Black, White and Exempt by Lucinda Aberdeen

Author:Lucinda Aberdeen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aboriginal Studies Press
Published: 2021-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

7

Ella Simon’s Certificate of Exemption

JENNIFER JONES

Ella Simon despised the certificate of exemption she gained in 1957. It ‘stank in her nostrils’ that she needed this ‘“passport” to become a citizen with individual rights in her own country’ (Simon 1978:16). Under the terms of the New South Wales Aborigines Protection (Amendment) Act 1943, holders of an exemption certificate undertook to ‘to live independently of the Aborigines Welfare Board and away from all Stations and Reserves’ (AWB Annual report 1948:7). This was repugnant to Ella, as generational ties to Purfleet Aboriginal Station (at Taree, on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales) undergirded her identity.

According to the Aborigines Welfare Board (AWB), an ‘exempted aborigine’ would also ‘develop a more desirable social attitude and in due course become a respected member of the community’ (AWB Annual report 1948:4). Ella Simon did become a highly respected member of the mainstream Taree community, garnered through mechanisms that both demonstrated her suitability for exemption and simultaneously sustained her Aboriginal identity and belonging. Ella’s views on Aboriginality and assimilation, however, were complex (Jones 2012). Why, then, did she apply for a certificate of exemption?

Ella Simon’s lifelong commitment to a revivalist religious group, the New South Wales Aborigines Mission provides an answer (NSWAM, known as the United Aborigines Mission or UAM after 1929). Revivalist Christian organisations aimed to renew religious fervour amongst adherents and to win converts by using dynamic speakers and emotionally intense campaigns. Involvement in such activities supported Ella’s social acceptance and appeared to comply with the assimilatory assumptions of AWB exemption policies and the broader society of the era. Rather than fostering assimilation, UAM development of Aboriginal leadership at Purfleet bolstered Aboriginal identity and supported self-determination through a self-governing Aboriginal church. Trained and empowered from this base, Ella found acclaim as a travelling ‘Native Evangelist’. This mission away from home, however, exposed her to more strident operations of rural segregation, taxing her health and perseverance. Ella curtailed her faith-based mobility in response and, after securing the hated certificate of exemption, returned to manageable localised outreach. Her exemption, examined in this context of Christian empowerment, provides nuanced insight into the impact of rural segregation on pan-Aboriginal self-determination.

Ella Simon’s public prominence provides a rare opportunity to access and understand the complex motivations which prompted individuals to seek exemption. The assimilatory foundation of the New South Wales exemption policy makes this topic sensitive and contentious. Historic government records are highly personal and hence restricted as they document the ‘conduct of the applicant, including: drinking habits, gambling habits, thrift, morality’ from the perspective of the Board and personal referees (NSW State Archives and Records). Ella’s public profile and autobiographic writing makes it possible to conduct research into her experience of exemption by using sources that she wrote herself, in addition to sources long available on the public record, whilst eschewing the judgemental perspective of the AWB and minimising the generational trauma fostered by such statements.1

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Ella Simon (1902–1981) held lifelong identification with Purfleet Aboriginal Station on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales.

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