AustLit

'This book has one story to tell, but it is an important story about Aboriginal people in the state of Queensland from 1897 until the 1990s.1The story Kidd documents is that the trustees who had a fiduciary duty to protect and preserve the interests of their Aboriginal changes did not in fact do their duty very satisfactorily, but diverted wage money and other Aboriginal resources to projects of their choosing or in some cases simply pocketed it for themselves. For non-Australians and for some younger Australians it is important to remember that while all Aboriginal persons were regarded in the popular mind as non-citizens and as wards of the state, their status in the six states before Federation in 1901 was more complex. However, they were under severe restraints, of one sort or another, in all six jurisdictions. They lived in a state of ‘coerced dependency’ as Kidd puts it (p.72). In Queensland, Aboriginal persons were required to live where they were assigned, could not travel without permission (even if they did happen to have the money to do so), had to work where they were sent and had no rights to negotiate working conditions. In some cases they were required to work up to 32 hours a week without pay: ‘…year after year more and more men, women and children were contracted involuntarily to locations where there was no protection against labour exploitation, sexual or physical assault’ (p.63).'  (Introduction)