| Lake Tyers Mission Victoria | |||||||||
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  Lake Tyers Mission | |||||||||
| Coordinates | 37°50′22″S148°05′57″E / 37.839363°S 148.099066°E | ||||||||
| Postcode(s) | 3909 | ||||||||
| Location |
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| LGA(s) | Shire of East Gippsland | ||||||||
| State electorate(s) | Gippsland East | ||||||||
| Federal division(s) | Gippsland | ||||||||
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Lake Tyers Mission, also known as Bung Yarnda, was an Aboriginal mission established in 1863 on the shore of Lake Tyers in Victoria's Gippsland, region as a centralised location for Aboriginal people from around Victoria. [1]
The Lake Tyers Mission Station was established by the Church of England missionary Reverend John Bulmer in 1863 following decades of conflict between the Kurnai people and white settlers in Gippsland. Bulmer had previously sought to establish a mission south of Buchan in 1861, but moved south to the coast with the few Aboriginal survivors of the conflict. The chosen site was on a peninsula, with a lake on each side, known to traditional owners as Bung Yarnda. In the early twentieth century, Aboriginal people from a number of other Victorian missions, including Ramahyuck, Lake Condah and Coranderrk, were relocated to Lake Tyers. The Ramahyuck Mission (established in 1863 by Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer on the Avon River near Lake Wellington) was closed in 1908 and the Ganai survivors from west and central Gippsland were moved to Lake Tyers. The Ebenezer Mission was closed in 1904 due to low numbers and in the following twenty years many Wergaia people from north-western Victoria were forcibly moved to Lake Tyers. [2] Lake Tyers was taken over by the Victorian Government in 1908.
In 1916 the Government of Victoria decided to concentrate Aboriginal people from across Victoria at Lake Tyers, [2] with the Aboriginal Protection Board establishing a policy in 1917 to concentrate all "full-blood" and "half-caste" Aboriginal people on the Lake Tyers reserve. In 1957 the Board for the Protection of Aborigines was abolished, and in the 1960s the Victorian Government decided to try to close the settlement, and assimilate residents into the general community. Some were moved to distant parts of the state, but not necessarily their traditional lands. [1]
Protests in the 1950s and 1960s for an independent, Aboriginal-run farming cooperative at Lake Tyers received support and assistance from the Aborigines Advancement League in Melbourne. Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls campaigned on their behalf, but when the Board moved to close Lake Tyers, Nicholls resigned his position in protest. [1] In 1965, however, the mission was declared a Permanent Reserve.
In 1970 the Aboriginal Lands Act 1970 was passed by the Parliament of Victoria, the first Act to recognise land rights for Aboriginal people in Victoria, [3] which handed ownership of Framlingham in western Victoria to an Aboriginal trust on 1 July 1971. Along with Lake Tyers, Framlingham was the last reserve to close in Victoria. In 1971 the remaining Lake Tyers residents, then only numbering a couple of hundred, were granted freehold title to the remaining 237 hectares (2.37 km2) as part of a self-governing community under the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust, with each adult and child receiving a parcel of shares. [1]
The Aborigines Advancement League had previously expressed concern for the loss of Aboriginal land in 1948, when it told the government that "land titles of Lake Tyers must be transferred with due precaution in the matter of safeguard to prevent any attempted dispossession of the Aborigines and mixed bloods by any person". [4] Shortly after, Laurie Moffatt explained as a spokesman for Lake Tyers residents:
We do not want to see Lake Tyers finally sold to the white man in the same way as Ramahyuck, Condah, Ebenezer Mission and Coranderrk Reserves have been sold. All these have been hostels for the aborigines in my lifetime and have been sold to the white man to cultivate. [5]
An administrator (Simon Wallace-Smith of Deloitte) was appointed by the government to run the trust in 2003. However, the remaining shareholders objected and in 2011 they staged a two-week blockade of the site, camping at the settlement's gate and refusing access to all government officials. Wallace-Smith was escorted back in by police. [1]
Albert Mullett, although born in Melbourne in 1933, lived with his family on the fringe of Lake Tyers, but when "part-Aboriginal" families were forced to leave the mission they moved to the other side of the lake. [6]
John Gorrie PSM, born in Melbourne on 10 March 1950, lived on Lake Tyers circa 1952 to 1960. He is a descendant of Charlie Hammond, survivor of the Brodribb River massacre, and was the first Aboriginal man awarded the Public Service Medal in 2005. [7]
The Western District comprises western regions of the Australian state of Victoria. It is said to be an ill–defined district, sometimes incorrectly referred to as an economic region,. The district is located within parts of the Barwon South West and the Grampians regions; extending from the south-west corner of the state to Ballarat in the east and as far north as Ararat. The district is bounded by the Wimmera district in the north, by the Goldfields district in the east, by Bass Strait and the Southern Ocean in the south, and by the South Australian border in the west. The district is well known for the production of wool. The most populated city in the Western District is the Ballarat region, with 96,940 inhabitants.
The Gunaikurnai or Gunai/Kurnai people, also referred to as the Gunnai or Kurnai, are an Aboriginal Australian nation of south-east Australia. They are the Traditional Custodians of most of present-day Gippsland and much of the southern slopes of the Victorian Alps. The Gunaikurnai nation is composed of five major clans. Many of the Gunaikurnai people resisted early European squatting and subsequent settlement during the nineteenth century, resulting in a number of deadly confrontations between Europeans and the Gunaikurnai. There are about 3,000 Gunaikurnai people alive today, predominantly living in Gippsland. The Gunaikurnai dialects are the traditional language of the Gunaikurnai people, although there are very few fluent speakers today.
Stratford is a town on the Avon River in Victoria, Australia, 232 kilometres (144 mi) east of Melbourne on the Princes Highway in Shire of Wellington. At the 2016 census, Stratford had a population of 2617. The town services the local regional community and travellers on the Princes Highway. Stratford's principal industries are dairying, sheep, cattle and horse breeding and vegetable crops. The town has numerous coffee shops and cafes, a cellar door for a local winery, Design Gallery, model railway shop, a pub, parks and playgrounds for car travelers to break their journey.
Sir Douglas Ralph Nicholls, was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneering campaigner for reconciliation.
Captain Charles James Tyers RN FRSV was a 19th-century Anglo-Australian surveyor and explorer, and the Commissioner of Crown Lands for Portland (1842–43) and Gippsland (1844–67).
Framlingham is a rural township located by the Hopkins River in the Western District of Victoria, Australia, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north-east of the coastal city of Warrnambool. In the 2016 census, the township had a population of 158.
Friedrich Hagenauer (1829–1909) was a Presbyterian minister and missionary in Australia who established Ebenezer Mission and Ramahyuck mission. Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer and Reverend F.W. Spieseke from the German Moravian Church were sent to Australia and established Ebenezer Mission station near Lake Hindmarsh, Victoria, Australia in 1859 in Wergaia territory.
The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of southwestern Victoria. They are the traditional owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. Their land includes much of the Budj Bim heritage areas. The Kerrup Jmara are a clan of the Gunditjmara, whose traditional lands are around Lake Condah. The Koroitgundidj are another clan group, whose lands are around Tower Hill.
The Aboriginal Advancement League was founded in 1957 as the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League (VAAL), is the oldest Aboriginal rights organisation in Australia still in operation. Its precursor organisations were the Australian Aborigines League and Save the Aborigines Committee, and it was also formerly known as Aborigines Advancement League (Victoria), and just Aborigines Advancement League.
Ebenezer Mission, also known as Wimmera mission, Hindmarsh mission and Dimboola mission, was a mission station for Aboriginal people established near Lake Hindmarsh in Victoria, Australia in 1859 by the Moravian Church on the land of the Wotjobaluk. The first missionaries were two Germans, Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer and Reverend F.W. Spieseke. In 1861 the Victorian Colonial Government gazetted 1,897 acres (7.68 km2) as a reserve for the Ebenezer Mission Station. The mission was established a few years after the failure of the Moravian Lake Boga mission in Wemba-Wemba territory.
Dja Dja Wurrung, also known as the Djaara or Jajowrong people and Loddon River tribe, are an Aboriginal Australian people who claim they were the traditional owners of lands including the watersheds of the Loddon and Avoca rivers in the Bendigo region of central Victoria, Australia. They are part of the Kulin alliance of Aboriginal Victorian peoples. There are 16 clans, which adhere to a patrilineal system. Like other Kulin peoples, there are two moieties: Bunjil the eagle and Waa the crow.
The Wergaia or Werrigia people are an Aboriginal Australian group in the Mallee and Wimmera regions of north-Western Victoria, made up of a number of clans. The people were also known as the Maligundidj which means the people belonging to the mali (mallee) eucalypt bushland which covers much of their territory.
Commonwealth, State, and Territory Parliaments of Australia have passed Aboriginal land rights legislation.
An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th century to the 1960s to keep Aboriginal people separate from the white Australian population, for various reasons perceived by the government of the day. The Aboriginal reserve laws gave governments much power over all aspects of Aboriginal people’s lives.
The Buchan River is a perennial river of the Snowy River catchment, located in the Alpine region of the Australian state of Victoria.
Carl Walter, also known as Charles Walter, was an Australian botanist and photographer. He was born in Mecklenburg, Germany in about 1831 and arrived in Victoria in the 1850s.
The Brabiralung are an Indigenous Australian people, one of the five clans of Gippsland, in the state of Victoria, Australia, belonging to a wider regional grouping known as the Kurnai.
Budj Bim heritage areas includes several protected areas in Victoria, Australia, the largest two being Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape and the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape. Within the latter, there are three Indigenous Protected Areas: the Tyrendarra Indigenous Protected Area, Kurtonitj Indigenous Protected Area, and the Lake Condah Indigenous Protected Area.
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