General News
31 July, 2023
Book sheds light on dark history
One of the region’s most controversial chapters in history has finally been published after years of research. Author Felicity Jensz launched her new book - Ebenezer Mission Station - before about 40 guests at the Dimboola Imaginarium on Monday...
One of the region’s most controversial chapters in history has finally been published after years of research.
Author Felicity Jensz launched her new book - Ebenezer Mission Station - before about 40 guests at the Dimboola Imaginarium on Monday.
The book includes Adolf and Mary (Polly) Hartmann’s annotated diaries, which they kept while serving as Moravian missionaries at the Ebenezer Mission Station in Wotjobaluk country from 1863 to 1873.
Also known as Lake Hindmarsh Aboriginal Reserve, Wimmera Mission, Hindmarsh Mission and Dimboola Mission, at its peak, Ebenezer was home to more than 100 residents and had more than 20 buildings.
The Hartmanns’ eight years at the mission are chronicled in the diary, which offers vibrant insights into the day-to-day interactions between the First Nations people and their colonisers.
The residents are primarily described as agents in their own lives, moving in and out of the missionaries’ sphere of influence, but occasionally constrained by those boundaries.
In addition to the routine daily tasks of mission life, the diary captures moments of laughter, shared pain, community, advocacy, and reciprocal learning.
Ms Jensz created a roughly 50-page introduction about the missionaries - the Moravians - and the state of Indigenous politics in Victoria at the time.
Dimboola-based Aunty Hazel McDonald, who has ties to the Ebenezer Mission through her family, wrote the foreword. She also assisted in translating the Aboriginal language and slang.
Ms Jensz completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne in colonial history, and has spent many years working on the book.
“The original of the diary is held in archives in America,” she said.
“Many years ago I was in the archives, and I looked at it and thought to myself, that was very interesting, but I couldn’t do anything with it.
“When Covid came, I had to find something to do in lockdown, and I decided to annotate the diary, which means that I went through and made sure that the transcriptions were good.
“The diary covers every day of the year, and each page has a day, and on each of the pages, there are different entries for different years.”
She spent six weeks in Dimboola last year, where her child attended the same primary school she once attended, and she met with Auntie Hazel.
Ms Jensz expressed her gratitude for the big turnout at the book’s launch.
“I’m really pleased that I’ve been able to give a resource back to the community,” she said.
“I’m really pleased that there are so many people here today that wanted to know more about the history of the mission, but also the history of Dimboola and those formative years.
“It is a resource, so people can go into the diary and read it, and think what it means for themselves, to think about the ways in which Dimboola has been a space of community, but also had different people coming together over many hundreds of years.
“I think what I would like people to do is just appreciate the work that many people have put into being a community.”
Wotjobaluk community representative Robyn Lauricella said the book detailed the history of the local Indigenous people and how they responded to the missions.
“Felicity had a yarn with my mum Hazel McDonald about it,” she said.
“It really opened our eyes up a bit more, and having a bit more understanding about what they did on the missions.
“If you get a chance to read it, you’ll have a bit more understanding about how they were, how our mob was treated, and how our mob treated the missionaries as well.
“It gives people a bit more understanding and a bit more confidence about the Aboriginal history around in this area.
“Being First Nations people, we need to start getting our history out there more than what people know about.”
Knerrer Lehmann, one of the guests at the launch, said the book represented a valuable piece of local history.
“I think the book that was launched today is very important for the area - part of the local history, both Aboriginal and settlers’ history,” she said.
“I’m particularly interested because my grandparents lived not far from Antwerp - not far from the mission.
“I think my grandfather had Aboriginal men from the mission to help him shepherd his sheep because he was a grazier rather than growing grain in those days.”
Ms Jensz said she was extremely grateful to Imaginarium owners Chan and Jaime Uoy for offering the space to launch the book.