Stan Grant on the search for Frank Foster, the missing part of his family tree
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Australia Day is a time to reflect on who we are, and what it means to be part of this nation.
This year those questions have been very personal for me.
This year, I have found a missing part of my family tree — a man who connects me directly to that time of first contact, when white met black on the shores of Botany Bay.
I have been searching for Frank Foster. He is a man who appears briefly in my family's history but without whom I would not be here.
He was my great-great grandfather, a man whose name has been kept alive, passed down from generation to generation. He was a man remembered as the "school teacher".
My search for Frank Foster began at Circular Quay on Sydney's famous harbour. Here in the 1870s as a young boy, Frank was huddled together with his family and some of the other remnants of the first people of Sydney. They lived in the boat shed.
It was a brutal time, a time when the Aboriginal people were pushed off their land and were being crowded out by a rapidly expanding young metropolis.
The Aborigines Protection Board report of 1883 paints a grim picture of life in the boat shed.
"At present they number eighteen blacks and half castes, males and females, all huddled together in one sleeping place. I have reason to believe that the shed is sometimes used for the purposes of prostitution, as men (Europeans) have been seen to leave the shed hastily on the approach of the police ... their conduct of late has been of the worst description, as they obtain drink about the city and in their drunken state, when they collect at the boat shed, frequently assault each other in the most brutal manner..."
Following the trail to La Perouse
But Frank Foster's story has its roots in another part of Sydney. To find him I have been told to go the community of La Perouse in south-eastern Sydney on the headland of Botany Bay. From here I can see where Captain Cook stepped ashore in 1770 and Captain Arthur Phillip weighed anchor in 1788.
Of course, when the British arrived there were people already here. I meet Aunty Barbara Simms-Keeley, who traces her ancestry to those people of Botany Bay.
"When you think about it they are the oldest continuous contact community ... my ancestors were on both sides of the bay," she said.
The people of La Perouse are able to fill in the missing gaps of Frank Foster's life. They have been painstakingly piecing together their history, telling the stories of their ancestors, among them the story of my great-great grandfather.
"We have a project that shows individuals of the 1800s, what their movement was and it establishes their cultural area before the missionaries' intervention and the Aborigines Protection Board intervention," La Perouse local Christopher Ingrey said.
"This research shows that these individuals of the 1800s up to 1833 were travelling and living on country exactly as their parents and grandparents did before them."
Frank Foster was moved from the boat shed after his father, also named Frank, was found dead on the streets. His death was recorded in the newspapers of the time and an inquest called. The La Perouse community has the original death certificate which lists him only as "Frank Foster — Aboriginal". There are no other details of his age, birthplace or family.
The school teacher
From Circular Quay, Frank and his mother and sisters were sent to an Aboriginal settlement at Maloga on the New South Wales-Victoria border. Later he was moved on to another mission at Warrangesda on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River.
The records show that it was here Frank married an Aboriginal woman and had a daughter they named Florrie. But Frank Foster then vanishes from our family. He was barred from the mission — a common occurrence — and separated from his wife and baby.
The La Perouse history project shows that he travelled throughout the state, eventually settling on the NSW south coast. He lived a long life. He married again and had children. He was known as a champion rugby player and the only known photo of Frank has him posing with the Aboriginal mission team in 1907. He looks tall and muscular with a thick walrus moustache.
But why was he called the "school teacher"? Until now I have wondered how it would have been possible for an Aboriginal man in the 19th century to teach at school.
But among the records at La Perouse is a report from the NSW Education Department, inspecting one of his lessons. Frank was indeed hired to teach at a school for Aboriginal children.
The report describes him as "an intelligent half-caste, 19 years old".
"He was a man who was great at maths, he learnt really quickly, like a lot of our people. He was someone who succeeded at mathematics and reading and writing himself," Mr Ingrey said.
After years of wondering and searching, I have found Frank Foster with the help of the people of La Perouse. But there is more to this. Some of Frank's direct descendants live still on the old mission settlement on the headland of Botany Bay where two centuries ago their ancestors saw the white sails of the British ships in the distance.
Before I leave I am introduced to Frank's great-great granddaughter, Shallan Foster, and she is a school teacher.
Topics: australia-day, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, sydney-2000
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