IT was 60 years ago this month that Aboriginals on Palm Island went on strike protesting against their harsh working conditions and for being paid only with rations.

Like other Aboriginals in the state their lives were tightly controlled by the 1897 Aboriginal Protection Act.

The trigger for the strike was the decision to deport Abie Geia for the offence of disobeying an overseer, but he refused to leave and this catalysed the island population and the strike was declared on June 10, 1957.

The strike was broken after five days when the members of seven families were rounded up in pre-dawn raids and banished from the island at gunpoint.

Others involved in the strike were also removed from the island including Fred Doolan, father of Townsville-based artist Billy Doolan.

Billy’s sister Alanna Doolan was eight at the time and remembers waking up at 5am, before dawn, to hear her mother Jessie Doolan, who was heavily pregnant, screaming and crying and a “ruckus” coming from the front of their home.

“I remember hearing mum, the ruckus before daybreak and I remember a lot of police dragging my dad and mum was screaming and crying,” she said.

“They just handcuffed him and dragged him out and put him on the police launch.”

Regarded as a “troublemaker” by the authorities, Fred Doolan had been sent to Palm Island from Woorabinda Aboriginal Mission as a 17-year-old.

He was constantly denied permission by the Palm Island superintendent to return home to Woorabinda to see his family but when his mother died he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Having worked on luggers around Palm Island, Fred knew the tides and twice tried to escape the island by drifting to the mainland on a log.

“The first time he drifted on a log by starting in the early morning and fought off sharks with a stick until he got to Forrest Beach,” Billy said.

“But when he got there the police were waiting for him and took him back to Palm.

“It was not long after that he did it again, this time with someone else, and this time the current took them to Cardwell. Then they jumped on a southbound train where they got as far as Ayr where the police were waiting for them and took them back to Palm again.”

Fred’s son Billy and his daughters Alanna and Venieca Doolan are proud of their father’s involvement in the strike and of the other men and woman who took part.

A champion middleweight boxer who toured with Larry Delahunty’s boxing troupe, Alanna said her father was not afraid to stand up to others and only wanted his freedom.

“My dad was not political but he just wanted to be free and not be told what to do,” she said.

Venieca said before the 1957 strike the Aboriginal population on Palm was divided as its inhabitants had come from many different tribes and regions. “Horrible as it was, the strike brought them all together and they all fought for the one thing, for one cause,” she said.

Billy paid tribute to the efforts of his father and others involved in the strike.

“This is our story about our father and what he went through with the strike but we would also want to acknowledge the men and women who were just as strong as my father for fighting for our freedom and wages,” he said.

After being forcibly removed from Palm Island, Fred was given three pounds by police before being left on a Townsville jetty and told to move on.

Because of his reputation as a “troublemaker” he was not welcome at other Aboriginal missions, including his former home Woorabinda.

He was joined several months later in Townsville by his wife Jessie, who had to wait until she had given birth to Venieca, and the rest of his family and they eventually settled at Happy Valley.

He had won his freedom from the Aboriginal Protection Act and never returned to Palm Island.