IT is a long road trip from Brisbane to Cherbourg to visit the community’s Ration Shed museum, but it is a journey worth taking.
Especially when your tour guide is Indigenous elder Uncle Joe Kirk.
The 78 year old has a wealth of knowledge about lore and bush medicine – he points out useful plants along the 170km route north-west of Brisbane.
As a proud “Cherbourg boy” Mr Kirk has a keen sense of First Nations history and voice. He can also recount the tragic stories that have shaped the lives of so many Indigenous Queenslanders, separated from land and family.
Through it all he has a deep faith and a love for the Catholic Church and has worked in Catholic education for more than two decades.
In his own words, Mr Kirk, had a rough and tough upbringing in Cherbourg, under the all-powerful control of the aboriginal settlement’s superintendent.
Cherbourg – originally known as Barambah – was set up under the terms of Queensland’s Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897.
Like so many indigenous people rounded up from all over the state and northern New South Wales, Mr Kirk’s forebears were forced off their traditional lands to live in Cherbourg.
The Act removed their basic freedom to movement and labour, custody of their children and control over personal property.
Along the road to Cherbourg, Mr Kirk points out the walking track indigenous peoples were forced to march to reach Cherbourg.
Some of the towns along the route are still considered “no go” country, because of the racist treatment indigenous people have been subjected to over the decades.
Passing through the rich-soil land near Kingaroy, Mr Kirk recalled a time when the men of Cherbourg would be brought by truck to work on the farms.
“They wouldn’t get paid for their work,” he said.
“Instead they got two bags of peanuts, or pumpkins, depending on where they were working.
“There are only so many peanuts you can eat.”
The government administration controlled almost every aspect of Cherbourg life – the language people spoke, what they ate, what they wore, where they went, for whom they worked and, even who they would marry.
As a boy, Uncle Joe needed a permit from Cherbourg’s superintendent to leave his home and visit Murgon, just 7 km away.
Without a permit, he and his mates would sneak a visit to town, and hope they wouldn’t get caught.
Harsh punishment on the settlement could mean time in jail or worse – relocation to Palm Island.
“The superintendent had the power to do that,” he said.
Aboriginal people removed to Cherbourg were either placed in dormitories or lived in camps.
The Ration Shed, still with its original timber walls and floorboards, is where Cherbourg residents came for their food staples to be doled out.
Now it serves as a museum where visitors can view archival films, hear first-hand stories and look at photographic displays and old documents.
Now in his seventies, Cherbourg elder Uncle Eric Law AM, a Vietnam veteran, a former administrator and a local educator, is one of the museum guides who is passionate about telling the community’s story, so that “all Australians know what went on here”.
“We can’t get angry about the past, because we can’t change it,” he said.
“But what we can do is change today and tomorrow.”
The Ration Museum not only records Cherbourg’s troubled past, it also bears witness to the resilience of its residents over many decades.
There are records of great sports people, those who went to war for Australia, and those who entered public service and politics.
Its most famous cricketer, Eddie Gilbert, played for Queensland and bowled Don Bradman for a duck in an interstate match in 1931.
Twenty-nine Cherbourg men enlisted to serve in the First World War , and 19 in the Second World War.
Clearly their pride in Australia as a nation was never questioned, even if as indigenous Australians they did not receive the same rights and wages.
“In our culture respect is the most important thing. We respect the land and respect people,” Mr Law said.
“And that’s why we’ve survived.”
Mr Kirk believes the Church played a unique role in shaping lives in Cherbourg – it did not follow the pattern of enforcing government control.
“We had the Sisters of Mercy here,” he said.
“And they were an eye-opener to us as children because they were always there for us… they said that we were special.
“And I will never forget one of the sisters saying ‘that even though you are here, and your parents and your grandparents are a little bit depressed – you are special’
“I’ll never forget that, and I took that on board for the rest of my life.
“Yeh, they really cared for us.”
