News
Digitised Mission journals a priceless resource
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| Remembering Mission Days – went ‘live’ today after being officially launched at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra yesterday and features and on-line collection of digitised copies of two magazines published by the Aborigines Inland Missions of Australia (AIM). |
15 March 2011
A new website highlighting life and experiences on missions and reserves around Australia for almost six decades is a priceless resource for Indigenous Australians searching their family histories, AIATSIS Chairperson, Professor Mick Dodson AM, said today.
The website – Remembering Mission Days – went ‘live’ today after being officially launched at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra yesterday and features and on-line collection of digitised copies of two magazines published by the Aborigines Inland Missions of Australia (AIM).
Professor Dodson said that the magazines - Our Aim and Australian Evangel - provide a priceless resource and storehouse of knowledge.
“We believe Indigenous Australians and many non-Indigenous Australians, will welcome this on-line initiative.”
Our Aim was a monthly record of the Aborigines’ Inland Mission between 1907 to l961 and Australian Evangel was published from September 1929 to May 1961.
AIM was founded in Singleton, NSW in August, 1905 by Retta Dixon (1877 to 1953), a Baptist missionary. Dixon became the first AIM head and under her direction the organisation began engaging missionaries for St. Clair in NSW and then other missions that were established at Redbournebury (near Singleton) and Karuah (Port Stephens).
By 1907, when the first AIM convention was held, the mission journal “Our Aim” began appearing. By then AIM had missions at Redbournebury, Karuah, Yass, Brungle, Warangesda, Moonacullah, Cummeragunja and Walcha in NSW. AIM missions also began in Queensland – Herberton, 1911 - and one in Western Australia at Bassendean.
Professor Dodson said that over the next three decades, AIM work extended to almost every Aboriginal settlement in New South Wales, as well as to Gayndah, Cherbourg, Woorabinda, Palm Island, Normanton, Stradbroke Island, Ravenshoe and Cooktown in Queensland, Port Augusta and Tarcoola in South Australia and one mission at Parap in the Northern Territory.
“Subsequent expansion in the post Second World War period included the establishment of the Retta Dixon Children’s Home in Darwin.”
Professor Dodson said he believed that stories and facts in both magazines revealed the hidden histories of the lives of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
“I think the availability of information from this new internet site will help many of our people.
“However, sadly, our archives of these two newsletters are incomplete and I appeal to anyone who has copies of these newsletters to contact AIATSIS via the new website.”
‘We would also like to hear from residents of the many AIM missions so we can add their own stories in their own words to the content of the website. I encourage everyone to submit their own stories or comments,” he said.