THE early 20th century were tough times for indigenous Australians but for the `half-caste' it was almost unbearable.
A new book titled `Footprints' traces the struggles of a half-caste family from Koo-wee-rup caught between two worlds in 1907.
Published jointly by the National Archives of Australia (NAA) and Public Record Office Victoria (PROV), Footprints chronicles the lives of Lucy and Percy Pepper who battled their way through government policies and the impact of being defined as a half-caste family.
According to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission website, half-caste was a race-based term that classified people of mixed indigenous and European descent.
Half-castes were defined as indigenous people who had only one Indigenous parent.
The policies governing the half-caste act were very strict in the Peppers' world and they felt the full brunt of it.
Lucy, who was a half-caste Aborigine, married Percy, a full blooded Aborigine but as soon as they were wed the entire family became half-castes regardless.
Co-author Simon Flagg, a descendant of the Wemba Wemba people from the Swan Hill region, discovered as soon as the Peppers were labelled as half-castes, their lives took a bleak turn.
``The records I found demonstrated how torn apart families like Lucy's were,'' Mr Flagg said.
``As a half-caste you no longer have the same rights as the Aboriginal people and the welfare board saw you as white, so that meant you shouldn't have any problem making your way in life.
``But the rest of `normal' society saw you as black, so people like Lucy were stuck between two worlds.''
Mr Flagg discovered that Lucy and her family struggled with the half-caste label which kept her away from her Aboriginal family.
``The simple thing was if Lucy wanted to visit her mum and dad in Lake Tyers who were on an Aboriginal station, she needed to get permission,'' he said.
``And this permission would only give you access to the station for the day, she couldn't stay overnight, but sometimes she defied those orders.
``If she was caught defying those orders she could be refused entry to the station the next time she wanted to visit, she could have been refused assistance and on top of that her station family could have had their rations cut or they could have been expelled from the station all together.''
At times it took about six months before Lucy would even receive an answer to her requests.
For about four years Mr Flagg, with co-author Sebastian Gurciullo, filtered through mountains of information found at NAA and PROV.
There they discovered letters which provided a different insight into Aboriginal history in Victoria.
As well as brief chapter introductions, the book contains transcripts of the letters to, from and about the Pepper Family.
The letters told of Lucy's long battle with tuberculosis and her request to live with other family members on the station.
``She was on her death bed at Lake Tyers and she was allowed to stay there because she was sick,'' Mr Flagg said.
``Percy was there helping her but was told to leave the station or they would all be kicked off.''
Mr Flagg said Lucy decided to leave with them and they had to carry her to the boat because she couldn't walk.
``They were obviously pretty hard times,'' Mr Flagg said.
The Peppers were selected to be the subject of the book because of the amount of information discovered by Mr Flagg.
He said Percy had served in World War I and had received a soldiers settler's block, something unheard of in those times.
Percy even owned a bike store and wrote letters to the Premier of Victoria.
``The best thing about the research was that the actual transcripts did a number of things such as dispelling the myth that the indigenous Australians didn't know how to read or write,'' Mr Flagg said.
``There are actual photographs in the book of Percy's hand written letters and it also dispelled the myths that Aboriginals bludged off the government.''
By filtering through the information, Mr Flagg found that Percy was also a qualified baker.
``He was making a real go of it,'' Mr Flagg added.
He said the book was not his own interpretation of the half-caste people, but provided the ``cold hard facts'' which would enable readers to make up their own minds.
``I hope the book motivates other Aboriginal people to trace their family history by showing them the sorts of records you can find in the national and state archives,'' Mr Flagg said.
Footprints: The Journey of Lucy and Percy Pepper is available for $10 at www.naa.gov.au or www.prov.vic.gov.au
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