FRINGE CAMPS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY QUEENSLAND* Mr. H. Reynolds The main features of European-Aboriginal relations in C19th Queensland have been outlined by CD. Rowley in The Destruction of Aboriginal Society and by R. Evans in Exclusion, Exploitation and

Extermination. But their necessarily broad generalizations obscure much fine detail which must be examined to gain an appreciation of the total situation. There were, for instance, important differences in the nature of early contact depending on when and where it occurred. It is necessary to remember that while permanent settlement began at Moreton Bay in the 1820s there were still, a century later, some Aboriginal groups with limited experience of the white man. Changing European attitudes and policies during that time influenced the course of race relations as did the varied character of the immigrant's economic activity. The pastoral industry was of crucial importance to the transplanted economy and its demands determined the fate of Aboriginal clans over large areas of the colony. But its predominance in both the economic, and the racial history, of Queensland should not divert attention from other forms of economic activity- other frontiers-vAiere there were subtle differences in the nature of contact. In the gold-bearing districts of North Queensland, for instance, Aborigines had their first sustained relations with itinerant miners rather than shepherds and stockmen. Along the wet coastal valleys farmers, sugar planters and their Melanesian and Chinese labourers cleared the rainforest and entered into permanent contact with the local clans. Aborigines from the many off-shore islands and adjacent coastlines often had their first significant relations with ship-borne Europeans- explorers, surveyors or pearl and b^che de m§r fishers while along the coast of Cape York, between Yarrabah in the east and Edward River in the west, formative contact came with missionaries seeking souls rather than profits