Remembering Reserves: The Deebing Creek Aboriginal Mission and Cemetery in Aboriginal History and Memory

Abstract

Eight kilometres south-east of Ipswich, along the banks of Deebing Creek, lies the site of a former Aboriginal mission reserve which, from 1892 to 1915, accommodated Aboriginal people from across Queensland, displaced from their lands by encroaching white settlement and government intervention. Some came from faraway places – Normanton, Burketown, Cooktown, Townsville, Barcaldine, St George, Alpha, Mitchell, Cunnamulla, Roma, and even New South Wales. Others were from regions adjacent to the mission such as Logan, Beaudesert and Boonah and from nearby Ipswich, Purga and Deebing Creek itself.