Emo, Nicholas Maria Fr. (1849-1915)

 

 

Nicholas Maria Emo (aka Ricardo Maria d’Emo) was the son of Vincent Emo and Mary née Conception in a Spanish hillside hamlet near Castellón de la Plana.¹ He was a missionary priest in Patagonia and had lived South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay² before becoming a Cistercian novice in order to join the mission at Beagle Bay, specially recruited as a Spanish speaker.

 

During his twenty years in the Kimberley (1895-1915) he commenced five major missionary projects – a boarding school and a mixed family settlement in Broome, and missions at Cygnet Bay, Drysdale River, and Lombadina - but was easily dissuaded by criticism and difficulties. He was a Trappist from 1895 to 1906 but for most of his life he was not a member of a monastic order, being highly independent and creative.

 

Emo wrote in French, Latin, Spanish and Catalan. He learned Yawuru of Broome for which he compiled a vocabulary, and Nyul-Nyul with Fr. Alphonse Tachon and Fr. Jean-Marie Janny. Daisy Bates returned a copy of the Nyul-Nyul vocabulary Emo lent her in 1900, to Sept Fons fifty years later.³ Emo’s English was unpolished and he conversed in French with Dr. Walter Roth and with Daisy Bates who thought that he had studied medicine in Paris⁴. He prepared herbal remedies including ti-tree oil for tinea and skin complaints from cajeput (from the Malay kayuh putih – white wood, or paperbark).⁵ One of the Broome pearlers said that Emo played banjo and was not averse to a social drink, and described him as ‘a man who could enjoy both the good things in life and endure its hardships. … His influence was in fact greater than that of any of the other missionaries.’ ⁶ Emo knew how to galvanize the mixed Catholic population of the Kimberley into a supportive network and is very positively remembered.

 

The frontispiece of a Yawuru-Spanish dictionary and grammar by Fr. Nicholas Emo Source: Australien - Nachlass Kugelmann B7d, l. 2. ZAPP

 

 

 

Emo in Broome

 

Emo arrived in the Kimberley in 1895⁷ and was designated to stay in Broome to minister to the community of Filipino pearlers, a community that was swelled in the wake of the revolution against the Spanish in 1897. ‘Short, thick-set and black-bearded, in Trappist habit, cowl and cross he soon became one of the best known people in cosmopolitan Broome’.⁸ He was highly tolerant of the mixed relations in the Broome community. Harris writes that the Filipinos ‘adopted Emo immediately. He legitimized their various de facto relationships, baptized their children and made them a community. They helped him construct a timber church and a small shack for himself.’⁹      Read more

 

During his first year in Broome Emo took stock of his congregation and several of them became life-long allies. He mysteriously described one of them: ‘This is Leandro Loredo, husband of Matilda (Aboriginal) living at the Point but nobody knows (but me) the true name’.¹⁰ With Caprio Anabia and his part Aboriginal wife educated in Perth, he established an orphan school and employed Mrs. Anabia at £3 per month to conduct a hostel for part-Aboriginal teenage girls. This caused much public teasing in the pearling town that sported several ethnic brothels, and Mrs. Anabia became jokingly referred to as ‘Madam’.

 

‘Some practical jokers began directing newcomers to the hostel when they were seeking a brothel. One of these, disgruntled at being refused entry, set fire to the hostel and school, burning them to the ground.’¹¹

 

The townspeople rallied to help with the rebuilding. By 1897 the orphanage housed three boys and eight girls, and the girls learned how to cook.¹² A visiting official by the name of Marsden reported the local gossip to the Aborigines Protection Board. Protestant and Catholic citizens, the local magistrate and the police corporal denied the rumours, but Emo felt ‘such a slanderous statement did a great deal of harm, with the final result that, disgusted and disheartened, I gave up this particular school and distributed the girls into service amongst the European ladies in Broome.’¹³ He sent six boys from his school to Beagle Bay but refused to send girls there because it had no female staff.

 

Broome also attracted many Muslim Filipinos from Mindanao, and another arson attack, possibly connected with the anti-Spanish revolutionary upheavals in the Philippines, was made on the church at Dampier Terrace near Streeter’s store built for Emo by Catholics from Spanish Luzon. Emo built a larger church seating 120 people and helped to form a Filipino Association and became its Chairman¹⁴ and a Ladies Association to lend support to the missions. He then focused his efforts on ‘The Point’ where he settled several mixed Aboriginal families in small cottages.

 

The only extant photograph of Fr. Emo. Source: Australien - Missionsstationen Kasten 18 ZAPP

 

 

During the Trappist retreat from their Kimberley missions (1899-1901) Emo wanted to stay on in Australia and stood in as superior of Beagle Bay mission. Whether unwittingly or through skillful manoeuvring, Emo helped to orchestrate the withdrawal of the Trappists, pointing out some serious problems with the behavior of various staff (see Beagle Bay [1]). As superior of Beagle Bay after the departure of the Trappists, Emo reported having 50 children at school assisted by Br. John, Br. Xavier (Daly) and Sebastian, a Filipino who also had intended becoming a Cistercian Brother¹⁵ but he admitted that most work at Beagle Bay, was being performed by the Filipinos.¹⁶ He dissolved the Disaster Bay [2] grange and wanted to settle Catalino and Lorenza Torres and Thomas and Agnes Puertollano at Beagle Bay mission to make up for the missing staff.¹⁷ Bishop Gibney and his party, arriving in August 1900, described Beagle Bay as being in disrepair and ‘abandoned’, though inhabited by 147 Christians.¹⁸ It had been partly destroyed by fire. This suggests that in the interlude between the departure of the Trappists and the arrival of the Pallottines, Emo was not actually at Beagle Bay. Emo welcomed the Bishop and his party in his ‘shack’ in Broome, allowed Daisy Bates the use of his room, and accompanied them to Beagle Bay and Disaster Bay for a three-months rebuilding program (see Beagle Bay [1]).

 

When the Pallottines arrived in 1901 they moved to Beagle Bay and Emo remained in Broome. The Pallottines purchased the two houses and the ‘pretty church’ on two separate parcels of land in Broome from the Trappists,¹⁹ which must have included the structures built by Emo and his Filipino congregation. The Pallottine superior Fr. Walter – seriously short of staff - supported Emo’s request to be allowed to stay on in Broome with the Pallottines, since ‘he is the Father of his people, who bear him much filial love … [and] ... he seems destined by God for this place.’²⁰ Emo’s sanctioning of marriages between Aboriginal women and Filipino and other nationals was the mainspring of his immense popularity, but it also earned him much criticism. Walter soon changed his mind.

 

Giving evidence to the Royal Commission in 1904 Emo was feeding 26 people three times a day and renting ten acres at £3 per year on the headland referred to the ‘the Point’ in Broome as a refuge for sick and aged Aborigines, which he visited every day. He had also purchased seven or eight allotments at £20 each for married couples and had performed 131 baptisms. Dr. Walter Roth was amazed to hear that Emo was funding these initiatives out of his own pocket. He wrote:

Your Commissioner cannot do more than beg your Excellency's perusal of the minutes of evidence obtained from Father Nicholas, who for [ten] years past has devoted himself entirely to the benefit of the natives - a more unselfish man it would be rare to meet. Being as anxious as ever to give up the remainder of his life to working amongst the aborigines, the Department would do well to afford him an opportunity of increasing his sphere of influence. He certainly should not be allowed to pay rent for a reserve out of his private purse. At present he is responsible for the distribution of indigent relief to the extent of a few shillings daily - an amount far from commensurate with what is absolutely required.²¹

In contrast to this praise, Beagle Bay mission received short shrift in Roth’s report, and Walter began to resent and distrust Emo. In 1902 Fr. White moved from Beagle Bay to Broome as parish priest until 1906²² and in 1904 Fr. Walter [3] also moved to Broome, so they had three Catholic Fathers but only two residences in Broome. By now the Pallottines had enough staff not to need Fr. Emo to make up the required number to hold their leases. Walter began to problematize the mixed marriages performed by Emo and refused the sacraments to one woman who had been married by Emo, and objected to the marriage between a Siochino and a Dorothy of mixed Aboriginal descent.²³

 

Emo was now stationed at ‘The Point’ in an unfurnished cottage assisted by Sebastian Damaso. Walter wanted to assert himself as Superintendent of this camp but was informed that it had recently been proclaimed a government Reserve with Emo as local protector. Walter suspected that Emo had used his influence with the Broome magistrate to prevent the Pallottines taking charge of the Point, and reached the position where he felt that ‘either Emo goes or the Pallottines go’. The Pallottine General in Rome Fr. Whitmee advised Fr. Walter [3] not to do anything against the popular Fr. Emo or he would be ‘hooted out of the country’.²⁴

 

There followed an enormous amount of deliberation about the future of Emo, who had only joined the Trappists to come to Australia, and definitely wanted to stay. After a desperate letter from Fr. Jean-Marie Janny at Lombadina to Sept Fons in October 1905 about the developing tensions in Broome, Janny and Emo were both ordered to return to France. Janny prepared to leave by April 1906 and Fr. Walter offered to defray travel expenses for Janny (but not for Emo). Fr. Jean-Marie was losing confidence in Emo’s commitment to the Trappists and interpreted a letter from Sept Fons as giving him authority to administer Emo a dispensation from his vows if Emo was not prepared to return to France – that way at least Emo would not be violating the vow of obedience.

 

But Emo – who had no future as a Pallottine under Walter, and no home in France (and perhaps not that much commitment to obedience) - wanted to remain a Trappist, and in Australia. According to Mary Durack he had taken responsibility for the child of a Cistercian novice, and there was a lingering suspicion that it was his own child. ²⁵ (Sebastian seemed to be always by his side.)

 

What was Emo planning to do? He gave only evasive answers and amidst the speculation there were some caustic comments from Walter: ‘if Fr Nicholas wants to keep his vows, it’s because he needs his Trappist name for a purpose we don’t know.’ It was now rumoured that Emo was planning a new Catholic mission under authority from Geraldton Bishop Kelly. This raised a question about the financial implications for the Pallottines and the Trappists if Emo incurred any debts or entered into any contracts in pursuit of that plan. Walter placed a notice in the newspapers that Beagle Bay mission was not going to be responsible for any credit advanced to Emo. The Sept Fons superiors also washed their hands of Emo. He was released from his Trappist vows in March 1906 and Abbott Chautard advised that Emo’s ‘temporary enterprises were without any regular mandate or permission from Sept Fons.’²⁶

 

The San Salvador and Cygnet Bay

 

The rumours about Emo’s plans were well founded. He obtained naturalization in February 1905²⁷, and then purchased the 14-ton schooner San Salvador, roomy enough to live on and with full pearl diving equipment. Indeed Abbot Torres of New Norcia (1903-1914) enlisted Emo’s help to locate a site for a new Catholic mission in the East Kimberley. The Vatican had been carving up the vast Victoria diocese once administered by the Benedictine abbott. In 1898 a separate Geraldton diocese had been erected, in 1906 the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart extended the Catholic reach from Darwin with the appointment of Fr. Gsell [4] as apostolic administrator, and the Pallottines were seeking an independent Kimberley vicariate. When the Anglicans proposed to renew the mission at Forrest River near Wyndham the need for Catholic extension into the east Kimberley became urgent.²⁸

 

Abbott Torres and Fr. Emo they took the San Salvador on a perilous journey of exploration (12 May 1906 to 7 July 1906) crewed by Captain Johnson, the Filipinos Clement, Peter and Sebastian, and the Christian Aboriginal Francis. The first night that Emo spent on board his lugger he felt sure that ‘the ship is blessed’. Emo avoided the Pallottines by staying on board at Beagle Bay (13 May) while Abbott Torres proceeded to the Pallottine mission and met the two priests and seven Brothers, and the children sang a harmonium-accompanied welcome. Next they called on Fr. Jean-Marie Janny who was staying with the Puertollanos at Lombadina seven miles inland, to discuss the instructions received from France to return home (15 May). They also visited the Cygnet Bay pearling base and the Sunday Island mission run by Syd Hadley, who had previous experience with a mission attempt at Forrest River. They recruited local guides with great difficulty, and then steered through the uncharted waters of Buccaneer archipelago all the way to Wyndham - everyone including the Sunday Islanders fearing cannibals. The thirty European residents of Wyndham relished the diversion of the Abbot playing the piano at Durack’s Hotel, while the ‘local dignitaries’ took the lugger on a two-day picnic jaunt with accordion accompaniment. The journey had been so miserable that the Abbott declined to return on the San Salvador, preferring to wait in Wyndham for the steamer to Perth.²⁹ Emo intercepted him at Beagle Bay for a debriefing (19 July 1906), and the Abbot ‘approved my decision to remove to King Sound in order to await his return from Europe’.³⁰

 

Emo had decided that Cygnet Bay just south of One Arm Point was a suitable site for intervention until the Benedictine plans were sealed. Cygnet Bay was a pearling base for over 100 luggers with around 600 Filipino and Malay crew, and the Abbott had remarked that it ‘holds sad memories because of crimes committed by Manillamen and Malays’. Presumably he was referring to the brutal killing of a Malay by a group of Filipinos on Boxing Day 1896.³¹

 

Emo was now a secular priest again, and ‘swapped the Trappist cloak for an old black alpaca suit’.³² He was burning his bridges with the Pallottine superior Walter in Broome and proceeded to evacuate the Point of its residents rather than leave it to the Pallottines. In fact he was permitted to move Aboriginal people because had been appointed a local protector of Aborigines.³³ Emo took out a lease for Cygnet Bay and proceeded there on 16 August 1906 to construct a goat yard and repair the well, and then returned to Broome for more stores. He arrived back at Cygnet Bay on 29 August 1906 awaiting Leandro, one of the residents of the Point, who was driving a goatherd overland. At Cygnet Bay Emo ‘built something for the old people’ and re-gathered his little congregation.³⁴ That some Aboriginal people from the west coast joined Emo at Cygnet Bay caused even more tension with Fr. Walter.³⁵

 

In September 1906 a new chapel with a portico and 12 columns overlooked Cygnet Bay, designated to Our Lady of the Aborigines, inscribed Nigra sum sed Formosa – I am black but I am beautiful (Solomon 1:5). Emo was greatly inspired by the black Madonna, Our Lady of Monserrat, and in November 1908 composed a canticle for her.³⁶ Emo tried to work out the local marriage rules and kinship terms. According to Durack he was also ‘a keen collector of native weapons and other tribal artefacts ... and the Dampierlanders, warming to his interest, had gladly bartered their handiwork for tobacco, sugar and tea.’³⁷

 

The San Salvador was Emo’s means of independence. It provided vital communication and was also a source of income. It was fully equipped for pearling and Emo also hired it out for police work at £3 per day. Later he used it to ship supplies and sell firewood cut at Lombadina. But since a Catholic priest could not hold private property Emo's control of the lugger became contested. On 26 September 1906 Bishop Kelly sent the documents for the San Salvador to the Union Bank in Broome asking Walter to meet the outstanding bills amounting to £90. Walter was to hold the boat as security until Emo paid the remaining amount, or in default repossess the lugger. But the lugger was already at Cygnet Bay.³⁸ It is not quite clear why there was such a comparatively small amount outstanding (perhaps transaction costs or a variation in the expected purchase price), but the boat came close to repossession. In May 1905 Emo had asked Bishop Gibney to advance £200 for a 12-ton lugger priced at £300. The San Salvador was a 14-ton lugger and cost more. Later Emo wrote that he had purchased the San Salvador for £350, and Abbot Torres paid £115. ³⁹ According to Durack, Filomeno Rodriguez provided finance. At any rate, Emo considered the San Salvador to be his boat, and the Catholic Church considered it theirs.

 

Emo dissolved the Cygnet Bay mission to join the new Benedictine mission at the Drysdale River. On 5 May 1908 the travelling inspector James Isdell and constable Fletcher arrive at Cygnet Bay to take a leprosy patient, a blind person and an epileptic to Derby hospital. Fr. Russell was called to take the children and old people to Beagle Bay mission, and Fr. Bischofs later reported that five children educated by Fr. Emo at Cygnet Bay had arrived at Beagle Bay. A sixth, smaller child, had been retrieved from Beagle Bay by the Cygnet Bay people.⁴⁰ Emo accompanied this group to Beagle Bay.

 

At Beagle Bay Fr. Emo caught up with the St. John of God Sisters who were just preparing to leave for Broome on 5 June 1908 to establish the Sisters in Broome with a convent and St. Mary’s primary school. The first two, Antonio O’Brien and Benedict Courtney, were able to profit from the networks that Emo had nourished:

 

They had very little money, no pre-made arrangements regarding accommodation and were dependent on the goodness of people in Broome. On arrival Sister Antonio knocked at the first house she came to, seeking a cup of tea. Mrs. Gonzales opened the door, offered them hospitality and they became great friends. She helped them with food and accommodation.⁴¹

 

Fr. Walter [3] left for Germany that same year in order to gain the Kimberley vicariate, and, failing this, never returned. Walter’s departure facilitated a rapprochement between Emo and the Pallottines.

 

Drysdale River Benedictine mission

 

On 24 May 1908 Fr. Emo went to Derby to await the arrival of the Benedictines and to mastermind the massive transfer of cargo and supplies for the new mission site. The San Salvador could only carry 14 tons of cargo and had to make several trips. The party from New Norcia consisted of Abbott Fulgentius Torres, with Fr. Emilian Planas, Fr. Iñigo Alcalde and Br. Vincente Quindos and a convent girl Josephine. On their onward journey to Drysdale River they were accompanied by Leandro Loredo and his wife Matilde and their 12-year old adopted daughter, an Aboriginal couple, and five men - Jack, Peter, Amat, Punch, and Abrae (aka Abrahe or Rob Roy). Later they were joined at the mission by Catalino Torres and his pregnant part-Aboriginal wife (presumably Lorenza,⁴² and their son was born on 19 January 1909) from Beagle Bay, Mandy from Disaster Bay, Maggy from Sunday Island, the Filipino Clemente Carlos, and a Toribio and Gregorio. Nailon also mentions Teofilo, Raimond, and Jacob, but perhaps not all of these were there at the same time.⁴³ It took almost three months to settle on a suitable site and some of the Aboriginal youths from the Dampier Peninsula were detained longer than they wanted and later caused strife between Emo and Planas. Initially there were four couples and some young men assisting the mission, and by the end of the year they had two Filipinos and their wives and one child and eight young men of Filipino and Aboriginal backgrounds.

 

The people of this area had a fierce reputation among the Bardi and Yawuru people who were long used to contact with Whites, and the pearlers had avoided this area. For the first time Emo found himself in raw frontier country. The local guides hired at Sunday Island were no more successful than the others in establishing communication with locals. The party was attacked on 28 July after having briefly captured a young woman, and took until mid-August to settle on a site.

 

Pago was officially opened on 15 August 1908 as a new Benedictine mission attached to New Norcia. Abbot Torres and three married Aboriginal men (Jack, Emile and Rob Roy) left on 31 August 1908. But instead of taking off, the mission disintegrated because the local people remained hostile and avoided the mission. There were constant attacks and violence on both sides. Emo had pinned high hopes on himself as a missionary among ‘wild and untamed blacks’, the idea that had brought him to Australia. Here finally he met his limitations. On 5 September Peter killed one of the natives, the third fatality recorded by Emo.⁴⁴ In May 1909 Emo spent some time at Cygnet Bay, where he met up with the travelling inspector to claim ‘relief for 32 natives’.⁴⁵ The protector sent nine mixed descent boys to Drysdale mission during 1909, ‘unexpectedly’ according to Fr. Alcalde.⁴⁶ At least the Drysdale missionaries now had a task other than instructing the few people they had brought with them.

 

When the ornithological collector Gerald Hill arrived at the mission (14 November 1909) it was rapidly disintegrating. Just before Christmas 1909 Leandro and his family left, leaving the mission with neither a captain nor a cook, and Fr. Emo blamed Fr. Planas’ authoritarian manners for their departure.⁴⁷ Nor did Emo welcome the secular collector, who was chatting with Fr. Planas in the room next door until all hours. Emo complained that the Benedictines were not observing monastic silence, and wrote later that in his two years at the mission there had been no religious practice whatsoever, neither office nor mass were held and there was no altar wine.⁴⁸ Emo was thoroughly disillusioned with the mission and contemplated leaving.

 

Fr. Planas felt that Emo was inciting the Aborigines to also leave and disabled the schooner. Some Aboriginal crew (or boys?) made off in the dinghy on 8 January 1910. A standoff developed between Emo and the Benedictines, who claimed that the San Salvador was a mission boat and would not let Emo touch it. It was their only connection to the world. The rift deepened when ‘big Charlie’, one of the nine boys removed from Cygnet Bay to the mission, was accidentally shot by rifle at the mission on 25 January 1910.⁴⁹ Emo defended Leandro, who had left the rifles behind, against accusations of carelessness. In February 1910 a report, possibly related to this incident, arrived in New Norcia of an attack from local people when the missionaries fired into the air to drive them away.⁵⁰

 

Emo was no longer on speaking terms with the Benedictine Fathers. He also suffered a personal disaster during this period with the arrival of a letter from a young woman, Raquel in Barcelona, describing her and her mother’s destitute situation. It is possible that Racquel was Emo’s niece. Emo felt helpless and was often observed crying for these two. He was sick with swollen eyes and mouth. Durack offers another perspective on Emo’s deteriorating relationship with the Benedictines. She thinks it was

 

‘over the Dampierland boys, who with three or four half-caste youths sent there from station properties, had helped to justify the isolated Kalumburu mission in the eyes of a sceptical government. The youths … had long since grown homesick and their relatives had protested bitterly at their being kept away for so long among alien tribespeople. Father Nicholas’s proposal to return them had been seen by the monks as an attempt to sabotage their struggling mission, and it was only when one of the boys became dangerously ill that the priest [Emo] decided he could delay no longer.⁵¹

 

Emo ceased to participate in mission activities and turned to scholarship to occupy his time meaningfully. He had previously collected birds for Abbott Torres to take to New Norcia, and had conducted ethnographic collecting at Cygnet Bay. Hill’s presence at the mission may have presented some incentive. Emo began to record the rock paintings in the caves around the mission, most of which were only high enough to lie in. He copied them faithfully into a sketch album, and in February 1910 reported having recorded 24 caves in around 40 colour illustrations. Emo was worried that Hill may be claiming credit for the drawings. (The album is held in the New Norcia archives.) Emo also began to write a ‘Memorial of the Lover of Jesus Christ’ exploring all Old Testament prophesies of Jesus the savior, his genealogy, and images of Jesus in the Old and New Testament. This was an area where Hill could not compete. In March 1913 Emo requested approbation for the publication of My Jesus, My All.

 

Fr. Planas felt that Emo was neglecting his duties to teach catechism to the Filipinos and mission boys, and finally reached the position where he wanted Fr. Emo to leave. He accused Emo of being temperamental and inconsistent, ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ no less.⁵² During an extended absence in Broome of Fr. Planas with two of the mission boys in July 1910, Emo took the remaining Filipinos to Broome, and then returned with five Aboriginal helpers to pack up his possessions and left on the last day of August. He did not mention that the San Salvador was not going to come to back to Drysdale River mission.⁵³ It is possible that Emo was taking some of the boys, who had been recruited to help with the mission and who had not been officially removed to the mission, as Durack suggests:

 

Benedictine sources interpret his decision to leave their mission as being largely actuated by fear of hostility from the local tribespeople. … At all events he knew, when he sailed off with the Dampierland youths about May 1910, that he had burned his boats with the Benedictines and that he was not after all to earn a martyr’s crown among the ‘uncorrupted’ tribes of the remoter north.’

 

Fr. Emo had been considering his options for some time. Since his dispensation from the Trappists in March 1906 he had no habit, was not under vows, and had received no official instruction. He claimed that he had received permission from Rome to work by himself. He had been turned away by the Pallottine Society and still wanted to join the Benedictine order. In May 1910 Abbot Torres took over from Bishop Kelly as Bishop of the Kimberley vicariate and rendered Drysdale River mission independent of local ecclesiastical jurisdiction - a mission sui juris like New Norcia. Emo sent his congratulations and suggested to the new Bishop that the missions at Beagle Bay, Drysdale River and New Norcia should all be under Benedictine administration. He considered establishing himself in King Sound again and did not want to return to Broome or re-join Leandro at the Point.

 

In September 1910 there was another attack at Drysdale River mission, in which Fr. Alcalde fired 80 cartridges, and Emo rushed to the mission.⁵⁴ Local attacks were not the only problem of the Drysdale River mission, the approach by sea was also very treacherous. The San Salvador was declared unfit after only five years of service (perhaps to save face and allow Emo to use it) and Drysdale River mission acquired a boat that was smashed almost immediately. Chief Protector Gale, visiting the besieged mission in November 1910, chartered a commercial boat, the Phyllis, with Captain Morrissey and a Singaporean crew for his journey. Two days after Gale’s visit there were two more attacks and one of the missionaries was speared sustaining a slight injury.⁵⁵ The Dickie was acquired in December 1910, wrecked in October 1911, repaired at great cost and wrecked again the following year, in August 1912 at Jones Island.

 

Fr. Planas did not return to Drysdale River mission for some time, and Fr. Alcalde became its superior. In July 1911 Bishop Torres visited the sorry mission to pick up Fr. Planas. This left the mission with two Fathers, a Brother and four couples – 11 staff. The school was still only populated by the (now eight) mixed-descent boys who had been sent there by the Protector. Bishop Torres helpfully suggested that the missionaries could hang clothes and presents from trees to attract local Aborigines.⁵⁶

 

Emo at Lombadina

 

Whether the police suggested it (Durack) or Emo himself offered (Zucker) or the Pallottines invited Emo (Nailon), sixty-year old Fr. Emo took on Lombadina mission in January 1911. Thomas Puertollano was lease-holder at Lombadina, and the government insisted on a non-Asian supervision. The Pallottines had been given responsibility for Lombadina in 1910, but Fr. Traub’s [5] cyclone experience in November 1910 left Lombadina again without a priest. Fr. Walter had now left Australia, and Emo’s relationship with the Pallottines could heal.

 

The Pallottines devolved the entire responsibility for Lombadina to Fr. Emo, including how to finance it. Emo had his own letterhead for ‘Lombadina Aboriginal Mission, Broome WA’ (without reference to the Pallottine Society) and a typewriter for correspondence. The Chief Protector contributed a wage of £60 per annum (Nailon gives the figure as an annual £80 special grant⁵⁷) plus the cost of feeding and clothing ‘indigents and children’. The government was now adopting this arrangement as a model for new establishments. Fr. Droste wrote:

 

The Protestants would have liked to elbow their way into our territory years ago so we felt obliged to shut the gate by means of a small outrigger station, 60 miles from Beagle Bay on the coast. But because the term of lease conditions formed an obstacle we handed it over to Father Nicholas, who had received permission from the Trappists to conclude his life among the blacks. … He would have liked to join our congregation but we had to counsel against it. Since Beagle Bay devolved the new foundation entirely into his hands we also conveyed to him that no material support could be expected from there, and that the new mission had to be made absolutely self-supporting.’⁵⁸

 

 

The Puertollanos, who had supported Fr. Jean-Marie Janny at Disaster Bay and Lombadina until 1906 with their market garden and produce, now helped Fr. Emo. Emo also brought his protegés Sebastian Damaso and Martin Sibosado from Beagle Bay to Lombadina in 1912. However Chief Protector Gale fully intended to put a stop to the mixed marriages that Emo wanted to sanction: ‘no application from or on behalf of Asians to marry Aboriginal women will be entertained’.⁵⁹ In 1913 the first three Sisters of St. John of God arrived at Lombadina and the Puertollanos vacated their home to be used as a convent. Fr. Droste and Fr. Bachmair from Beagle Bay frequently visited Lombadina, and various Pallottine Brothers, including Heinrich Krallmann, also spent much time there.

 

'I had very rough trip Drysdale, twenty-one days going, eleven returning. Fathers in good spirits. Letters by Paroo. Kindly send the new breviary and register Lombardina Mission Australian Directory.' Father Nicholas' Emo to Torres, 17 July 1913. Source: Nailon 2005 (II):204.

 

 

Fr. Emo also maintained contact with Drysdale River mission, where he sold firewood cut at Lombdina. He visited there in May 1913⁶⁰ and wired Bishop Torres at New Norcia in July that the Fathers there were 'in good spirits'. On 15 August 1913 the San Salvador, instead of taking supplies to Drysdale River mission as scheduled, took some constables to Coronation Islands ‘to apprehend the murderers of three white men’, an incident for which Emo was a witness.⁶¹ Fr. Emo felt certain that the attack was related to the three deaths of local Aborigines at the hands of Drysdale River mission staff: an early confrontation in which Br. Vincente had fired shots had possibly resulted in the death of one Aboriginal victim, one had almost certainly been killed by Leandro on the Barton River in July 1908, and a third by Peter and two other Aborigines from the Mission in September 1908. All of these incidents had been hushed up and apparently not investigated. Moreover, Emo felt that the Drysdale missionaries were excessively stingy. In a flourish of rhetoric he actually offered to go to Drysdale in place of Fr. Altimira.⁶² Emo’s mind was still very much occupied with the troubled Drysdale River mission.

 

Not calling in to Drysdale in August 1913 with fresh provisions may have been a fateful decision, because in September Drysdale River mission was attacked, this time seriously, but no news reached the outside world. The mission was again without transport and relied on pre-arranged commercial supply vessels. In December Emo felt he ought to visit again but the season from November to March made the journey too perilous.⁶³ On 29 March 1914 the German Captain Frank on the Bedout, who was supposed to deliver provisions and supplies to Drysdale, brought news to Lombadina that Drysdale River mission had been destroyed, and the missionaries murdered. Fr. Emo hurried to Broome on the San Salvador to pick up Constable White. They spent almost a month to investigate from (10 April to 3 May 1914). Fr. Droste replaced Emo at Lombadina during this period and his diary [6]records that on 8 April 1914 Constable Rea and native police assistant Louis from Pender Bay called at Lombadina and set out next day to ‘search for the black murderers’. Their police journal for this period is missing. Sub-inspector Houlahan from Broome followed up, and a lid was put on the report of an attack, stating it had been a simple mistake - Captain Frank called in at the wrong landing site.⁶⁴

 

However, what they did discover is that an attack had taken place at Drysdale River mission on 26 September 1913. The two Benedictine Fathers Altimira and Alcalde were attacked while handing out watermelons to ‘103 natives’. Nailon points out that the police report dates this attack on 27 September, whereas the Drysdale Chronicle gives the date as 26 September 1913. The watermelon fields had been subject to raids, and the Fathers tried to hand out part of the harvest in an orderly manner, when a violent attack erupted. Altimira was struck on the shoulder with a harpoon and tried to rush for a gun but was rendered semi-unconscious by a stick thrown at him. Alcalde was knocked to the ground and then stabbed in the ribs, shoulder and arm with a harpoon and struck with stones. Br. Vincente was also caught but freed himself and ran off to alert the Filipino Toribio, who had gone fishing. One of the mission residents, Fulgentius Fraser, fired into the air, and the attackers ran away. Alcalde contracted pleurisy and was still suffering from the harpoon wounds months later. The Pallottines commented that the place was unsafe for the boys who had been removed there and Chief Protector Gale withdrew these children from Drysdale River.

Read more - Bischofs Report and Sunday Times

 

Fr. Emo’s health was declining. Just after he had failed to call in at Drysdale River to bring supplies he was already complaining of depression⁶⁵, and in August 1914 Fr. Droste found Fr. Emo ‘not so well’ and Fr. Thomas Bachmair was spending more time with him.⁶⁶ During World War I the movement of the Germans was curtailed and there were frequent food shortages all around the peninsula. The San Salvador became an important means of transport.

 

On 1 February 1915 Emo celebrated the wedding of his protegé Martin Sibosado and Eriberta Idon (Bertha) from Disaster Bay. Old Gonzales, a Broome pearler played violin at the wedding and the new couple moved into a little bark cottage in the colony. Emo, now 65 years old, made out his will on the same day, witnessed by Martin Sibosado and David Bell JP, leaving his diving equipment to Thomas Puertollano and everything else to the Sisters.⁶⁷ Soon afterwards he helped to dig the grave that was to become his own. ⁶⁸ Everything was now in order. The only unfinished business was a failed naturalization application for Thomas Puertollano, [7] which left an unresolved issue about the Lombadina leases.

 

Death of Fr. Emo

 

The story goes that Fr. Droste at Beagle Bay ‘felt an uncanny impulse to go to Lombadina’ on 5 March 1915, although he had been there only recently. He rode his mule 50 miles to Lombadina to find Fr. Emo about to die of a severe stroke.⁶⁹ Fr. Droste’s own diary is a little less miraculous. On 1^st March 1915 Fr. Bachmair and two Sisters were on their way to Broome, so on 3 March ‘Peter and Helene’ were sent to Lombadina. On 6 March 1915 Droste received word from Lombadina that Fr. Emo was dying. Droste celebrated the mass at Beagle Bay at 4.45pm and then rushed to Lombadina at 7pm, in such a hurry that he lost a spur and stirrup on the way. Droste reached the mission that same night and Fr. Emo died the next morning, the day of the Feast of St. John of God. Droste held the funeral on the same day at 6pm. Five days later (12^th March) he returned to Beagle Bay.⁷⁰ The Liber Defunctorum for Lombadina records Fr. Emo’s death from hemorrhage on 8^th March 1915 at 3.40 am.⁷¹ Zucker adds that Emo was buried on two boards according to local custom and the Lombadina people ‘commenced a great wailing’.⁷²

 

 

The West Australian, 3 November 1896

THE TRAPPIST MISSION AT BEAGLE BAY.

It is not as often as might be desired (remarks the W.A. Record) that news comes from the Trappist mission at Beagle Bay. It is an isolated spot. Broome is 90 miles distant, and although the Singapore steamers call once a month at Broome, yet there remains the further disadvantage that the mission schooner is sent to that port only at such irregular intervals as the needs of the mission station require. It may be added that the Trappist Fathers are quite content to carry on their good work without display - in all they do it is not the notice nor the applause of men they seek. However, it has come to be known that the Trappist establishment and native mission is a great success.

There are 19 missionaries at present in the community. Of these nine are priests and ten lay brothers. The religious observances of the Order are carried out with as much completeness as if the monastery were situated in the centre of a Catholic country, instead of being located in a distant spot in the Australian bush. There is daily schooling for the aboriginal children of the place, and all the native adults who remain for any time also receive instruction. There is mass every morning - served by native boys in red cassocks - for all the aborigines. They assemble likewise every evening in the Chapel for the Rosary in common.

The pastoral care of the natives is the special charge of the Rev. F. Alphonse Tachón, who has made a study of the natives' language, as well as of the natives' ways and habits. At the Sunday's mass F. Alphonse preaches in their own tongue to the adult aborigines. The men on one side of the Chapel and the women on the other pay great attention. The interest they take is shown by the odd scenes that have sometimes to be noticed. It happens at times that while Father Alphonse is inveighing against some intolerable custom, or it may be vice, he is opposed by one of the elder natives rising in his place and contradicting the preacher. A lively controversy not infrequently ensues between the priest at the altar and the unconvinced aboriginal, the spokesmen of some of the congregation. The holidays of obligation are kept as on Sundays.

A most edifying celebration took place on the Festival of the Assumption. On that day 12 adult natives who had been for a long time previously taught and prepared for the sacred rite were admitted to the grace of baptism. The Abbot himself baptised the neophytes, and all possible solemnity was added to the occasion so as to make a deep and lasting impression on those baptised and on the large number of natives who were present at the ceremony.

The good fathers have found time to do something for the spiritual welfare of the mixed and somewhat amphibious population that have their headquarters at Broome. There are altogether 625 souls in the little township. Among them are 125 Catholics, of whom 39 are in the town and 86 have homes of some sort there, but live mostly on the sea. The Rev. Father Nicholas de Emo spent six months at Broome, during which time he put up a temporary chapel and opened a day school for native boys and girls. He was fortunate in being able to secure the services of a well-instructed half-caste woman to take charge of the school. The schoolmistress is married to the Manila man who acts as sacristan and cathechist. Along with being capable of teaching, the schoolmistress is endowed with other good qualities, which give her great influence over all the native children and with the aborigines who are under instruction.

Father Nicholas can count only 17 English-speaking members of his flock. The rest are made up of 60 Manila men, five Spaniards, one French- man, two Hollanders, 14 Americans, three Portuguese, three Japanese, one Chinaman, and 16 aborigines. He has been very successful in getting this motly gathering to attend fairly well to their religious duties. With one or two exceptions all complied with the Paschal precepts of confession and communion, 19 were baptised, six married, and there was one death and burial. Father Nicholas is now at Broome, with permission of the Abbot to make it his permanent abode. His missionary zeal and energy may be reckoned on to effect great good for the Catholics of different nationalities and for the aborigines of the place.⁷³

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Sunday Times, 5 April 1914

SENSATIONAL REPORT

DRYSDALE RIVER MISSION

Has There Been a Massacre?

The Collier Bay tragedy, in which three young fellows, sailing the lugger Wanderer II, between Derby and Wyndham, were foully murdered by treacherous and bloodthirsty natives, occurred nine months ago, but the mystery surrounding it has not yet been cleared up. Word has now been received from the Nor'-West which would lead to the belief that a tragedy of a still more extended, and horrifying nature has occurred - nothing short of the wiping out of existence by blacks of the Drysdale River Mission, in the north of Kimberley.

On Friday morning the Commissioner of Police (Mr. R. Connell) received the following alarming wire from Sub-Inspector Houlahan, of Broome: -            

Franks, master of schooner Bedout, taking supplies to Drysdale   Mission, has reported to Father Nicholas that, on going ashore at Drysdale on March 9, he found no houses or habitation, but saw traces of several fires and some human bones. He gathered up and buried the latter. This would imply that the whole mission has been wiped out. Father Nicholas is leaving by schooner tomorrow for Drysdale River. I am sending Constable White with him to investigate. He may be absent about a month.'    

The Commissioner of Police has decided that he will await a report from Constable White before he authorises further action by the police. The accuracy of the report is questioned by the Chief Protector of Aborigines (Mr. Gale), on the ground that it would be impossible for the natives to obliterate all traces of the settlement, and that it was a spot very difficult to find. A telegram received by the Chief Harbormaster (Captain Irvine) from Captain Gregory, of Broome, also throws discredit on the story, for Captain Gregory states that he feels confident that Captain Franks went to the wrong place. Under the circumstances further information will be anxiously awaited.

The Drysdale River Mission, which was founded by the Benedictine Fathers of New Norcia in 1908, is situated in Napier Broome Bay, near the Drysdale River. Those who formed the mission were - The Rev. Father D. H. Altimira, O.S.B, the Rev. Father D. E. Alcalde, O.S.B, six lay brothers, and some mission natives. The aborigines in the vicinity are very treacherous, and the members of the mission have always had to carry firearms. ⁷⁴

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Fr. Bischofs reported on the Drysdale incident of 26 September 1913:

 

The mission had received a few mixed boys from the government and one of these fired a gun from the kitchen window into the air. The blacks ran away and left the missionaries lying half dead in their blood. Pater Superior P Altimira recovered after a few months, Pater Alcaldi will always suffer from his wounds. A few days ago I had news from Bishop Torres that he will send a new Pater and Bother to the Drysdale mission so that Pater Alcaldi can return south. At the moment the blacks appear quiet. But the missionaries are too few for this dangerous place. … One can only pray for the poor missionaries. It is lucky that among the blacks there is one who has been in service with whites and is looking for a wife among them. He told the missionaries a few days ahead of the attacks. But we cannot understand why the Benedictines didn’t pay more attention to the words of the black assistant. Although the blacks had announced their attack in detail, the missionaries went without protection among them when they begged for provisions. Instead of distributing provisions to a large group one should have told them to come to the mission fence in small groups.⁷⁵

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Clo [8]