Fantome Island is one of the

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

s in the Palm Island group. It is neighboured by

Great Palm Island Great Palm Island, usually known as Palm Island, is the largest island in the Palm Islands group off Northern Queensland, Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal community, the legacy of an Aboriginal reserve, the Palm Island Aboriginal Sett ...

and is north-east of

Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

on the east coast of Australia. The island is small with an area of and is surrounded by a

fringing reef A fringing reef is one of the three main types of coral reef. It is distinguished from the other main types, barrier reefs and atolls, in that it has either an entirely shallow backreef zone (lagoon) or none at all. If a fringing reef grows direc ...

. The Djabugay ( Aboriginal) name for this island is Eumilli Island. The island is known for its 1928 lock hospital (for those with

venereal disease Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are Transmission (medicine), spread by Human sexual activity, sexual activity, especi ...

) and 1939

leprosarium A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. ''M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East Afr ...

, known as the lazaret. Both are now heritage-listed on the

Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. A ...

, as Fantome Island Lock Hospital and Lazaret Sites. The island is no longer inhabited. Along with nine of the other islands within the Palm Islands group, it falls under the local government area of the

Aboriginal Shire of Palm Island The Aboriginal Shire of Palm Island is a special local government area of Queensland, Australia, managed by the Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council under a Deed of Grant in Trust granted to the community on 27 October 1986. The local council wa ...

History

Fantome was gazetted as an

Aboriginal reserve An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th c ...

in 1925. The Fantome Island Lock Hospital for the treatment of

Aboriginal people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

with

s was established on Fantome Island in 1928. The

Franciscan Missionaries of Mary , image = Mariadelapasion2.jpg , size = 175px , caption = Blessed Mary of the Passion foundress of the congregation , abbreviation = F.M.M , motto = , formation = , founder = Hélène de Chappotin(Sister ...

took over the running of the hospital in 1939. This institution closed in 1945. In 1940 a leprosarium was established on the island; upon its closure in 1973,Matt Robbins, "Island for wayward juveniles", ''The Australian'', published 4 January 2000 p4 it was purged by fire. The island is the site of 200 graves. In 1926 a lock hospital was built on Fantome Island; Aboriginal people were sent there mainly for treatment of

sexually transmitted diseases Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral ...

. In 1936 Fantome Island became a medical clearing station where people sent to Palm Island were examined and treated if necessary. A leprosarium was established on Fantome in 1939. After World War II the hospital was closed, and by 1965 only the leprosarium remained on Fantome Island; it was administered by a Roman Catholic nursing order until 1973, when the inhabitants were moved to Palm Island. The administrators had complete and unaccountable control over the lives of residents. Punishments included the shaving of the girls' heads.Wilson, Paul (1985) pages 49–50 In 1907, a

to house all Queensland patients with leprosy was established on

Peel Island Peel Island (Indigenous, Janday: ''Teerk Roo Ra'', also and more phonetically spelled 'Jercuruba' or 'Jercroobai' ) is a small heritage-listed island located in Moreton Bay, east of Brisbane, in South East Queensland, Australia. The island i ...

Moreton Bay Moreton Bay is a bay located on the eastern coast of Australia from central Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources. The waters of Moreton Bay are a popular destination for recreational anglers and are ...

near

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

. In 1940, the

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

patients were transferred from Peel Island to Fantome Island, under police escort and in conditions of great secrecy. The numbers of people admitted to Peel Island fluctuated during the mid-1920s and rose to 47 new cases in 1928. Although no new cases were reported in 1929 the reason might have been the secrecy with which this whole issue was managed by the Queensland Health authorities and the inability of the health regime to locate and track down the source of infection. This was not a simple problem and it persisted well into the next decade. The head of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine, Dr Raphael Cilento endeavoured to describe the problem in one of his reports. He wrote that when Kuranda ( Mona Mona) reserve started in 1914, the majority of the Aboriginal people brought there belonged to the Djabugay language group, a closely knit group. There were a few others from as far north as the Gulf region and some from Mossman, and a large number had been born in fringe-camps and had grown up close to white settlement knowing no other life. The first case of leprosy reported among Aboriginal people in the region "was an old woman, Nellie, who died in 1916". She was avoided by other locals. She had no known descendants at the settlement. In 1932, Cilento described his vision for Fantome: In June 1975, the two existing reserves became a single reserve for official purposes, under the control of the Aboriginal and Island Affairs Department. In 1986 this was rescinded, and Fantome Island was transferred to the Palm Island Community Council by a

Deed of Grant in Trust A Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) is the name for a system of community-level land trust established in Queensland to administer former Aboriginal reserves and missions. They came about through the enactment by the Queensland Government of the '' ...

(DOGIT).

Heritage listing

The sites of both institutions were listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 8 June 2012.

Geography

The island, one of the Palm Islands group, is about north-east of Townsville, off the Queensland coast. Its area is about and it is surrounded by a

Governance and people

The island is under the administration of the Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council. Along with nine of the other islands within the Palm Islands group, it falls under the local government area of the

. It is uninhabited, but people from (Great) Palm Island make regular visits to Fantome to fish and perhaps camp occasionally. The Djagubay (an Aboriginal language) name for this island is Eumilli Island. The Manbarra language (also known as Wulgurukaba), of the Manbarra people, is a language of the region.

Documentary film

A feature-length

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

, ''Fantome Island'', was released in 2011, made by Sean Gilligan and co-produced by Adrian Strong. It follows the story of former patient Joe Eggmolesse, a Kanaka (Pacific Islander) man who had spent 10 years there as a child and who returns to the island for a special Remembrance Day as a 73-year-old. The historical background of racist policies practised by the Queensland government and certain individuals is narrated and shown. The film was shown in the 2011 Brisbane Film Festival and went on to win two awards, the 2012 John Oxley Memory Award by the State Library of Queensland, and Best Australian Documentary at the 2012 Human Rights Arts & Film Festival. The film has also been shown on

NITV National Indigenous Television (NITV) is an Australian free-to-air television channel that broadcasts programming produced and presented largely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It includes the half-hourly nightly ''NITV News'' ...

and

SBS on Demand SBS is a national public television network in Australia. Launched on 24 October 1980, it is the responsibility of SBS's television division, and is available nationally. In 2018, SBS had a 7.7% audience share. As of 2022, SBS is the lowest ...

Graves at risk

The 120 marked graves are as of 2020 endangered by tidal erosion, with the risk heightened by a combination of factors: their location, the

soil structure Soil structure describes the arrangement or the way of soil in the solid parts of the soil and of the pore space located between them. It is determined by how individual soil granules clump, bind together, and aggregate, resulting in the arrangem ...

, vegetation encroachment, and

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

References

{{Great Palm Island group Great Palm Island group Leper colonies Uninhabited islands of Australia Medical and health organisations based in Australia Aboriginal Shire of Palm Island