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Name
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Yarrabah Mission
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Type of carceral site
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Reserve, Station, or Mission
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Dates of use
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1892 – 1960
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Quote
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Just down the road from Cairns is the Aboriginal community of Yarrabah. Despite its idyllic location between tropical reef and rainforest and its establishment as an Anglican Mission, it was essentially a dumping ground for Aboriginal people, especially 'half-caste' children and women. Queensland Government records combined with oral histories reveal the circumstances surrounding the removal of some of the original inmates and provide evidence to support the well lamented accounts of starvation, poor education and slave labour.
Community History
Denigan, Kathleen. Reflections in Yarrabah. Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Council, 2008, qtd. in https://www-austlit-edu-au.ap1.proxy.openathens.net/austlit/page/C745454.
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[...] she had the third child, Norma. This little girl got very ill (with pneumonia) and Mum asked them for a doctor and they just told her, 'She don't need a doctor. She'll be right.' But then she died. So that's when Mum just about went out of her mind. In fact she tried to throw herself in the grave. So that was when Mum said that they made up their minds that they weren't going to lose any more children and they wanted better opportunities for their children. That was when they started to run away. What she told me was they ran away over (the hill) and the police brought them back. And they ran away again a second time and the police sent them back. They ran away a third time and they were sent to Palm Island. They sent them to Palm Island to be punished because that was the penal settlement.
Community History
Rose Colless qtd. in Thomson, Judy. Reaching Back: Queensland Aboriginal People Recall Early Days at Yarrabah Mission. AIATSIS, 1989, p. 71.
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Father Gribble was strict in a way, but good as well to the people. If anything wrong, he hit. He got a blacktop, a stick. That's the punishment. He showed goodness towards old people, but my people (some of the Fraser Island people) didn't stay. One day somebody said to me, 'Hey, all your people run away last night.' Some of the girls from the dormitory too, they went. Young women. They went away, they never come back. They were running away all the time from Yarrabah.
Community History
May Smith qtd. in Thomson, Judy. Reaching Back: Queensland Aboriginal People Recall Early Days at Yarrabah Mission. AIATSIS, 1989, p. 104.
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The past lives on in the present in so many ways that have yet to be revealed and the present projects itself back into the past. In 1977, seventeen years after mission control had been transferred to the Queensland Government, the Bishop of North Queensland, John Lewis, anointed Lorna Schreiber 'Queen of the Gunganjdji' because the people wanted it. Ernest Gribble had anointed her grandfather, Menmunny, King John Barlow to show his acceptance of mission authority and his willingness to work with the new regime. With its joyous memories and its bitter ones, mission life is inextricably part of the lives and history of Yarrabah [...] For some Aboriginal people, it is not an aberration in their historical experience; it is as central as the Dreamtime.
History
Loos, Noel. White Christ Black Cross: The Emergence of a Black Church. Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007, p. 11.
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Authority
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Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of Sale of Opium Act QLD 1897
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Archives and sources
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Denigan, Kathleen. Reflections in Yarrabah. Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Council, 2008.
Loos, Noel. White Christ Black Cross: The Emergence of a Black Church. Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007.
Thomson, Judy. Reaching Back: Queensland Aboriginal People Recall Early Days at Yarrabah Mission. AIATSIS, 1989.
"Our History and Future". Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Council, 2026, https://www.yarrabah.qld.gov.au/our-history-and-future/. Last accessed 16 September 2026.
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Contact
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Niamh
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identifier
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SITE-YARB