Anna Morgan was born on Ebenezer station, in north-western Victoria. By the age of 11, she was working in domestic service around the Wimmera region. In her twenties she moved near Cumeroogunga Aboriginal reserve in New South Wales where she met and married Caleb Morgan in 1899.
Caleb owned 12 hectares of land in the Cumeroogunga area but in 1907 the Aborigines Protection Board in New South Wales rescinded the land ownership agreement so that all profits would go to the board. Caleb protested this new arangement and was expelled from Cumeroogunga. Anna and her family moved to Wagga Wagga, where her husband found work as a farm labourer.
By 1927, the Morgan family travelled through Victoria, staying in Swan Hill, and then moving on to Coldstream. During the Depression in 1930, they applied for assistance from the Board of Protection of Aborigines but were rejected on the basis of their 'half-caste' classification. Then the Morgans tried for assistance from the Sustenance Department but were denied help. Anna resorted to applying for the Commonwealth pension but was refused because she was classified as an 'Aborigine'.
Drawing from her experiences with the Australian Government, she began to actively campaign for equal rights for Indigenous Australians. She wrote Under the Black Flag, published in Labour Call (1934), to highlight the difficulties she was put through. She joined the Australian Aborigines' League and in 1935 visited the Minister of Interior as part of a delegation that asked for education for Aboriginal Women.
While in Coldstream, Anna died from an acute renal infection, and her body was laid to rest in Melbourne.
See also
Australian Dictionary of Biography entry.
