(Editorial note: It appears that Dr Cook wrote this paper around 1940. Dr Cook kept a number of drafts; this final version might not have been completed or published.)
Dr. F. Goldsmith was the first Protector (1897-1903) who appreciated and who concerned himself with the new and growing problem created by the half-caste population. As early as 1899 he reported there were some 150 half-caste children and pleaded for their removal from native camps and for their accommodation and education in special schools.
Apparently nothing was done for in 1909, the Chief Protector W.G. Stretton raised anew the problem of the half-castes, advocating, like Goldsmith, their removal from native camps and their accommodation in special institutions where they could be schooled.
Stretton opened and maintained a register of half-castes and each year called attention to the increase in their number. He estimated this component of the population at about 200, and claimed that 33% of them were females of child bearing age. He was especially disturbed by the plight of the girls who “too good for the full blood native and not good enough for the white man are driven to seek shelter and food in the black camps, are only too willing to live with white or coloured men and submit to any degradation to attain that end.” He continued to press for their protection and accommodation in a home. Stretton had his own opportunity to act when serving as Chief Protector after the departure of Baldwin Spencer 1913.
His first practical step for their amelioration was the collection of a few at Kahlin Compound where they attended a native school. Soon, their numbers increasing while full blood attendances fell away, this became a school for half-castes. As the children, especially the girls grew up the desirability of segregation was felt and all were transferred to a vacant Government residence adjacent to the Superintendent’s home.
For some fourteen years since 1913, successive Chief Protectors had removed half-caste children from Aboriginal Camps to accommodate them in special institutions, known as Half-Caste Homes, in Darwin and Alice Springs. Here they were reared as European children and attended school.
On completion of their schooling they were discharged from the Institutions to enter employment in the community outside.
Initially both male and female infants had been admitted to the Institutions but in Darwin accommodation became inadequate for the increasing numbers brought in and as the children themselves neared puberty boys were discharged earlier and priority for admission was given to girls. Male admissions eventually were predominantly the ex-nuptial births of girls in employment, readmitted to the Home for care during pregnancy pending parturition.
Male half-caste children in the camps were commonly left to be brought up with full bloods by their mothers and over the years numbers of girls were also left, removal depending upon the interest of the local Protector from time to time.
The half-caste male, illiterate and unable to count, brought up and living in the camp with his mother or discharged early from an institution was ineligible to join the N.A.W.U. but could be employed in the pastoral industry in terms of the Aboriginals Ordinance. With these restrictions on employment superimposed upon those of job scarcity and lack of skills, opportunities for the half-caste boy securing and retaining profitable and permanent work in town were minimal. For the full blood living with his family this was of little consequence nor was it of much concern for the half-caste habituated to and content with camp life. For the half-caste boy discharged, partly educated from an institution and living in a town district, occasional recourse to casual unskilled work alternated with prolonged periods of unemployment and destitution.
Girls discharged from the Institution would, on completion of basic schooling, have no difficulty in finding work as domestic aids in country or urban homes but the terms of employment would be those of the Aboriginals Ordinance and its regulations.
After her discharge from an Institution no special care seems to have been taken by anybody to safeguard the social or moral welfare of the teenage girl. Allotted to employment in a household seeking domestic help she would usually be left completely free in the use of her leisure time and in the choice of her own friends and social activities.
For the untutored and unsophisticated teenage girl having no strict moral code of her own, lacking the support of a home affording the companionship of parent and siblings and usually without any sheltering guidance from a sympathetic employer, in a community with a considerable excess of unattached and sexually avid males, opportunities for undisciplined indulgence of socially unacceptable diversions were numerous and demanding. Sexual promiscuity and perhaps prostitution became a feature of female behaviour. Venereal disease and a high ex-nuptial birth rate confronted the Public Health Authority and aggravated the welfare problem of the Administration.
In the civil disorder of industrial Darwin of World War 1 and its aftermath, Waters, Inspector of Police and Protector considered the majority of female half-castes to be prostitutes – a generalisation which probably was intended to mean “promiscuous.”
Soon after taking up duty as Chief Medical Officer, North Australia in 1927 Cook called the attention of the Government Resident (R.H. Weddell) to certain inconsistencies and anomalies in the status accorded persons of mixed blood subject to the Aboriginals Ordinance. These administrative defects made it difficult to plan and to apply rational measures for the improvement of health and economic standards in the community life of half-caste aboriginals.
Under the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 as amended, “half-caste” was defined as any person, one, but not both of whose parents was an aboriginal and included any person with a half-caste parent. A half-caste male continued to be subject to the Aboriginals Ordinance as an aboriginal until he reached the age of 21 years when he became a full Territory citizen entitled to electoral enrolment and eligible to join the N.A.W.U.
As an aboriginal his opportunities for employment were restricted to those available to full blood aborigines under the conditions set out by the Ordinance for employment by persons holding a licence to employ aboriginals. As a member of the N.A.W.U. he would be free to enter any employment at award rates of wage.
The female half-caste remained an aboriginal subject to the Ordinance and its regulations all her life unless she married a man of substantially European origin and continued to live with him.
As a Territory citizen opportunity for and conditions of employment for the male half-caste were restricted only by job scarcity or lack of skill. For the female, work was available only under the provisions of the Ordinance.
Authorities in the Northern Territory had always been uncertain of the future of the half-caste. Baldwin Spencer, the ultimate referee for Commonwealth policy had advised with the concurrence of Gilruth, the first Administrator, that half-castes could not be expected to be accepted in white society but should be brought up with full blood aborigines on Reserves.
Cook, in 1927, on the other hand, believed that in the long term, the European genetic inheritance would prove incompatible with contentment in traditional tribal life, although this might be attractive for a time, to the child reared in the camp and knowing no alternative. He feared too that the apparent preference for the aboriginal camp, which Spencer and others had found in young half-castes and upon which they had based their opinion, might be only the natural response of the child to his only known home. It might be temporary and subject to change as the maturing youth became increasingly aware of the opportunities and liberties of civilised life.
If this view were valid it would be preferable to assist the half-caste to live comfortably and to develop in the white community where his aboriginal inheritance might be diluted in successive generations, unless he were impelled to reversion by preference.
In any event, Cook insisted, the choice was the individual’s prerogative and should not be thrust upon him by an alien bureaucrat. To choose intelligently he must know both lives and decision should be made after he had known life as a European.
There were other reasons for attempting to expedite the integration of the half-caste into the white community.
Conventional epidemiological and environmental measures for the control of endemic communicable disease in North Australia, at its then stage of development, would for many years be impracticable. Effective control must meantime depend upon elimination of the pathogen from the patient and the carrier. To rely on this method the Health Authority must be assured of the individual possessing not only a thorough understanding of the measures to be taken and the reasons for them but also a compelling sense of obligation scrupulously to apply them.
In number the mixed blood population was approaching one third of the European total. Its rate of natural increase was considerably higher than that of any other group. In addition it was concurrently being augmented by miscegenation between European and aboriginal. Control of endemic disease amongst aboriginal tribes would require special methods not readily applicable to the generality of half-castes and it would be folly to aggravate the problem by adding a new component to it.
Half-castes in aboriginal camps were inordinately exposed to endemic diseases. Although the Medical Service was actively developing a prophylactic system to prevent infections being transmitted between races, hazards were not yet eliminated. An attempt by a Missionary Society to establish a half-caste colony in Groote Island had been frustrated by the introduction of leprosy by the admission of infected girls from an aboriginal mission. Cases from this source were still appearing in the Territory and in Australian States to which the girls had been dispersed. Until precautions could be completed, if half-caste girls were sent to be reared in aboriginal camps and missions, they might, as nurse maids, bring endemic disease to their young charges in white family households. As part of its system of prophylaxis, the Medical Service would prefer to exclude the half-caste from the aboriginal camp until it had had more time to develop preventive measures.
In addition to the children taken by the Administration from aboriginal camps to be reared and schooled as European children, there were a number of halfcastes in the community, adults and children, living independently or in families, normal lives as self-supporting and respectable members of society.
These were the successors of individuals who had established themselves in the community, married and reared families whose members were in turn educated at public and private schools in the Territory or in an adjacent State. Originally one or both of the half-caste parents may have been discharged from an Institution but usually individuals of this type would have been reared, educated and set up in a livelihood by a putative father or by the special efforts of a mission or private benefactor.
Although these people fell within the definition of half-caste in the Aboriginals Ordinance and indeed were subject to its provisions, native administration authorities were punctilious in avoiding interference with them unless they became involved in some legal difficulty or needed aid in a property problem. Half-castes in this category were more numerous in Central Australia where they included more quadroons and octoroons than in the North.
Certainly for these half-castes there could be no ground for advocating their returning to the aboriginal camp.
Cook recommended that, notwithstanding the opinion expressed by Baldwin Spencer and Gilruth that the aboriginal half-caste could never be integrated into the white community, the Territory of North Australia adopt as firm policy, the elevation of the whole half-caste social group to European standards of education and community life with the ultimate objective of their complete and unquestioned social integration into the white community. Weddell agreed and detailed design and active development of the policy commenced at once in North Australia.
In preliminary plans it seemed rational to separate the younger girls in the Darwin Home from those who had been exposed to the evils in the community contributing to misbehaviour. They would also be removed from contact with full blood aboriginals and camp influences.
Elder girls requiring the shelter and care available at the Darwin Home would be housed separately at Kahlin Compound and employed there rather than in town. Retraining would be attempted without duress. Belated attempts to correct misbehaviour by the imposition of penalties available under the Aboriginals Ordinance and Regulations might well provoke resentment and rebellion, stabilising as abiding distrust and unrelenting defiance of established authority, its sanctions and its standards of self-discipline.
For those young enough to learn and not yet antagonised, it appeared wiser to explore the use of a surrogate family and home life in the hope that enjoyment of a friendly, perhaps even an affectionate relationship with an admired mother figure amongst morally guided and self-disciplined seniors and peers there might evolve an enduring disposition to seek this as a normal and eminently desirable life experience.
It was felt that half measures of any sort would serve only to complicate the difficulties and create new problems. The obvious course was to commence and unremittingly pursue the elevation of the half-caste to European levels of domestic, personal, moral and educational standards, assuring his full and free acceptance by whites as whites.
To this end, boys as well as girls were brought in and educated. As numbers increased, an institution, especially for boys, was opened at Pine Creek. This was later transferred to Alice Springs.
As the Administration’s objective became known and as the girls established beyond question their claim to recognition, white suitors became numerous, and the future of the excess half-caste female population seemed assured. By 1938, the Chief Protector had granted permission for the marriage of 70 girls, 41 to Europeans and 29 to half-castes.
To provide for the employment and to raise the standard of living for boys, amendments were made to the North Australian legislation in 1930. The first was the Pastoral Employees Accommodation Ordinance prescribing satisfactory standards of living accommodation for pastoral workers. The second was the Apprentices (Half-caste) Regulations under the Aboriginals Ordinance providing that the Chief Protector might direct holders of licences to employ aborigines in a country district, to employ half-caste boys as apprentices in the pastoral industry.
The purpose was to raise the standard of culture of both boy and girl to the general level of the European community. For the girl, it was intended to present her as acceptable as a white wife in white society, so providing the male population, half-caste and white, the opportunity of marriage to girls of irreproachable social and moral standard.
Every care was taken in allocating girls to employment. Girls were sent only to employers, married women who accepted full responsibility for their moral and physical welfare and training, accepting them into the household as white girls, as members of the family, educating them in domestic refinement and social advancement. They were to receive instruction by precept and example in an environment calculated to elevate them to a white standard of hygiene, morality and community responsibility. The employer was required to make every effort by supervision to exclude any outside influence tending toward reversion to a lower standard. Where, as the wife of a Public Servant the employer enjoyed periodical opportunities of metropolitan leave in a southern State, she was encouraged to take the girl with her. This was especially favoured when there were children in the family.
It was hoped to raise the standard of culture of the girl to make her acceptable as a white wife in a white community, at the same time providing the excess male population with an opportunity of marriage.
Reasonable success attended the zealous pursuit of this policy. Girls grew to womanhood with a degree of moral stability, self-respect and dignity such as had not previously been believed possible of attainment. A number were trialled as nursing assistants in Darwin Hospital and at least two obtained clerical positions in Government offices.
Early, it became apparent that housing accommodation must be found for halfcaste couples unless they were to revert to camp standards. These were years of economic depression. A recommendation by the Chief Medical Officer that the Workers Dwellings Ordinance be proclaimed and implemented so that the housing standard for the white population might be improved and Health legislation effectually enforced, had already been rejected by the Government, and evidently would not be available to assist half-castes.
It became necessary to take recourse to a locally devised expedient. A number of vacant residential blocks of land in suitable situations in Darwin were taken up by the Chief Protector at Peppercorn rental. These were cleared by native labour and provided with access roads. A building fund was created by loan from the Aboriginal Trust Account and from this, prefabricated material for eight cottages of approved types were erected by native labour under supervision of a white foreman builder. By this means, it was possible to allocate to each of the eight tenants a dwelling conforming to the Building Regulation standards and costing no more than £150, repayable over a long period. These cottages, subsequently increased in number by another six, were scattered throughout the residential area of Darwin and not concentrated together. They were provided with community playgrounds nearby. Half the cost of the first group of houses was paid off by 1935 and this enabled the building construction to be extended.
With the administrative changes of 1st March, 1927, when the Northern Territory was divided into two separately administered territories, North and Central Australia, responsibility for the half-caste Home in Darwin was transferred from the Police to the Chief Medical Officer as Chief Protector North Australia. The Alice Springs Home with other functions of the Aboriginal Protector remained with the Police until the two Territories were united into the Northern Territory in 1931 when the Chief Protector North Australia became Chief Protector Northern Territory.
During the financial year July 1, 1926 – June 30, 1927, the number of children in the Darwin Home had averaged 29; by 30th June, following the change in administration the total reached 44.
In succeeding years, following the change in policy, the total progressively increased, reflecting the greater activity in the search for and admission of mixed blood children in North Australia. In Darwin in 1928 there were 72 (23 males and 43 females) and in 1929, 88 (28 males and 60 females).
On 9th September, 1933, a special Home for boys was opened at Pine Creek. 28 were transferred from Darwin and ten were admitted during the year bringing the total to 38. The Pine Creek Home was closed 20th May, 1933 the boys being transferred to Alice Springs to enter the newly established institution in the old Post and Telegraph building left vacant following erection of new building at Stuart.
In Central Australia Half-caste children both male and female were originally housed in a Bungalow in Alice Springs where they were schooled by the Matron. They numbered 57 – 28 males and 29 females. A handful of white children attended a school conducted separately by the same teacher in the afternoon. The Home was sited near the Hotel and was difficult to control.
With the approach of Railway Construction Camps to Stuart it was decided to move 10 adults and 51 children to Jay Creek, using temporary premises whilst permanent and satisfactory accommodation was found or erected. This was not available until the old Telegraph Station at Alice Springs was taken over from the Postmaster General’s Department in 1932. At Jay Creek in the year 1931 there was 52 children – 30 males and 22 females including 15 quadroons (11 males and 4 females). These were transferred to the new Home at Alice Springs on 17th November, 1933 when Jay Creek was closed.
In total at Alice Springs in 1933 there were 114 children – 71 males and 43 females. For the combined Northern Territory in 1934 there 188; in Darwin 68 (13 males and 55 females) and Alice Springs 120 (68 males and 52 females) Evidence of the successful progress of the policy of elevating the half-caste living standard to that of the white community accumulated as the years progress.
An amendment was promulgated in 1936 to enable the Chief Protector to grant revocable exemption from the Ordinance to individual male or female half-castes by declaration that the individual shall not be deemed to be a half-caste for purposes of the Ordinance.
Its special value was to the young man or woman with a party of white friends celebrating an event or participating in a function of mutual social importance or interest to all, being humiliated by an abrupt denial of access to a place or denied a privilege, all were to attend and enjoy, by being debarred on the grounds of being an aboriginal.
Immediately following its gazettal, 11 males and 2 females were granted total exemption and 19 males partial exemption.
A year later in 1939, 15 males and 10 females were granted total and 9 males and 6 females partial exemption.
Adverse reports from the police led to revocation of the exemption for 3 males included in the first group.
Although little progress was made in improving the behaviour and social outlook of the older girls who had reached adult life under the uncontrolled system of employment operating before 1927, the youngster reared under the more restrictive and sheltered regime proved remarkably well behaved and self disciplined. Their creditable social consciousness and moral stability attracted the admiration of unattached males, half-caste and white.
During the eight years to 1938, the Chief Protector was able to give consent for the marriage of 70 girls – 29 to half-castes and 41 to Europeans.
This new measure offered individuals the opportunity of proving worthy of trust thereby improving his outlook and promoting his absorption into the white community.