Visualization of Colonial Assimilationist Policies: Who?
In the first instance of the visual analysis, the Who factor refers to both the subject of the photograph, as well as the colonial documentary photographer. In this respect, there are a number of important questions that must be addressed to discern the image's underlying meaning, such as:
- Who is the photographed individual?
- Why are they in particular photographed?
- Who is the photographer?
- What was their motivation or purpose for capturing the image(s)?
- Who was the photographer acting on behalf of?
- What does the photographer's presence indicate about the policies and attitudes of the particular colonial state?
In spite of the fact that Australia did not adopt an official policy of assimilation until the Initial Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities in 1937, there was a clear model for the implementation of such a practice. Since the turn of the century, there existed a precedent within the Northern Territory for the removal of 'Half-Caste' children and their ensuing placement within Aboriginal Institutions to facilitate eventual absorption into the white settler society. This practice is inherently visible when studying contemporary photographs taken in the 1910s and 1920s, which seem to reflect the apparent shift from the nineteenth-century policy of 'protective' segregation to full throttle assimilation in the first decades of the twentieth century, with the hope that absorbing the 'Half-Caste' children into society would neutralize the greatest threat to the colonial dream of a 'White Australia'.
It is possible to see this reality at work for one's self, by looking to contemporary photographs that act as "visual dimensions of the past" according to Curtis. [1] In the Australian context, the select photographs within this exhibit are overwhelmingly of 'Half-Caste' children and young adults that are predominately photographed in large groups, and most often alongside or in the vicinity of a white settler-civilian or figure of authority. This is perhaps best exemplified in the photographs — images 3 to 6 — immediately following this paragraph. Each of these specified photographs depict 'Half-Caste' children and a white settler — either a child or adult — in the same frame. The close proximity creates a sense of acceptance, as if the 'rightful' place of these children of half-European stock was in white-run institutions where they could learn the customs and values that would aid in their eventual integration into settler society. It is indeed possible to read these photographs in such a manner since, as Curtis observes, historic images are capable of reflecting "the biases and racist assumptions of private and government aid agencies" within the contemporary period. [2]
The first three photographs all feature a number of 'Half-Caste' boys from 'The Bungalow' in Stuart (Alice Springs) engaging in some form of activity alongside the photographer's son, Bob Laver.
Image 3 depicts several 'Half-Caste' boys pulling on a rope while an older white boy, identified as Bob Laver, pushes the wheelbarrow loaded with three crates of "Walkerville Bitter". [3]
Image 4 also depicts Bob Laver and a group of 'Half-Caste' boys engaged in a boxing match. A companion photograph provides a more detailed description of the scene, noting that the "other boys form a ring around" the two boxers. [4]
Image 5 yet again depicts the cohort of boys; however, in this instance, the names of the 'Half-Caste' children are actually provided in the accompanying caption. From looking closely at the photograph, it is clear the boys are participating in some kind of race, and the caption provides confirmation that is, in fact, a three-legged race held on the aptly named 'Sports Day' at the Alice Springs Bungalow in 1924. [5] The individuals in the photograph are identified, from left to right, as Harry Wauchope and Bob Laver in the first pair racing against "a boy named Smith" and Roy Dubois in the second pair on the right. [6] There seems to be no concern with the 'mixing' of white and 'Half-Caste' children, and the images from 'The Bungalow' at Alice Springs actually seem to support the possibility of 'Half-Caste' assimilation into the white settler society of the Northern Territory specifically, as well as Australia overall.
In a slightly different manner, image 6 depicts two 'Half-Caste' girls, who are identified as Enbarda (Betsy) on the left and Dolly Cumming on the right, in a portrait-style arrangement with missionary Annie Lock. [7] As to be expected, there is considerable information on the white settler-colonials in this context, and relatively little on the children themselves. In particular, this photograph represents somewhat of a significant moment in the life of Annie Lock, whose missionary work took her across nearly all parts of the Australian continent, from New South Wales to Perth to Katanning to Carrolup to Sunday Island to Oodnadatta and finally to Ti Tree. [8] The story surrounding this photograph began in September 1928 when Lock, in the company of Reverend Athol McGregor, headed north to Barrow Creek and in doing so "saw an opportunity to take two Aboriginal girls in her care to Darwin for injections against yaws". [9] In the process, Lock broke the law against transferring of Aboriginals from one region to another without written permission from the Chief Protector of Aborigines, as their travels brought them across the newly demarcated boundary between North and Central Australia. [10] Evidently, one is led to believe that Lock and the "two Aboriginal girls" ultimately arrived in Darwin, where they were photographed according to the caption for image 5, which states "Missionary Annie Lock with Enbarda (Betsy) left, and Dolly Cumming, both children from the Alice Springs area in Central Australia. Photo taken in Darwin". [11]
In comparison to the wealth of sources on Lock, there was relatively little to be found on the two girls, Enbarda or Betsy and Dolly Cumming. The only reference appears in scholar Margaret D. Jacobs's book, Boarding School Blues: Revisting American Indian Educational Experiences within the chapter titled "Indian Boarding Schools in Comparative Perspective: The Removal of Indigenous Children in the United States and Australia, 1880-1940". [12] In the chapter, Jacobs specifically refers to a "Barbara Cummings from the Northern Territory" that seemed to have some experience with "Christian indoctrination" likely from Lock and other missionaries. [13] It is possible that Barbara Cummings and the small girl pictured in front of Lock in the photograph taken in 1928 were one in the same, since Barbara, just like Betsy, could potentially act as a short form for Enbarda. Similarly, the writer of the caption back in 1928 may have intended the surname 'Cummings' to apply to both children, and thus only located it at the end of both names, as opposed to both individually. However, this entirely speculation and there does not seem to a source that is capable of corroborating the identity of the two girls.
There is a saviour-like, paternalist sentiment in the photographs and especially the accompanying captions, one which explicitly refers to the "plight of the half caste" as a "sorry one and an urgent problem". [14]
In contrast, the depictions of individuals identified as Metis are more of a diverse assemblage with some portraits that varying between headshots and full-length documentary style images, and group photographs that, by and large, focus on the adults, as opposed to the children. On occasion, Metis children appear in the select images; although, it is typically alongside parents and/or relatives of some sort, as demonstrated in image 8 on the right. Therein, very rarely were Metis children the lone subject(s) in contemporary photographs from the early twentieth century; however, there are a few exceptions as seen on the exhibit's home page.
In reference to the photographs of Metis on this page and others, there a number of photographers to consider when interpreting the image's message. For images 10 and 11, there is no specifically named photographer, beyond merely the crediting of the "Half-Breed Commission" in the respective descriptions. [15] As previously discussed, the Government of Canada created Half-Breed Commissions to oversee the distributions of scrip, whether in the form of land grants or specified amounts of money, to Metis residents of the North-West Territories, beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing well into the early twentieth century. [16] These commissions travelled across the vast expanse of the North-West Territories over the course of several decades. In particular, this exhibit includes photographs from the 1900 expedition of a Half-Breed Commission that visited and photographed Metis residents at Onion Lake, Grand Rapids, and Battleford, as well as capturing images of the all-Metis Commissioner's Crew that performed the expedition's manual labour, such as rowing the York boats or baking bannock. [17] These photographs do not convey the same kind of assimilationist intentions as the Australian 'Half-Caste' photography, which is almost entirely due to the fact that the photographed Metis were not as obviously confined as the 'Half-Caste' children in the prison-like institutions throughout the Northern Territory; however, the Metis were restricted to certain areas with the advent of the scrip process, which the very presence of the Half-Breed Commission in the North-West Territories exemplified. In that sense, the Canadian colonial photography of the Metis perhaps conveyed a more subtle or 'muted' desire for assimilation, whereas the 'Half-Caste' photography from Australia's Northern Territory was far more blatant in the visualization of colonial aspirations.
Footnotes
[1] James Curtis, “Making Sense of Documentary Photography,” History Matters: The U.S. Survey on the Web, n.d., 2.
[4] Jack Laver, Boxing Lessons, 1923, Photograph, 20.5 x 15.9 cm, PRG 1365/1/316, State Library of South Australia: Laver Collection.
[5] Jack Laver, Sports Day, Alice Springs, 1924, Photograph, 20.2 x 15.4 cm, PRG 1365/1/258, State Library of South Australia: Laver Collection.
[7] Missionary Annie Lock with Enbarda (Betsy) Left, and Dolly Cumming, Both Children from the Alice Springs Area in Central Australia. Photo Taken in Darwin. Photo 93, 1928, Photograph, A1, 1929/984 Item #8189452, National Archives of Australia.
[8] David Carment, Christine Edward, Barbara James, Robyn Maynard, Alan Powell, and Helen J. Wilson, eds., Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography: Revised Edition (Charles Darwin University Press, 2008): 356.
[9] David Carment, Christine Edward, Barbara James, Robyn Maynard, Alan Powell, and Helen J. Wilson, eds., Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography: Revised Edition (Charles Darwin University Press, 2008): 356.
[10] David Carment, Christine Edward, Barbara James, Robyn Maynard, Alan Powell, and Helen J. Wilson, eds., Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography: Revised Edition (Charles Darwin University Press, 2008): 356.
[11] Missionary Annie Lock with Enbarda (Betsy) Left, and Dolly Cumming, Both Children from the Alice Springs Area in Central Australia. Photo Taken in Darwin. Photo 93, 1928, Photograph, A1, 1929/984 Item #8189452, National Archives of Australia.
[12] Margaret D. Jacobs, “Indian Boarding Schools in Comparative Perspective: The Removal of Indigenous Children in the United States and Australia, 1880-1940,” in Boarding School Blues: Revisting American Indian Educational Experiences (University of Nebraska Press, 2006).
[13] Margaret D. Jacobs, “Indian Boarding Schools in Comparative Perspective: The Removal of Indigenous Children in the United States and Australia, 1880-1940,” in Boarding School Blues: Revisting American Indian Educational Experiences (University of Nebraska Press, 2006).
[14] 43. Neither Black nor White - Unwanted and with Neither Birthright nor Heritage, 1928-1929, Photograph, A1, 1928/10743 Item #31708781, National Archives of Australia.