Ebenezer Mission Station, 1863–1873: The Diary of Missionaries Adolf and Polly Hartmann

Abstract

WARNING:Readers are notified that this publication may contain names or images of deceased persons.viiForeword My name is Aunty Hazel McDonald. I am a Wotjobaluk elder. My ties to the Ebenezer mission are through my family. My family are the Marks family, who lived on the reserve at Antwerp with other families, such as the Harrisons, the Kennedys.Growing up, we were always told about Ebenezer mission. Told that missionaries were not doing any good for anyone. They had our people on the mission, making them into Christians and taking them at some age away from their families. We were told a lot on the Aboriginal side of things, but not what really happened at Ebenezer. So, I have enjoyed reading this diary and it has really opened my eyes to what actually was done and what was achieved at the Ebenezer mission. It opened my eyes that they, the female missionaries, were teaching the young girls and women on the mission to do sewing and domestic life in their way. Well, it was probably better for them to learn that for today's society. The world was changing. These people probably looked at it and thought, we'll teach them this. When everything was said and done, and the boards were gone and people could actually live properly, they would have to have those skills, and these are with them today. These skills were passed on to the children and the other women. I was really interested in reading about Polly. She was only a young bride sent out to this harsh place and the heat really knocked her to the ground. A bit different from England's weather. I feel sorry for her, because it would have been hard for her, away from her people and her parents, going off with her husband, not really knowing anyone. She put up with all those changes in her life so quick, and the miscarriages, that all took a toll on her. It is a shame she got sick. I would say she was a good woman. She still continued her duties out there as a missionary, but it still affected her whole life, until it got too much for her. This is a true copy, which means that all the editing marks, crossing out, insertions and the like have been kept, along with the inconsistencies in spelling and grammar.Diary entries written or partly written by Polly/Mary are indicated by an asterisk (*). Her entries are further indicated by a different font.10 See: Fourth Report of the Central Board Appointed to Watch Over the Interests of the Aborigines in the Colony of Victoria, no. 19 (Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1864), 7 (reports in this series hereafter referred to as, e.g., First BPA Report). 11 Eighth Annual BPA Report, 18. 12 Ref: 16 November 1865. 13 'Spieseke' was at times written 'Speiseke'-for example, in official reports of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines in Colonial Victoria (BPA).