Reverend Ferdinand Greenleaf ’s letter to Dr George Cross,
2nd August 1915, continued
VIII
For a number of years I have been in fear for my life, as if a likely denouement to the recent events. Two months prior I was ordered to report to the Police Station of Massacre Plains. There I was questioned for some hours, interrogated about my ancestors, my Bible and my loyalty. The Mission was raided many times, our rations halved again and again. The people of the township, who never looked favourably on my work with the Natives, had, in recent years and months, threatened myself to no end, and for what reason? Each day I have searched Scripture and my heart and head trying to understand.
From the beginning of the new century it seemed Australian nationalism was growing, and every newspaper devoted great space to explore the topic. Some people had an unwavering conviction that Australia should be united under a common identity, founded on the pioneers, the geography, the flora and fauna – not the immigrant, nor the Native.
And the Aborigines Protection Board’s eventual reaction was swift and unyielding. Seven boys, John, Michael, Bobby, Percival, Samuel, Graham, Richard, and three girls, Isabel, Sally, Kathleen – that on this date range between two years of age and seven years of age – were forcibly taken in the years 1908 to 1914 to the city, I believe, or taken to children’s ‘homes’ throughout the state to be trained for work, trained to be pliant. They were too young to be sent away – eleven years would have been sufficient! We were unable to find exact information of where the children went. Their parents cried every day. Many parents ran away, choosing to conceal their infants with them in the bush, though most were captured and divided.
You may think, dear Dr Cross – what does this prove? I say, in sober truth, that a species of slavery does exist in this part of the King’s dominions.
After these incidents a great agony settled in the Mission and in my heart. I feared we were all breaking apart when I received the first of the news on August 26th, 1914, that there was trouble for my fellow countrymen: the descendants and immigrants from the Prussians and Germans of Broken were being harassed. Their houses razed, their German-language books burnt. The newspaper brandished all the news we’d needed to understand:
BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY
It was not a fortnight after this that the Constable, the one who had shrugged his shoulders, ordered me to the Police Station. My hour had come round at last; Keller’s also.
At the Police Station, they had us register on a yellow form our name, date and place of birth, address, trade or occupation, marital status, property, length of residence in Australia, nationality, and naturalisation details.
We filled them out and the Constable laughed. ‘We don’t like you, Greenleaf,’ he said. ‘And now we can do something about that.’
I was ordered to report each day to the Police Station and they would decide, depending on my continuing, full co-operation with the Protection Board, whether they would send me to gaol or not, or worse. But what could be worse? Nothing could be worse than seeing those children too young transported away.
I had visited the Police Station and signed a registration form each day for nearly twelve months before my internment. I know the others have been sent to internment camps elsewhere. I acknowledge that they endured a terrible fate: their family bonds broken, businesses shut down and livelihoods taken from them – but they haven’t become the enemy to two crowds.
I retired to my hut during the days when I heard the wagon and vehicles arriving to take the children away. I kept pressing upon the residents that my hands were bound, that I could not do a thing against the Law. They ceased to address me fondly as gudyi and turned from me, as they should have, as I deserved, with a deep and wounding contempt.