An earlier mission was established at Moongalba by Passionist priests under Archbishop Polding in 1843, but their attempts failed and they left the island not long afterwards.
By 1905, there were about 48 permanent residents at Moongalba, including five South Pacific Islander men married to local women.
The residents were used as cheap or free labour at the Benevolent Institution, whose Medical ran the mission from 1906 to 1917, as well as the fish cannery, abattoir and the Moreton Bay Oyster Company.
This was the mistreatment and the subsequent death of a beating of a forcibly removed Indigenous child, Cassey, by the Danish matron of the institution, Marie Christensen, on 14 September 1896.
This was partly because in the doctor's opinion, the blows struck by Christensen could not alone have been responsible for Cassey's death; the child was very sick and emaciated.