Brisbane's Best - Tarra Gindi Tasserone
The Army’s impact on a suburb
By Garth R. Hentzschel
The life and witness of a South Sea Islander, kidnapped to work on the cane fields in Queensland, was to change the face of Brisbane.
As motorists drive north towards Brisbane on the South-East Freeway they come across an exit to a suburb with an almost Aboriginal sounding name. This southern suburb of Brisbane, Tarragindi, links The Salvation Army with some of the sadder events of Queensland’s history. However, as will be shown, displacement can often lead to finding a new home.
Geography and ecology
The geography of the suburb of Tarragindi lies in a valley running north-south, surrounded by the ridges of Wellers Hill to the east and Tarragindi Hill to the west. Sandy Creek, the area’s earlier name flows through the major part of the suburb with its source in the Toohey Forest to the south. In 1981 a Wildlife Survey at Tarragindi recorded five species of native mammals including brindled bandicoots, flyingfoxes, sugar gliders and brushtailed and ringtailed possums. Also found to inhabit the suburb were 73 species of birds, and ten species of reptiles (six of lizards, including goannas).
Human interaction with the land
Before the arrival of Europeans the area was inhabited by Aboriginal people of the Coorparoo sub-group of the wider Jagara group and the Yerongpan sub-group. These communities occupied land south of the Brisbane River, around the Oxley, Norman and Bulimba creeks. The groups had cultural links to other neighboring indigenous communities, sharing common land and ceremonies. One example of this was that a bora ring was known to have been maintained in Tarragindi, possibly between present-day Barnehurst and Isabella Streets. Bora rings are raised platforms of dirt arranged in a circle usually marking a ceremonial place.
In 1857 a survey of land by George Pratten commenced the habitation of Europeans in the area. Early land-owner Thomas B. Stevens established industries for wool and wood in the area while James Toohey leased property for cattle runs. More English settlers bought land in the area throughout the 1860s while the 1870s saw an influx of German settlers which resulted in vineyards and fruit orchards being planted. In the 1890s, William Douglas Grimes and his family settled in the area and built their home on Andrew Avenue, which was later called Tarragindi House. This homestead was named after Tarra Gindi Tasserone, a Kanaka, a Salvationist who was later to have his name enshrined forever in history when it was given to the suburb.
The arrival of the Kanakas
There is a sad blight on Queensland history which bought Tarra Gindi Tasserone, a SouthPacific Islander to Australia. The interest and expansion into the Pacific Islands by the Colony of Queensland allowed Queenslanders to substitute the free convict labour with something more sinister. The solution to find cheap labour for sugarcane production in Queensland was found when Robert Towns, a cotton plantation owner in the Logan area, commissioned Ross Lewin in 1863 to recruit Pacific Islanders to work on his plantation. In this way the ‘Kanaka’ (the Polynesian word for men) Islanders arrived in Queensland.
Ross Lewin imported 250 Kanakas between 1863 and 1870. It is argued that Towns looked after his workers yet Ross Lewin saw it as a profitable business – a trade in humans – which became known as ‘blackbirding’. It has been argued that many Kanakas were forcibly removed from their islands and were treated as near slaves. By the 1880’s some 47,000 Kanakas were in the Queensland sugar industry but with the advent of questionable practices and the ‘White Australia Policy’, the Polynesian Labourers’ Act was enacted 31 December 1890. This Act was forced on Queensland by southern colonies, for they saw blackbirding as morally corrupt and believed Queensland had introduced the ‘slave trade’ onto the Australian continent. This practice of Queensland came close to keeping this colony out of the federation of Australia in 1901.
A Kanaka Salvationist
The Salvation Army has always officially stood for a sense of equality for humanity. In Australia, Salvationists sought to work with both the Aboriginal and Kanaka populations in addition to other minority groups. Throughout Queensland Salvationists even commenced corps especially designed to reach the South Sea Island populations. Therefore when Tarra connected himself to Ipswich Corps he was a welcome addition to their ranks.
Tarra Gindi Tasserone was born in the South Sea Islands either in the Loyalty Islands (near modern-day New Caledonia) or Fiji Islands group around 1850. At an early age he was ‘blackbirded' and brought to Australia to work in the cane fields of North Queensland.
While still only a lad he ran away from his poor treatment and was found by Alfred Foote. Alfred was well know for his business dealings with his joint ownership of ‘Cribb and Foote’, an early goods store, as well as his humanitarian work with German immigrants west of Ipswich and in the Sandy Creek areas. The Foote family owned property in many areas around Brisbane and it was on these properties Tarra worked as a general farm labourer working on one property for ten years and then another for six years. It would appear that the Foote family took good care of him for they were not only to provide lifetime employment and a grave site but also took Tarra on holidays with them.
Tarra’s slow moral decline and eventual conversion has been left to us in unusual depth by Alf. Shelton in a War Cry article.
…Tarra had become an inveterate smoker, getting through a fig of tobacco a day. He would often go to bed with his pipe in his mouth, and dropping off to sleep would be awakened by it falling on his chest and burning him. Smoking seems to have been his only vice, for on the whole he was not a bad sort of fellow, only getting drunk once, and that by mistake. Tarra went to a spread at one of the neighbourhood’s houses one night and was asked to have a drink. It was only a few spoonfuls but was much stronger than ginger beer, for as he put it “I was only a new sum.” After he had gone outside he had a few draws from his dear old pipe, but beginning to feel himself getting very shaky his pipe fell out of his mouth, and down went Tarra too. Not being contented to remain in this position he attempted to straighten himself and in so doing fell into a pig-sty. Ask him if he ever drank gin any more, and he replies “No fear.”
About 1886 Tarra moved to Ipswich and came in contact with The Salvation Army through its open-air ministry. This could have been linked with his company with the Foote family for records show they were supporters of Salvation Army work. The Foote family later donated buildings to the Ipswich Corps. The War Cry article continues by describing Tarra’s introduction to salvation in 1888: One Good Friday evening Charles Gorman asked Tarra to come along to the barracks, but he would not come, saying he was frightened. At last Charley managed to get him inside, and fixed him in a seat right at the back of the barracks. Before that meeting closed, Tarra was at the penitent-form.
Shortly after his conversion Tarra became a soldier of the Ipswich Corps and was made colour sergeant, in charge of looking after The Salvation Army flag. He would sing in the open-air, play his mouth organ and learned to play the drum and triangle. Tarra however refused to play a brass instrument because there are too many crookeds in it.
A tribute to Tarra’s Christian creed
Tarra maintained his work on the land, however with new Christian ethos and endeavor. Alfred Foote continued to look after Tarra and recommended his work to his in-law William Douglas Grimes. William needed land cleared on a hill near Sandy Creek and Tarra was just the man for the job.
At this stage William was thinking of a name for his homestead and property on Andrew Avenue. Tarra this dark-skinned, clean living, hard working Salvationist so impressed the Grimes family that his name was suggested. The Grimes family home became known as Tarra Gindi house. Soon this name spread to the entire property and the rise which Tarra cleared on the property became known as Tarra Gindi Hill.
Tarra continued to work in the ranks of The Salvation Army and 24 years after his conversion God called him home. The War Cry articles describing his promotion to Glory show the respect and familiarity Tarra had in the Ipswich community as well as his Christian ethos and his loyalty to God and The Salvation Army. A few days before Tarra’s death when questioned on eternal matters, he gave the following reply:
I cannot read, I cannot write, and I can’t speak much, but I know it. All’s well; Jesus is mine.
Tarra took a fall and was taken to hospital. When Salvationists visited him in hospital they reported that,
Tara' on his crutches, stood with us and with tears were streaming down his face, told of God's goodness to him.
Tarra Gindi Tasserone was promoted to Glory Monday 13 January 1913 and was buried in Ipswich Cemetery near the Foote family who cared for him until the end. The funeral, committal and memorial service was led by Ensign Stowe who impressed upon the people the great need of attending to eternal matters.
Development of the suburb
In a literal sense Tarra’s name now lives forever due to his godliness and hard work in the form of the Brisbane suburb named after him. Although the land in this valley was referred to as Sandy Creek the Grimes property was still known as Tarra Gindi. In the 1920s, after the First World War the Commonwealth Government bought a large area of the Tarragindi property for soldier settlement. For many years these were mainly shanty dwellings, but the settlement gradually increased and improved as services and roads improved. In 1931 the entire area was officially called Tarragindi and the old Salvationist was immortalised.
During the Second World War, Tarragindi was the site of a field hospital administered first by the American Army (for soldiers treated for shell shock) and later by the British and Australian forces. After the war, the site was used by the Housing Commission and War Service homes to accommodate displaced persons. Today, little remains of the establishment except for possible foundations of a gun emplacement in the mid-section of Fingal Street. The idea of homes for displaced persons was very much in line with Tarra’s life, a man displaced for ill gain but one who found his home in The Salvation Army corps and in the love of God. In the same way Tarragindi through further development of land in 1963 and 1969 has become a home for nearly nine thousand people.