Lake Boga Mission station was established on the south-eastern shores of

Lake Boga Lake Boga () is a town in Victoria, Australia, located next to the lake of the same name. It is situated within the Rural City of Swan Hill within the Mallee region of north-west Victoria. At the 2016 census, Lake Boga had a population of 985 ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in 1851 by the

Moravian Church The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...

on the land of the

Wemba-Wemba The Wemba-Wemba are an Aboriginal Australian people in north-Western Victoria and south-western New South Wales, Australia, including in the Mallee and the Riverina regions. They are also known as the Wamba-Wamba. Language Wemba-Wemba bears st ...

. The mission was established by two Moravian missionaries from Germany, Andreas Täger and Friedrich Spieseke. The missionaries hoped to establish gardens, keep livestock and open a school to attract and convert to Christianity and 'civilise' the local aboriginal people on their 640-acre grant of land. Difficulties were experienced in attracting Wemba-Wemba people to the mission - no converts were ever made - and there were also issues with a dispute over a fence and the area given to the missionaries, hostility from local landholders, problems with local authorities, and with gold diggers traversing the property. The mission closed on 1 July, 1856. Täger and Spieseke left the site and Australia returning to London, without permission from headquarters, and thus in disgrace.Felicity Jensz, pp 71-105, ''German Moravian missionaries in the British colony of Victoria, Australia, 1848-1908'' in particular Chapter 3 ''Lake Boga, A Putrid Stain'', IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP, 2010 vi
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Spieseke and another missionary,

Friedrich Hagenauer Friedrich Hagenauer (1829–1909) was a Presbyterian minister and missionary in Australia who established Ebenezer Mission and Ramahyuck mission.Robert Kenny, pg 134-145, ''The Lamb Enters the Dreaming - Nathaniel Pepper and the Ruptured World'', ...

, were subsequently sent by the Moravian Church and established

Ebenezer Mission Ebenezer Mission, also known as Wimmera mission, Hindmarsh mission and Dimboola mission, was a mission station for Aboriginal people established near Lake Hindmarsh in Victoria, Australia (near Jeparit) in 1859 by the Moravian Church on the lan ...

at Lake Hindmarsh in 1859.

References

Aboriginal communities in Victoria (Australia) Australian Aboriginal missions 1851 establishments in Australia {{australia-org-stub