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| Pic courtesy News.com |
This is another post which references the Voice, but is more about the history.
I've lived all over Queensland, and every reasonably sized town that I've known has a Boundary Street or Boundary Road. That includes Rockhampton, Townsville, Toowoomba, and of course, Brisbane.
Try entering "Boundary St" or "Boundary Rd" into Google Maps, and see how you go.
I've never really wondered why this was the case, but recent reading has revealed some interesting (and harrowing) history.
These streets and roads mark out the perimeters beyond which indigenous people were not allowed to venture at night during the week or on Sundays. They were common in Queensland towns and settlements and were usually marked by a wooden post (boundary posts).
In Brisbane, since the early 1850s, Aborigines had been allowed into the town during the day, but could be driven out by the police using regulations that came into force about that time.
They were allowed to come in beyond the boundary during the week where they performed menial tasks in exchange for tobacco, flour and other rations. By the 1870s, organized groups of police would round up any aborigines inside the boundary and used stockwhips to move them out. They would be removed to camps on various watercourses in Dutton Park, Fairfield, Annerley and Coorparoo.
Strangely, in a mid-twentieth century reprise of this process, the boundaries were reinstated to keep African-American servicemen on the "correct" side of the Brisbane River. White Americans were allowed on the north side of the river, but the blacks were expected to confine themselves to the south. This was one of the situations which triggered the famous Battle of Brisbane on 26th and 27th November 1942, when an Australian soldier took exception to an American Military Policeman's attempts to arrest a black soldier with whom he had been drinking presumably because he was on the wrong (north) side of the river.
The MP used his truncheon on the Australian, and all hell broke loose. There had been simmering resentment of the Yanks for months, but race was the trigger.
Given the vituperative nature of discussion about the Voice on social media, it seems not much has changed since 1942.
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