Melissa Lucashenko

As he grew older, he was put through Aboriginal law and he understood that when he went out and selected Marumba Downs on the Pine River,

There was a way to go about it that didn't do, you know, immense damage to Aboriginal people and Aboriginal culture.

He went with the permission of Dullapai, the head man from that area.

And Dullapai's nephew took him out and he said, OK, young Tom, any of this land here from this ridge down to, I think it's Saltwater Creek,

in the Caboolture area, you can choose any of this land here.

It sounds like an act of benevolence, but what was actually going on there was that Dalapai, a senior head man for the north side, was placing a sympathetic white man who understood Aboriginal law right next to the station, Whiteside Station, where there'd been a lot of killing.

And Dalapai was strategically ensuring that there was a safe place

place in that area and that was also a stopping place for people travelling to and from the Bunya Mountains.

He was always close to Aboriginal people and Yuggera men and women, but Yuggera men were loyal to him in an extraordinary way, actually.

It's really telling, which is not to say that he always did everything the way black fellas would have wanted him to.

I think he grew more conservative as he got older.

But leaving that aside for now, his workers at Marumba Downs, and I was horrified that

At first, when I realised that the workers, his Aboriginal workers at Marumba Downs, were branded with a P.

And I just went, wow, you know, this... Like cattle.

Well, that's what I initially thought.

But then I spoke to Gadja Kerry Charlton, who's a descendant of those workers, and she pointed to her arm and said, yes, we had the pee on our arm.

And in conversation with her, we were talking about, well, was it...

a kind of a slavery symbol.

And I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't.

I think it was either an equivalent of a tribal marking where the men were proud to be associated with Petrie, or alternatively, it could have been a protection.