Indian Removal Of Australian Aborigines In The 1960's

Stolen Generations

30,000 years ago Australian Aborigines migrated from Asia (Ricco Villanueva Siasoco). They brought beliefs, rituals, and culture with them. During the 1950s to the 1960s, the Indigenous people were forcibly removed by the government and missionaries when Europeans started to occupied Australia. Children were ripped away from their parents and were adopted or sent to institutions. The adults were sent to live in white communities which exposed they to new diseases and made them face unemployment. Depopulation and almost extinction was the result (Ricco Villanueva Siasoco). Finally, around the 1970s the Aborigines began fighting for equal rights and release a book, Bringing Them Home, which has detailed stories
In America on May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. This moved Indian tribes west of the Mississippi, many tribes resisted and was set on a march called the “Trail of Tears” because almost 4,000 Cherokees died (Primary Documents in American History). In this case, families were torn apart due to the protection policies that were being enforced. The public believed that the Aboriginal children were not thriving in their communities, needed better education, and would be better off living with white families. The reality was the government was removing them to expose Aboriginal values and work habits (The History of the Stolen Generations). They didn’t want to continue generations and have them pass down their culture and language. Most children were taken away from interracial couples with one white parent and the other Aboriginal. Instead of having a better life, they often received no education and were made into farm labourers and servants until they could go get a real
I was scared to tell anyone ‘cause i once attempted to tell the local Priest at the Catholic church and he told me to say ten Hail Mary’s for telling lies. So i thought this was how ‘normal’ non-aboriginal families were.”(Bringing Them Home Report). Nobody had respect for these new foster children. Most of the children experienced social isolation, bad living conditions, physical, mental, and sexual abuse (The History of the Stolen Generations). In the presence of their white families, they could not speak their language or talk about their culture. All rituals and traditions were ban and they were not aloud to visit their real families. This process affected them even in their adulthood. People of Aboriginal descent were more likely to be noticed by the police, suffer low self-esteem, develop depression and mental illness, unable to have links with their land, and could not establish their right to their native title (The History of the Stolen Generations). Finally, in 1995 a call to action was made. Human rights and equal commission associations started to campaign against the federal, state, and territory government and many churches. There was a lot of recommendations to help heal the Stolen Generations like for the government to publicly and formally apologize, for the history of this event to be taught in schools, and for an annual Sorry Day to be held for remembrance (The