Cape Bedford Mission

[2] Founded by Lutheran staff from the Cooper Creek area of South Australia (who also established the Elim Aboriginal mission in Queensland), it became a stable community with the assignment of two young Neuendettelsau missionaries, George Schwarz[3] and Wilhelm Poland).

The community was evacuated during World War II because its German missionaries were reclassified as "enemy aliens" and imprisoned for the duration.

Guugu Yimithirr (also known as Koko Yindjir, Gugu Yimidhirr, Guguyimidjir) is an Australian Aboriginal language of Hope Vale and the Cooktown area.

[4] The Cape Bedford mission was seen as a stepping stone into New Guinea, which Germany had acquired in 1884; Papua was British.

The Polands ran a school at Elim, while Schwarz settled with the young men on a new outstation at Hopevale for agricultural and pastoral work.

In 1890, the Queensland government offered a £200 annual subsidy to the mission on condition that lessons be taught in English.

[citation needed] In 1900, the Elim community was relocated to Hopevale with the arrival of government teacher Mary Allen.

Although Schwarz was naturalised in 1905, married to an Australian woman and his children were Australian-born and spoke only English, one of the mission's neighbours called him an "officially-pampered Hun" and accused the government of "subsidizing an institution conducted by an enemy subject to teach the Aboriginals German sentiment and German language.

[citation needed] The outbreak of World War II brought fears about the loyalties of Aboriginal people educated by Germans and in close contact with the Japanese in the marine industries.