The settlement housed a reformatory school and training farm, a home training centre for girls, a hospital, dormitories in which the women and children lived, and churches of various denominations. Training was provided in a variety of agricultural, industrial and domestic fields. People were hired out as cheap labour and at one stage they were not allowed to leave the reserve without a permit.

Today Cherbourg is Queensland's third largest Aboriginal community. It has developed its own strong culture and is now Aboriginal-controlled.

The effects of removal and forced assimilation of disparate tribal groups

The Queensland Government of the early 20th century considered any free-roaming aboriginal man or woman as lazy, idle or immoral. It pursued a policy of forced removal and segregation. Aboriginals from all over QLD and Northern NSW were gathered up and sent to Barambah, without regard for family, kinship or language groups. This amalgamation of tribal groups created disharmony and to this day, some problems still exist.

Klaus–Peter Koepping in his manuscript How to remain human in an asylum – some field-notes from Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement in QLD relates the recollections of a woman living in Cherbourg in the 1920?s: “constant fighting with spears and boomerangs etc. occurred during that time”. Koepping also notes that the settlement police force and much of the white administration were despised and considered corrupt by the aboriginal inhabitants.

Many of the carved artifacts from Cherbourg depict the disharmony of the tribal groups and their interactions with the despised white authority figures.