Hull River Aboriginal Settlement, sometimes incorrectly referred to as Hull River Aboriginal Mission, was an Aboriginal reserve established in 1914, located at the present location of Mission Beach in the Hull River National Park, Queensland, Australia. Built on the land of the Djiru people, Aboriginal people from surrounding areas were brought there for their "protection" as well as disciplinary reasons, creating a population of up to 400 residents. The settlement was destroyed by a huge cyclone in 1918, and surviving residents were transferred to the new settlement at Great Palm Island. Background The Dyirbal-speaking Djiru Aboriginal people who inhabited this island coast were linguistically, culturally and socially related to the Dyirbal, Girramay and Gulngay groups of the Tully River and Murray River districts. Hunters, fishers and gatherers of the rainforests and coast, they utilised the rich plant and animal resources to provide their needs. They excelled in making and using canoes and rafts, and were expert fishermen of both fresh and marine waters. Contact with early navigators and coastal surveyors as well as with beche-de-mer fishing boats was established long before the first white people settled the beach areas in 1882. Timber-cutters also camped on the beaches during their expeditions and occasionally utilised Aboriginal labour in return for tobacco or tools. Chinese banana growers along the Tully River were numerous after 1900. They cleared garden plots and grew bananas that they sent to southern markets, loading them from their sampans onto the lighters which took the fruit out to the coastal steamer waiting at the river mouth. The Chinese employed Aboriginal labourers, paying little, sometimes paying them with rum, and this, along with opium, added to the social problems caused by the loss of land and hunting grounds. In 1912 a few white settlers set up home at what became known as South Mission Beach. The settlement The Queensland Government proposed to establish the Hull River Aboriginal Settlement on high ground in a remote spot at the north end of what is now South Mission Beach, under the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897. The Act was the first to give separate legal control over Aboriginal peoples, and was more restrictive than any contemporary legislation operating in other states, implementing the creation of Aboriginal reserves to control the dwelling places and movement of the people and allowing forced removals. The new reserve was intended to