Qualla: Daisy Bates (author)

Daisy Bates (author): Introduction

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. For sixteen years, Daisy Bates lived in a tent at Ooldea — a soak on the Trans-Australian Railway, 800 kilometres north of Adelaide, in the Great Victoria Desert. She had no running water, no electricity, and no permanent company. She was in her late fifties when she arrived in 1919, and did not leave until 1935. She cooked food and dressed wounds and documented languages. Aboriginal people she worked with gave her the courtesy name Kabbarli, meaning grandmother. Others called her mamu — ghost or devil. Both names contain a truth about her. Few Australians of her era were as devoted to Aboriginal welfare, and few held more harmful ideas about Aboriginal people's future.

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Daisy Bates (author): The Cause She Chose

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown photographer, Public domain. Born in Ireland in 1859, Bates arrived in Australia in her twenties and became increasingly absorbed in Aboriginal life. By 1914 she was petitioning the South Australian government to appoint her as a Protector of Aborigines — for a salary of £200 a year and a camel buggy to trav...

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Image: Unknown photographer | Public domain

Daisy Bates (author): Ooldea: Sixteen Years at the Soak

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown photographer, Public domain. Ooldea was a meeting point. Aboriginal people from surrounding areas came to its permanent water soak during the droughts that had struck the inland regions. Settlers along the Trans-Australian Railway came too. Bates believed the contact between them would harm Aboriginal people...

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Image: Unknown photographer | Public domain

Daisy Bates (author): The Contradictions She Lived

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DaisyBates1921.jpg: Mario Link derivative work: Mario Link, Public domain. Daisy Bates is difficult to hold whole. She advocated that Aboriginal people be shielded from contact with non-Aboriginal Australians — which sounds protective and reflects genuine care, and also reflects a belief that the two populations should remain permanently separate. She c...

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Image: DaisyBates1921.jpg: Mario Link derivative work: Mario Link | Public domain

Daisy Bates (author): Recognition and the End

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. In 1907, Bates was elected to the Victorian branch of the Royal Geographical Society and appointed an honorary corresponding member of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1934, she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Her book ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain