page_title: Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement
section_title: Life on the reserve
hierarchical_section_title: Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement / Life on the reserve
caption_attribution_description: English: Cricket being played on Palm Island, Queensland
context_page_description: Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement, later officially known as Director of Native Affairs Office, Palm Island and also known as Palm Island Aboriginal Reserve, Palm Island mission and Palm Island Dormitory, was an Aboriginal reserve and penal settlement on Great Palm Island, the main island in the Palm Island group in North Queensland, Australia. It was the largest and most punitive reserve in Queensland.
  Gazetted in 1914, the first residents were only moved there in March 1918 from the Hull River Aboriginal Settlement after that reserve was destroyed by a cyclone. The settlement continued under government control in various forms until 1975. Palm Island was mentioned in the Bringing Them Home Report as an institution that housed children removed from their families, part of the Stolen Generation.
context_section_description: In the first two decades of its establishment the population of Indigenous "inmates" increased from 200 to 1,630. In 1939 there were 1248. By the early 1920s, Palm Island had become the largest of the government Aboriginal settlements. Administrators found its location attractive as Aboriginal people could be isolated, but Palm Island quickly gained a reputation amongst Aboriginal people as a penal settlement. They were removed from across Queensland as punishment; being "disruptive", falling pregnant to a white man, or being born with "mixed blood" were among the "infringements" that could lead to the penalty of being sent to Palm Island. New arrivals came after being sentenced by a court or released from prison, or they were sent by administrators of other missions wishing to weed out their more ill-mannered or disruptive Aboriginal people. The death rate on the reserve was higher than the birth rate until after 1945, with replenishment of numbers from the mainland the only reason for the growth in population there.
  Palm Island was used as a penal institution for Indigenous people who ran afoul of the 1897 Protection Act, as well as those who had committed criminal offences. Many men who had already served their time in jail on the mainland were afterwards moved to the reserve, thus punishing them a second time for the same offence.
  In the 1930s a local doctor highlighted malnutrition on the island, and demanded that the Government triple rations for the islanders and that children be provided with fruit juice, but the request was denied.
  On the reserve there was a "hospital, two schools, a Female Welfare Organisation with a Home Training Centre, an Old People's Home, a Child Welfare Centre with baby and child clinics, dormitories for children, women and youths, churches of various denominations, a curio shop, sawmill and logging operations, and a workshop where training was undertaken in carpentry, joining and plumbing".
  A bell tower was built to dictate the running of the mission. The bell would ring each morning at eight, a signal for everyone to line up for parade in the mission square. Those who failed to line up had their food allocation cut. At nine each evening the bell would ring again, signalling the shutting down of the island's electricity. The roll call and curfew lasted until the 1970s. The bell tower still stands in the local square to this day, a relic of Palm Island's history. It was recorded that there was almost military-like discipline in the segregation between white and black, and that inmates "were treated as rather dull retarded children".
  
  The following letter was written to a new bride by the "Protector":
  "Dear Lucy, Your letter gave me quite a shock, fancy you wanting to draw four pounds to buy a brooch, ring, bangle, work basket, tea set, etc, etc. I am quite sure Mrs. Henry would expend the money carefully for you, but I must tell you that no Aborigine can draw 4/5 of their wages unless they are sick and in hospital and require the money to buy comforts... However, as it is Christmas I will let you have 1/5 – out of your banking account to buy lollies with."
  Aboriginal people were forbidden to speak their language and to go into "white" zones. Everyday activity was highly controlled by administrators, and there were nightly curfews and the vetting of mail. In some cases, women were put into dormitories and their husbands sent to work on the mainland.
caption: Locals playing cricket with the bell tower in the background (1996)
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