Lake Boga mission

Lake Boga Mission station was established on the south-eastern shores of Lake Boga, Victoria, Australia in 1851 by the Moravian Church on the land of the Wemba-Wemba. The mission was established by two Moravian missionaries from Germany, Andreas Täger and Friedrich Spieseke. The missionaries hoped to establish gardens, keep livestock and open a school to attract and convert to Christianity and 'civilise' the local aboriginal people on their 640-acre grant of land.[1]

Difficulties were experienced in attracting Wemba-Wemba people to the mission - no converts were ever made - and there were also issues with a dispute over a fence and the area given to the missionaries, hostility from local landholders, problems with local authorities, and with gold diggers traversing the property. The mission closed on 1 July, 1856. Täger and Spieseke left the site and Australia returning to London, without permission from headquarters, and thus in disgrace.[2]

Spieseke and another missionary, Friedrich Hagenauer, were subsequently sent by the Moravian Church and established Ebenezer Mission at Lake Hindmarsh in 1859.

  1. ^ Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development, Case Study 6 - Lake Boga Social and Cultural Heritage Landscape Archived 28 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine, 10 September 2010, Accessed 24 September, 2011
  2. ^ Felicity Jensz, pp 71-105, German Moravian missionaries in the British colony of Victoria, Australia, 1848-1908 in particular Chapter 3 Lake Boga, A Putrid Stain, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP, 2010 via Google Books, ISBN 978-90-04-17921-9