Another Feudal System

As pastoralists moved further into remote areas in the second half of the 19^th Century, they naturally moved on to Aboriginal land. Unlike farmers with small holdings close to cities, station owners or managers discovered that Aboriginals could be very useful. What evolved in these areas was a new type of feudal system for providing answers to the economic questions of what to produce, how to produce it, and how to share what was produced.

Benefits to Aboriginals of Staying on Pastoral Leases

• Less likely to be shot if they could be watched;
• Able to stay on their own country;
• Freedom to tend to spiritual obligations;
• Freedom to retain most of their culture and language;
• Able to recommend alternatives if a sacred site was at risk of being disturbed;
• Elderly, children or relatives passing through had somewhere to stay;
• (Depending on the morals of station managers) access to food, education, clothing and medical help;
• A sense of purpose and achievement when working on the station.

Benefits to Station Owners or Managers;

• Less likely to lose stock to uncontrolled hunting parties;
• Access to knowledge of land, seasons, water sources;
• Cheap labour when it was most needed;
• Aboriginals could make up for the lack of fencing by monitoring stock movements over country they knew.

Police/Protectors

• Reliant on Station owners/Managers for rations or meat
• “good behaviour” of Aboriginals kept Station owners happy
• Having both parties in one place made it easier for Protectors, who were working on their own.

The success of this arrangement – of mutually interdependent obligations – varied depending on places Aboriginals could go to if unhappy, how desperate the Station Owners were for help, and the values of the Station Owners and/or their white station hands.

Aboriginals took to station work as if born to it. (Well, the men perhaps, I don’t think I would say the same for “domestic” staff, or women who were often used/abused).

Naturally, there were downsides to this arrangement.