The Passing of the Aborigines

by Daisy Bates

On the fringe of the vast island continent of Australia live a few millions of white people; in the vast desert regions far from the coast live a few thousands of black people, the remnant of the first inhabitants of Australia. The race on the fringe of the continent has been there about a hundred years, and stands for Civilization; the race in the interior has been there no man knows how long, and stands for Barbarism. Between them a woman has lived in a little white tent for more than twenty years, watching over these people for the sake of the Flag, a woman alone, the solitary spectator of a vanishing race. She is Daisy Bates, one of the least known and one of the most romantic figures in the British Empire. She has left these poor people whom she counts as her children and has come back to civilization for a little while to write this story of her life among the Aborigines on the rim of the great Nullarbor Plain. She has given her life and her heart to this dying race, the first people of our southern Dominion. She has done it for the love of humanity and for England. She has neither sought fame nor found it. She has made no money by her long life’s work. Through all these years she has been alone, cut off from the world, with only these strange, backward, hopeless people to give her a little human society now and then. There is in her life something of the spirit of service that moved Florence Nightingale, and something of the spirit of sacrifice that filled the heart of Father Damien. She would not put it so, for she has loved her life and made a joy of her labour, but it is right that tribute should be paid to Mrs. Daisy Bates. She was the daughter of an Irish family, and came over to London in those far-away days when journalism was a noble business and Fleet Street was excited by the doings of a young man named Stead. Daisy Bates joined his staff. She was a keen observer, a woman with scientific knowledge and a gift for languages, and she began her working life in the glow of that great spirit who stirred and entertained all London in his day. He lies in the bed of the Atlantic with the ruins of the Titanic about him, while the Irish lady on his staff sits in her tent on the banks of the Murray River, looking back on those few years at the hub of the world and her long years alone in the Australian wilderness.

259 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 19, 2023

About the author

Not to be confused with the Australian Daisy Bates.

Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was an American civil rights activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957.

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