"Would you still learn more"
Content warning : sexual assault.
The majority of 19th Century migrants were European and male, so that non-English speaking women in 1890s Melbourne were a minority. Consequently, the Supreme Courts of 1890s Victoria rarely heard their voices.
In October 1891, a Norwegian woman, Lousia Fritz, disembarked at Port Melbourne. Seven weeks later she spoke from the witness stand of the Sale Supreme Court as a witness in the trial of Theodore Ulstein for assault with intent to rape. As Louisa did not speak English, she gave her testimony in Norwegian, through an interpreter. The letter displayed here was an exhibit in the rape trial. It’s the English translation of a letter that Theodore wrote to Louisa, where he asked if she planned "to still learn more" English. Soon after arriving in Melbourne Louisa had agreed to work as Theodore’s ‘servant’ in his remote rural residence while staying Louisa’s sister’s house in Collingwood. Theodore sent Louisa this letter, in which he asked whether she “would still learn English”. Soon after they met in Melbourne, andthe following day the two departed for Theodore’s hut near Longwarry, Gippsland. There, Theodore attempted to sleep with Louisa, but she refused.
Louisa left the hut, made her way back to her sister’s house in Collingwood, Melbourne, and laid charges against Theodore. Weeks later, she testified to the assault in the Sale Supreme Court through an interpreter that when she screamed to resist Theodore’s advances, he’d threatened her with a pistol.
As a witness, Fritz was expected to speak about intimate matters before an audience, the majority of whom would have found her Norwegian speech unintelligible. Legal scholars have described the process of testifying about a sexual assault as “the second rape.” The Magistrate gave Thoeodore a recommendation to mercy and Theodore was charged five pounds. Some weeks after stepping down off the witness stand, Louisa and her mother attempted to commit suicide, which was then illegal. They appeared in court in Collingwood, and were fined.
Louisa’s story raises the question of the non-English speaking women who never made it into the courtroom, who may have wished to lay charges but found the white Anglophone male dominated common law system too intimidating to engage with. Despite recommendations by bodies such as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, migrant and refugee women continue to face linguistic barriers to justice.