Anglican church sets up Poonindie in South Australia in 1850 to train, educate Christian Aboriginal youths
The Anglican church's Poonindie mission for "young Aboriginal families" near Port Lincoln on Eyre Peninsula produced good cricketers who played against St Peter's College teams. At right: Samuel Sweet's 1884 photo of "Mr Satow with the school children outside the church at Poonindie Mission".
Church image courtesy the Art Gallery of South Australia
The Anglican church in South Australia opened Poonindie in 1850 as a “training institution” for young Aboriginal families” on the Tod River near Port Lincoln on Eyre Peninsula.
The Poonindie concept by Matthew Hale, archdeacon to Adelaide’s first Anglican bishop Augustus Short, was to take Aboriginal teenagers away from immoral European influences in Adelaide and from their own people’s influence. Bishop Short saw it as “a Christian village of South Australian Natives, reclaimed from barbarism, trained to the duties of social Christian life and walking in the fear of God.”
Poonindie took Aboriginal youths from Native Establishment School in Kintore Avenue, Adelaide city, that had 80 achieving students at its peak but lost them as adolescents as they returned to their tribes. The first group at Poonindie (from Adelaide Plains and River Murray regions) was educated at the Adelaide school and expected to live a Christian lifestyle, form nuclear families and learn domestic and agricultural skills. They were taught only in English. This was the model favoured and financially backed by the province’s government.
Wallala school, near Poonindie, run by Dresden missionary Clamor Schürmann instructed in the local Aboriginal Barngarla language. Schürmann declined a Church of England offer to join Poonindie. His school was taken over by Poonindie and closed in 1853.
In 1852, when the Adelaide Native Establishment School closed, Poonindie was left without more young people qualified in reading, writing and Christianity. The government told Hale that, for government assistance, he would have to take any persons, even of mixed descent, sent by the Aboriginal protector. Poonindie also would be a distribution point for local Aboriginal people's rations. Hale agreed and continued setting up his Christian village before leaving in 1856 as the first bishop of Perth.
Poonindie overcame water, health and overcrowding problems to be a successful farm that, by 1860, had 15,000 acres of lease land carrying sheep, cattle, horses and pigs with good crops of wheat and oats. Poonindie men were good shearers, ploughmen and stockmen often sought by local settlers. Some became lay readers, taking church services when required.
Poonindie men also were good cricketers playing with Port Lincoln teams and travelling to Adelaide to compete against a St Peter’s College team. The college team also visited Poonindie.
By late 1880, the government was pressured to close the mission to sell and subdivide its land. By 1894, the trustees surrendered the lease and Poonindie people were moved to Point Pearce and Point McLeay. Family names of those relocated included – Point Pearce: Adams, Power, Milera, Yates, Wanganeen, Bramfield, Newchurch, Wowinda, Rivers, Mortlock, Stewart and Jet. Point McLeay: Varcoe, Welch, Barritt, Yates and Stanley.
Some stayed on the new Aboriginal reserve, hoping to secure ex-Poonindie land. Only one Aboriginal resident was successful in this, while a few secured leases to work land on the Aboriginal reserve, later managed by Port Lincoln Aboriginal Community Council.