When did Australia kidnap Aboriginal children?
12598742#28
During this time, many Aboriginal people were victims of slavery by colonists alongside Pacific Islander peoples who were kidnapped from their homes. Between 1860 and 1970, under the guise of protectionist policies, people, including children as young as 12, were forced to work on properties where they worked under horrific conditions and most did not receive any wages. In the pearling industry, Aboriginal peoples were bought for about 5 pounds, with pregnant Aboriginal women "prized because their lungs were believed to have greater air capacity" Aboriginal prisoners in the Aboriginal-only prison on Rottnest Island, many of whom were there on trumped up charges, were chained up and forced to work. In 1971, 373 Aboriginal men were found buried in unmarked graves on the island. Up until June 2018, the former prison was being used as holiday accommodation. There has always been Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resistance, from the arrival of colonists through to now. In 1938, over 100 Aboriginal peoples protested one of the first Australia Day celebrations by gathering for an "Aborigines Conference" in Sydney and marking the day as the "Day of Protest and Mourning". In 1963 the Yolngu people of Yirrkala in Arnhem Land sent two bark petitions to the Australian government to protest the granting of mining rights on their lands. The Yirrkala Bark petitions were traditional Aboriginal documents to be recognised under Commonwealth law. On Australia day in 1972, 34 years after the first "Day of Protest and Mourning", Indigenous activists set up the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the lawn of Old Parliament House to protest the state of Aboriginal Australian land rights. The Tent Embassy was given heritage status in 1995, and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2012, making it the longest, unanswered protest camp in the world.
Indigenous Australians
28412#1
Official government estimates are that in certain regions between one in ten and one in three indigenous Australian children were forcibly taken from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970.
Stolen Generations
240307#19
By 1816, kidnapping of Aboriginal children for labour had become widespread. In 1814, Governor Thomas Davey issued a proclamation expressing "utter indignation and abhorrence" in regards to the kidnapping of the children and in 1819 Governor William Sorell not only re-issued the proclamation but ordered that those who had been taken without parental consent were to be sent to Hobart and supported at government expense.
A number of young Aboriginal children were known to be living with settlers. An Irish sealer named Brien spared the life of the baby son of a native woman he had abducted, explaining, "as (he) had stolen the dam he would keep the cub." When the child grew up he became an invaluable assistant to Brien but was considered "no good" by his own people as he was brought up to dislike Aboriginal people, whom he considered "dirty lazy brutes." Twenty-six were definitely known (through baptismal records) to have been taken into settlers' homes as infants or very small children, too young to be of service as labourers. Some Aboriginal children were sent to the Orphan School in Hobart.. Lyndall Ryan reports fifty-eight Aboriginal people, of various ages, living with settlers in Tasmania in the period up to 1835.
Aboriginal Tasmanians
356785#102
In 1911, the Chief Protector of Aborigines in South Australia, William Garnet South, reportedly "lobbied for the power to remove Aboriginal children without a court hearing because the courts sometimes refused to accept that the children were neglected or destitute". South argued that "all children of mixed descent should be treated as neglected". His lobbying reportedly played a part in the enactment of the Aborigines Act 1911; this made him the legal guardian of every Aboriginal child in South Australia, including so-called "half-castes". "Bringing Them Home", a report on the status of the mixed race stated "... the physical infrastructure of missions, government institutions and children's homes was often very poor and resources were insufficient to improve them or to keep the children adequately clothed, fed and sheltered."
In reality, during this period removal of the half-castes was related to the fact that most were offspring of domestics working on pastoral farms, whom by removing them allowed the mothers to continue working as help on the farm and removing the white landowners from responsibility for fathering them; and from social stigma for having such mixed race children visible in the home. Also when they were left alone on the farm they became targets of the men who contributed to the rise in the population of half-caste children. The institutional racism was government policy gone awry, one that allowed babies to be ripped from their mothers at birth, and this continued for most of the 20th century. That it was policy and kept secret for over 60 years is a mystery that no agency has solved to date.
In the 1930s, the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, Cecil Cook, perceived the continuing rise in numbers of "half-caste" children as a problem. His proposed solution was:
"Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white." He did suggest at one point that they be all sterilized.
Similarly, the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia, A. O. Neville, wrote in an article for "The West Australian" in 1930: "Eliminate in future the full-blood and the white and one common blend will remain. Eliminate the full blood and permit the white admixture and eventually, the race will become white."
Institutional racism
4689264#10
The indigenous population, estimated to have been between 750,000 and 1,000,000 in 1788, declined for 150 years following settlement, mainly due to infectious disease. Thousands more died as a result of frontier conflict with settlers. A government policy of "assimilation" beginning with the "Aboriginal Protection Act 1869" resulted in the removal of many Aboriginal children from their families and communities—often referred to as the Stolen Generations—a practice which may also have contributed to the decline in the indigenous population. As a result of the 1967 referendum, the Federal government's power to enact special laws with respect to a particular race was extended to enable the making of laws with respect to Aborigines. Traditional ownership of land ("native title") was not recognised in law until 1992, when the High Court of Australia held in "Mabo v Queensland (No 2)" that the legal doctrine that Australia had been "terra nullius" ("land belonging to no one") did not apply to Australia at the time of British settlement.
Australia
57113670#2
The indigenous population, estimated to have been between 750,000 and 1,000,000 in 1788, declined for 150 years following settlement, mainly due to infectious disease. Thousands more died as a result of frontier conflict with settlers. A government policy of "assimilation" beginning with the "Aboriginal Protection Act 1869" resulted in the removal of many Aboriginal children from their families and communities—often referred to as the Stolen Generations—a practice which may also have contributed to the decline in the indigenous population. As a result of the 1967 referendum, the Federal government's power to enact special laws with respect to a particular race was extended to enable the making of laws with respect to Aborigines. Traditional ownership of land ("native title") was not recognised in law until 1992, when the High Court of Australia held in "Mabo v Queensland (No 2)" that the legal doctrine that Australia had been "terra nullius" ("land belonging to no one") did not apply to Australia at the time of British settlement.
European exploration of Australia
39582#221
In 1992, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, holding that the legal doctrine of "terra nullius" did not apply when Australia was settled, and therefore Indigenous native title survived reception of English law. That same year, Prime Minister Paul Keating said in his Redfern Park Speech that European settlers were responsible for the difficulties Australian Aboriginal communities continued to face: 'We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice'. In 1999 Parliament passed a Motion of Reconciliation drafted by Prime Minister John Howard and Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway naming mistreatment of Indigenous Australians as the most "blemished chapter in our national history". In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a public apology to members of the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian Government.
History of Australia
21664040#21
The earliest introduction of child removal to legislation is recorded in the Victorian "Aboriginal Protection Act 1869". The Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines had been advocating such powers since 1860, and the passage of the Act gave the colony of Victoria a wide suite of powers over Aboriginal and 'half-caste' persons, including the forcible removal of children, especially 'at risk' girls. By 1950, similar policies and legislation had been adopted by other states and territories. According to the "Bringing Them Home" inquiry into the forced separation of indigenous children from their families, less than 17% of the children were adopted. The majority of these adoptions occurred after 1950 when authorities began promoting the fostering and adoption of Aboriginal children by white parents.
Adoption in Australia
1698688#7
On 6 August 1965, Charles Perkins staged a fake "kidnapping" of 5 year old Nancy Prasad from under the nose of immigration officials at the Sydney airport for the purpose of highlighting the injustice her deportation under Australia’s "White Australia" immigration policy. His antic had effect. The newspapers headlined the "kidnapping". Even so, 5 year old Nancy Prasad was taken to the airport again, and deported to Fiji on 7 August 1965.
Charles Perkins (Aboriginal activist)
28412#11
In 1909, the Protector of Aborigines in South Australia, William Garnet South, reportedly "lobbied for the power to remove Aboriginal children without a court hearing because the courts sometimes refused to accept that the children were neglected or destitute." South argued that "all children of mixed descent should be treated as neglected." His lobbying reportedly played a part in the enactment of the "Aborigines Act 1911." This designated his position as the legal guardian of every Aboriginal child in South Australia, not only the so-called "half-castes".
Stolen Generations
5804970#47
During much of the twentieth century, Australian governments had removed many aboriginal children from their families. This practice did great damage to the Aboriginal people, culturally and emotionally, giving rise to the term stolen generation to describe these families. Since the publication in 1997 of a federal government report, "Bringing Them Home" all state governments have followed the recommendation of the report in issuing formal apologies for their past practices to the Aboriginal people, as have many local governments. The Howard government refused to make such an apology on behalf of the federal government, despite pleas from the Aboriginal people and from many sections of the wider community, saying that it implied intergenerational guilt on modern non-indigenous Australia. However, the new government under Kevin Rudd led a formal bi-partisan apology on 13 February 2008.
History of Australia since 1945