Dr John Heath

A history for all time

John Heath's plans to graduate on the lawns of Booloominbah wearing his Goori sash were thwarted this year due to COVID-19. It's a mere formality for the 69-year-old student of history, but a milestone he nevertheless looks forward to marking, both to celebrate his own achievements and to honour those of his ancestors.

For John has spent almost 50 years researching his remarkable family history - a history that is rare for documenting the relationship between Birrpai woman Charlotte Bugg and her English convict husband James, his third great-grandparents. That he is able to tell their story at all is largely thanks to James being assigned to work as a shepherd  for the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), after being transported to Australia for stealing (along with Joseph Constable), two lambs, one sheep and two pigs.

Established by royal charter in 1824, AACo kept meticulous records. "James appears throughout the company's archives, and this has enabled me to capture some of the history that other Goori families cannot," John says. "Very few personal records have been kept in relation to Aboriginal people, other than by the Aboriginal Welfare Board, but the AACo archives show that, among other things, Charlotte and James were a successful inter-racial couple. This distinguishes them from many other black-white interactions of the time."

In documenting the lives of his ancestors, John's doctoral thesis tells a much larger story about the treatment of Indigenous people from the time of European occupation, which he hopes will resonate for generations to come.

"My thesis is centred on the law of the seven generations, which basically states that we should not make decisions today without considering their impact on the seven generations that follow," John says. "I determined to write a family history that showed the impact Charlotte and James' decisions, and those of their subsequent eight children, have had on their descendants, including me."

After completing a Bachelor of Arts and Diploma of Education at Newcastle University in the 1970s and working in a range of community development roles, in government departments and tertiary institutions, John says he found in UNE the support he needed to tackle this expansive research project. A postgraduate travelling scholarship and additional funding enabled him to spend considerable time in Canberra sifting through the AACo records, to travel to England, present at a conference in Germany and - perhaps most important of all - enjoy the camaraderie of other Indigenous students.

"My research was enriched far beyond what I could have managed thanks to the support of UNE and its staff," John says. "While I pride myself in being a largely independent student, there is a great deal of truth in the maxim that it takes a village to raise a child, or in my case the UNE community to produce a PhD."

Delving deep into the "white historical record", John discovered accounts of violent hostilities directly involving his third great-grandparents in a 1834 court case that followed an Indigenous massacre, as well as heart-breaking accounts of the early removals of Indigenous children from their parents.

"Through it all, not only did Charlotte and James stay together, they applied to get married in the Church of England operating on the AACo estate," said John. "They were refused, because Charlotte was deemed not to be Christian, as a native. Their first two children were removed to orphanage schools at the ages of almost five years and three years, respectively, following the introduction of laws prohibiting cohabitation. But, being a ticket-of-leave man, James had to do what he was told.

"The Governor was threatening the AACo that it would lose assigned convicts if it was proven that co-habitation was going on, and the company was battling to retain labour at the time. What better proof of cohabitation than one of your convicts having half-caste kids?"

That James stayed in the employment of the AACo until well after he received a conditional pardon suggests to John that the couple were determined to remain living on Charlotte's country. "There were intermittent hostilities going on all around them over many, many years," John says. "But I think James knew that he was safe there as long as he abided by traditional law.

"It's an incredible story, and I'm not saying it's unique, but it would appear there was long-standing affection between James and Charlotte. They had eight kids and stayed together during very difficult circumstances.

"I think I have also managed to show that while the AACo received a million-acre land grant, it didn't mean that Birrpai people disappeared into the ether. I've found ongoing references to our people working for AACO, some for seven years as shepherds and only paid in rations."

Eighty years later, in 1920 in Port Macquarie,  John's grandmother and great-grandmother were similarly impacted by cohabitation laws, when they were reintroduced to limit the so-called mixed race. But his is a truly resilient, adaptable and multicultural family, with evidence of inter-marriage between his Indigenous ancestors and contemporaries from China, Germany, Ireland, Tahiti and New Zealand.

"It shows the complexity and diversity of Australian families, and that none of us exists in a vacuum," John says. "The social, cultural and political constraints of any period impact on the lives of the people of that time, but also those to come. In this way, it's not my PhD; it's my family's, and UNE has now become part of my family."