

The Normanton Aboriginal Land Trust was established in 1995 to hold land granted under the Aboriginal Land Act 1991 (Qld) for the benefit of Aboriginal people. The land held by the Trust since December 1996 comprises 4 parcels of former Aboriginal reserve land at Normanton.

These parcels of land include 2 Aboriginal cemeteries, 1 traditional burial ground and the former reserve in Normanton[27]. In 2004, the Queensland Government and representatives of the Kurtijar and Gkuthaarn people entered into an Indigenous Land Use Agreement, which required that Native Title be surrendered over a small area of land north-west of Normanton at Karumba, to facilitate the Century Mine Port facility[28].

End notes

  1. T Roberts, Frontier Justice: A History of the Gulf Country to 1900 (University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2005) 5; J E Heeres and C H Coote (eds), Abel Janszoon Tasman's Journal of His Discovery of Van Diemens Land and New Zealand in 1642, with documents relating to his exploration of Australia in 1644 (N A Kovach, Los Angeles, 1965) http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600571h.html at 27 November 2012.
  2. J L Stokes, Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 (T and W Boone, London, 1846) http://freeread.com.au/ebooks/e00039.html#chapter201 at 27 November 2012.
  3. D Phoenix, Burke and Wills: A Brief History of the Victorian Exploring Expedition (2006) http://www.burkeandwills.net.au/Brief_History/index.htm at 27 November 2012; Roberts, above n 3.
  4. J Richards, The Secret War: a True History of Queensland’s Native Police (University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2008) 82-83; Phoenix, above n 5.
  5. P Saenger, Sweers Island: Changes over 200 years since Flinders visit (Royal Geographical Society of Queensland, Brisbane, 2005) 15.
  6. The township of Carnarvon was established at Sweers Island in 1866, and was almost completely abandoned in 1868 when residents relocated to Normanton: Saenger, above n 7, 14-15; author unknown, ‘Telegraphic extension in the north’, The Brisbane Courier, 27 March 1867; R Patrick, A History of Health and Medicine in Queensland, 1824-1960 (University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1987).
  7. C Bynoe, Memories of Normanton: An Aboriginal Perspective (Normanton State School, Normanton, 1992) 24-27; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A203, 74/2949; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, Item id 846836, 1868/1720 (corr. 18.4.1868 from Brodie Brothers at Urilla); Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A158, 71/1899; Richards, above n 6, 67; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A208, 1875/1093; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A475, 1886/5859.
  8. Richards, above n 6, 173; author unknown, title unknown, The Queenslander, 26 June 1886, 19; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A531, 1888/105; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A298, 1880/4815; G Rolly, ‘About Kurtijar Land’ (1981) 4, 4 Identity Magazine, 16.
  9. The presence of the Native Police in the Norman River district appears to have been more intermittent and on a patrol basis after 1872, at which time the Native Police reserve in Norman was de-gazetted: author unknown, ‘Normanton’, The Queenslander, 4 May 1872, 2; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, Item ID 846890, 1871/2269, corr. 8.8.1871; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A160, 1871/2269; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A166, 1872/268; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A207, 1875/989, corr. 4.3.1875.
  10. Rolly, above n 10.
  11. Richards, above n 6, 173; Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A531, 1888/105 (allegations in 1887 by Norman Chronicle that Native Policeman Poingdestre had ‘taken a young gin to the Native Police camp and chained her to a verandah’); Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s Office, inwards correspondence, COL/A298, 1880/4815 (allegations that Native Police in Normanton were indiscriminately shooting Aboriginal people and kidnapping Aboriginal women and children, sometimes for ‘immoral purposes’).
  12. Author unknown, ‘Normanton’, The Queenslander, 4 May 1872, 2; author unknown, ‘Mining Telegrams’, The Queenslander, 7 November 1885, 753; author unknown, Title unknown, The Queenslander, 28 November 1904.
  13. Roberts, above n 3, 256, 259.
  14. Queensland, Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait and Multicultural Affairs, Community and Personal Histories Removals Database (access restricted).
  15. P Memmott, From the ‘Curry to the ‘Weal: Aboriginal Town Camps and Western Back-blocks (1996) 7, 1, Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 26-27 (Please note that Memmott refers to the Gkuthaarn as ‘Kuthant’ based on the work of linguist Paul Black).
  16. Bynoe, above n 9, 4, 7, 15; Rolly, above n 10; Queensland State Archives, SRS 505/1, File 1D/11, report from the Normanton Protector of Aboriginals re his patrol of stations in the Normanton district, dated 28.10.1944.
  17. Queensland State Archives, A/58859, 37/8646, corr. 31.8.1937.
  18. The circumstances by which the Mission left were controversial, when it was discovered that the children living in the Australian Inland Mission Children’s Hostel had been abused.
  19. Queensland State Archives, SRS 505/1, 6R/1 Missions, Normanton Schools, corr. 31.8.1937, 9.3.1948; 20.06.1949, 12.5.1950, 8.5.1951, 30.3.1955, 28.10.1955 and 10.4.1956.
  20. Queensland, Queensland Government Gazette, no.42, 4 March 1939, 879; Queensland State Archives, SRS 505/1, File 7C/3, Protectorates Normanton 1935-1945, corr. 24.8.1942.
  21. Queensland State Archives, SRS 505/1, File 7C/3, Part no.1, Protectorates, Normanton Camp, corr. 26.10.1948: Queensland, Queensland Government Gazette, no.39, 16 October 1948, 2219; Memmott, above n 17, 26-27; Queensland, Queensland Government Gazette, no.148, 9 August 1952, 2565.
  22. Queensland State Archives, SRS 505/1, File 7C/3, Protectorates Normanton, corr. 31.5.1944.
  23. Memmott, above n 17, 27-29; Queensland State Archives, SRS 505/1, File 7C/3 Part no.1, Protectorates, Normanton Camp, 1947-1964, corr. 23.9.1959.
  24. Queensland State Archives, A/58963, 67/57019 (complaint from a local member about substandard new housing at Normanton); Memmott, above n 17, 27.
  25. D Horton (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia (Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, 1994) 797; Rolly, above n 10; Queensland State Archives, 8L/164, corr. 2.11.1976; Queensland State Archives, NOP/175, A/55269, corr. 2.09.1971.
  26. Address at the handover of Morr Morr aka Delta Downs Station by Senator Hon Ian MacDonald, Minister for Forestry and Conservation on 14.9.2002.
  27. Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlement, Normanton Aboriginal Land Trust (University of Melbourne, 2011) http://www.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=3569 at 27 November 2012.
  28.  National Native Title Tribunal no.QI2003/004. See: National Native Title Tribunal, Registered ILUA summary – Gkuthaarn & Kurtijar (2011) http://www.nntt.gov.au/Indigenous-Land-Use-Agreements/Search-Registered-ILUAs/Pages/Gkuthaarn_Kurtijar_QI2003004.aspx at 9 April 2013.
Last updated:
13 April 2015
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