AustLit

Anne McDonalds' family and country were in South Australia. She was forced to leave them at the age of ten by her white pastoralist father, who sent her to do domestic service work. She became pregnant to her employer while working in Echuca. Anne was made to leave. With no place to go she went to the Lake Condah Mission Station run by Reverend J. Heinrich Stahle.

After Anne gave birth to a boy, Stahle received permission from the Aborigines Protection Board's Order in Council to detain her at Lake Condah because he believed she would become a victim to sexual predators. In 1881 Stalhe and the baby's father Alexander Jeffery (who also went by the alias Andrew Jackson) struggled for control of Anne. Jeffery and Anne began corresponding with each other which Stahle did not approve of . Stahle claimed Anne was illiterate and needed protection whereas Jeffery was trying to get Anne out of Lake Condah Mission and he made her write letters to the Order in Council to prove she wasn't illiterate .

The Order in Council denied Anne her independence despite her written letters.