Boundary Street, West End, Brisbane. 4pm. 1898.
Mounted troops ride along the city boundaries, cracking their stock whips as they force Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Australians out of the town limits. It’s a far cry from the bustling Brisbane suburb of today but a history to be remembered.
Boundary Streets are found in West End, Spring Hill, Tingalpa and Coopers Plains. The streets connect to form a square boundary around the city.
Quandamooka woman and Shadow Minister for Closing the Gap and Reconciliation, Leeanne Enoch, said it was important to educate newer generations of Brisbane’s history and treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. “We shouldn’t pretend Brisbane’s racist history didn’t happen,” she told the National Indigenous Times. “Acknowledging this past is essential to achieving true reconciliation.”
There is increasing awareness of the horrific treatment Australia’s First Nations people were subjected to by British colonisers, including the Frontier Wars of 1799, the Gippsland massacres and The Stolen Generation. In recent years there have been efforts of repatriation by governments and various organisations for the damage done. It includes the granting of citizenship, the right to vote and recognition in the Census of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. As well as the passing of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, a national apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008 and National Reconciliation Week.
However, there are still untold stories of the treatment endured by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. There are many news reports and stories on the history of Boundary Street in publications including West End Today, Brisbane Times and SBS. Each story suggests Boundary streets were put into place to separate Aboriginal Australians from European colonisers during specific times. Eyewitnesses recall police forcibly removed Aboriginal Australians from the area each day after 4pm and did not allow them to enter at all on Sundays.
In 2018, member for Longman Susan Lamb made a statement to Federal Parliament urging other MPs to acknowledge and better understand the history of Boundary Street. “This racist policy has long since been abolished, thank goodness, but the street name remains as a reminder of our city’s shameful past,” she said.
The Boundary Streets of Brisbane City played a large role in the unjust treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but a lack of understanding through the years has led to misinformation about the shameful street’s history. Digging into the archives of Brisbane City’s maps shows the original town limits and the progress of expansion throughout the years. But one map in particular draws attention among the many yellowing pages.
In 1846 the original town boundaries ran through Spring Hill stopping at Vulture Street in West End. At the end of this street lies the Old Cumbooquepa property (now Somerville House). In 1872 a boundary post marked the edge of the town. As the town grew, the boundary posts moved further from the inner city.
On the 30th of April 1856, New South Wales Captain-Governor and Governor-in-Chief, Sir George Gipps proclaimed The Extension of the Towns Police Act for the Town of Brisbane now allowed police the discretion of “removing and preventing Nuisances and obstructions”. The Act provided clarity on Boundary Street, specifically setting out the updated coordinates for Brisbane’s town boundaries but also giving police power they had never been afforded.
Comparing the maps to the legislation, it is clear that the creation of Boundary Street occurred long before the forcible removal of Aboriginal Australians from the city. It correlates instead with the implementation of Brisbane City’s original town limits and subsequent expansions.
British colonisers made quick progress in separating Aboriginal Australians from the rest of the community. Mission stations opened across the country, often disguised as religious establishments and orphanages for Indigenous children. But they hid a dark reality. Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their families to “inculcate European values and work habits in children”, as described by the Bringing Them Home Report.
In 1897 this policy of assimilation was adopted by the Queensland Government through the introduction of the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act. Clause 31.1 of the Act stated police may “remove aboriginals from one reserve to another”.
British police forces had a loophole to enforce the boundary regulations exclusively on Aboriginal Australians. Though the new legislation did not specifically legalise the enforcement of any regulations, it was quickly accepted as such.
In Memoirs of the Hon. Sir Robert Philp, Philp wrote “after 1855 Blacks were prohibited from venturing inside Vulture and Boundary Streets after 4 p.m. or on Sundays”. Similarly, Lentz recalls in his 1961 typescript, Memoirs and Some History, that “after 4pm the mounted troopers used to ride about cracking stock-whips to notify the Aboriginals to get out”.
Newspapers, including the Moreton Bay Courier, also referenced the regulations on multiple occasions. In October 1853 a news article on an altercation between police and a group of Aboriginal Australians said “the constable, having orders to keep the blacks out of town on Sundays, immediately ordered them to desist, and go away”. Later, in July 1858, the same newspaper included an excerpt from a policeman who, referring to Aboriginal Australians, said “these savages have been within the suburbs if not actually within the town boundary at night. It is impossible for our small police force to maintain the regulation and drive them out”.
The treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities cannot be ignored and the historical accuracy of the events and subsequent experiences are essential to preserving truth and knowledge. Many efforts have been made to educate and remind new generations of the Boundary Street atrocities, especially throughout the 21st century.
Walking through West End today the signs for Boundary Street are still up. But at various times in the last few decades, this has not been the case. In 2010 passers-by noticed small paper signs reading “Freedom” covering the signs. It was a small protest but one that sparked conversation in the community nonetheless, yet no credit was taken for the action.
Six years later, Boundary Street signs were once again covered, this time as “Boundless Street”. A far more organised protest followed, headed by West End local, Michael Colenso, who created a petition to permanently change the street’s name. “As a West End resident of several years, I do feel that ‘Boundless’ Street suits the character of West End,” he told the ABC. “For me twisting the name in that way provides a different theme and the history of that street.”
There were positive reactions from the petition signatories who felt changing the name would better reflect West End’s current community and continuing growth. However, there were also a growing number of people, including Indigenous elder and prominent activist Sam Watson, who believed changing the name was like trying to change history.
“I think people need to be aware of the history, but I personally would not support a changing of the name,” he told the ABC. “You shouldn’t sanitise history or conceal history as it should be there for people to know about.”
The petition gained the attention of politicians including the then Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Curtis Pitt, who shared a similar view to Mr Watson. “The boundaries that ran through Brisbane as a barrier to Indigenous people are a shameful, but a real part of our shared heritage, and to rename the streets would be like trying to rewrite history,” he said.
After being brought to the then Lord Mayor Graham Quirk’s attention the petition was dismissed. The current Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Fiona Simpson, declined to comment on the merits of keeping or changing the street name.
Boundary Street, West End, Brisbane. 4pm. 2025.
A brief silence and then the ticking of a pedestrian crossing. Locals hurry across the road as engines idle, the sound of a radio can be heard above the tapping of feet against the hot bitumen road.
Looking down, the red, black and yellow of the Aboriginal flag painted onto the road can be seen. Faded from years under Australia’s unrelenting sun. In the middle of West End’s busiest intersection, surrounded by a convenience store, a real estate office and a chemist, the painted flag is a small but powerful reminder of the history it lies on.
