QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

3 Part

Settling in Queensland

Until the promotion of immigration by the new state, Germans leaving Europe heard little about Australia’s north, and the humid sub-tropics were an esoteric concept which probably evoked more of the idyllic ‘south seas’ and in which baking drought and cyclonic tempest featured little, if at all. Apparently the German settlers sometimes referred to Queensland as “ Quälsland” (“land of torment”)! Germans moved into the first areas that were opened up by the Government for agricultural settlement, often taking – or being given – land which English settlers declined to work. Some of these areas were hilly, and clearing the scrub for cultivation was very hard work, all done with whatever hand-tools they had brought aboard ship and could carry in with them. Their first homes were of mud and thatch but, once their first crops had been sold and resources accumulated, they built more solid slab wall and shingle-roofed houses. Crops had to be protected (usually by the children) from wallabies, rats and birds. It has been said that the Germans as labourers were popular with employers because their limited knowledge of English made it difficult for anyone wanting to stir up labour unrest, they ’looked the same’ as their neighbours of British origin, and they were Christian, which sufficed for Dr John Dunmore Lang in Sydney. The sense of national identity remained extremely strong among parts of the German diaspora Down Under – as late as 1891, in some Queensland districts the proportion of Germans marrying another German was as high as 80%. Where and when numbers grew enough, German schools, Lutheran churches, and German associations (with the traditional gymnastics and choral societies) were established. In the farming communities, until around 1900, the social and moral focus was their local Lutheran church. By 1900 the Darling Downs had around 700 German families, 11 Lutheran churches (three in Toowoomba alone) and a German association; there were 600 German-speaking families in Brisbane, and Germans were active in all walks of life, from the land and business to members of parliament.

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