Fifty Aborigines by David J Delaney reflects on Aboriginal Australian trackers sent to South Africa during the Boer War and the injustice of being denied a return to Australia.
Moving between the South African veld and the home they were forced to leave behind, the poem centres their service, separation from family and the grief carried across generations.
Fifty Aborigines
By David J Delaney
Fifty Aborigines were taken from our shore
sent over to South Africa, to fight in England’s war.
Fifty Aborigines tracked Boers on foreign land,
nevermore to walk their bush, or camp on golden sand.
Lord Kitchener gave orders, to find some trackers fast,
then sent the very best, the ones they knew could last
for days out in the desert or on the open plains,
surviving searing heat or through the winter rains.
So fifty Aborigines are fighting side by side;
they’re with Australian soldiers and showing trackers’ pride,
and how they showed their worth, when tracking down the Boers
surprising British officers who’d fought in many wars.
The treaty of Vereeniging, May 1902
stopped the bloody war between the Boers and British too.
Our soldiers all rejoiced, for they would head on home,
and spend their lives beneath Australia’s starry dome.
But fifty Aborigines would not be coming back,
they never would return because their skin was black.
The “White Australia Policy” would stop them coming home,
far from their families, where they would hunt and roam.
For fifty Aborigines the tears will always flow
by children of the fathers, they’ll never get to know,
and all the family members, will walk with heavy heart
with knowledge that their menfolk, and they will be apart.
So here’s another piece of our Australian history
of leaders hiding truth behind bureaucracy,
and those from way back then really need to take the blame
for all that I can say is…..shame Australia, shame.
Keeping The Verse Alive
Fifty Aborigines is shared with permission from David J Delaney through Keeping The Verse Alive, Country Campfire’s bush poetry preservation project.
By preserving poems like this, we’re helping ensure the stories, humour and characters of country Australia continue to be enjoyed for generations to come.
David J Delaney
Bush Poet • Writer • Storyteller
David J Delaney is an Australian bush poet and writer whose poems draw on a lifetime of work, travel, family, road memories, outback places and the people he has known along the way. His poems are preserved through Country Campfire as part of the Keeping The Verse Alive project.
Poems, recitals, photographs, stories and original works remain the property of their original creator and are shared by Country Campfire with permission.
