White Christ Black Cross examines work of the Australian Board of Missions (ABM) with a particular emphasis on the period from 1850 to 1950. The author has looked at the history of a number of ABM missions, although most attention is focused on its work in Queensland at Yarrabah.

The missionary work is framed within the reality of frontier violence, government control, segregation and neglect. He outlines how Aboriginal people on the missions responded to Christianity as part of their enforced cultural change. When missionary control diminished, Aboriginal people responded more overtly and autonomously: some seeing Christianity as irrelevant, and others adopting it in culturally pleasing ways.

ABM found itself embroiled in emerging broader social issues and changing government policies, requiring it to rethink its own policies. The most dramatic example was its support for Ernest Gribble’s exposure of the 1926 Forrest River massacres which the author suggests set off the current ‘history wars’.

Review previously posted in 2010