Material Histories

This study provides a picture of the extent to which the Board for Protection of Aborigines sought to control the day to day lives of Aboriginal people in Victoria. Using samples of fabric located in an archive box relating to the provision of clothing and rations to Aboriginal people as a starting point, a story of the attitude of the Board towards the every day activities and work of Aboriginal people on missions and reserves emerges. Examination of documentation relating directly to the fabric samples and their use demonstrates that the Board wielded the supply of rations and clothing as a powerful tool in its attempts to coerce Aboriginal people to comply with other rules and regulations. This regime was organised around the principles of erasing Aboriginality and inculcating white values such as settled life, individualism, European gender roles and work patterns.

Clothing, control and resistance on missions 1910-1920 by Clare Land.

Following British invasion of Victoria, the colonial authorities introduced policies forcing Aboriginal people to live on reserves. Some Aboriginal people managed to evade these regulations and lived outside the reserve system. However, many families lived on reserves and missions around the State, including Coranderrk, Lake Tyers, Lake Condah, Framlingham, Ramahyuck and Ebenezer. The Central Board to Watch Over the Interests of the Aborigines, established in 1860, assumed central control of Aboriginal people's lives and living conditions. In 1969 it became the Board for the Protection of Aborigines (Board). The Board developed policies and expected mission and reserve managers to implement them.

The Board for Protection of Aborigines sought to control the work, behaviour and lifestyles of Aboriginal people in Victoria. Missions and reserves were complex environments where clothing and rations can be read as sites of coercion, control and resistance.

This project examines some of the conditions Aboriginal people faced on reserves in early twentieth century Victoria. It uses a 'material culture' approach to history - one that looks to objects as well as written documents for historical evidence. The starting point is two sets of fabric samples obtained by the Board around 1916-1918. These objects are used to investigate not only tangible measures of living conditions, such as clothing and rations, but intangible conditions, including coercion, control and resistance. The study builds up a picture of the way the Board manipulated the supply of rations and clothing to coerce Aboriginal people to comply with other rules and regulations. This regime was organised around the principles of erasing Aboriginality and inculcating white values such as settled life, individualism, European gender roles and work patterns.

This study is presented in a modular format, representing the different strands of enquiry inspired by the objects. It delves into the history of textile manufacture in post-contact Victoria, as well as the role of clothes in the missionary context. It explores the material links between Aboriginal people on reserves and inmates of two other government institutions in early twentieth century Victoria: prisons and lunatic asylums. Focussing as it does on Victorian Aboriginal people in the 1910s, prison labour and working class clothes, this study has strayed into a particularly marginal subject area, and I comment on this in a brief section on clothing in museum collections. Balancing 'hard' and 'soft approaches' to material culture research, the study pursues the tangible reality as well as the hidden qualities of the fabric samples. The seemingly divergent strands of research are drawn together in the conclusion.