Preview

History

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
654 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
History
Stolen Generation- Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
Throughout the early 1900s, the Australian public was led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged and at risk in their own communities, and that they would receive a better education, a more loving family, and a more civilised upbringing in adopted white families or in government institutions. The lack of understanding and respect for Aboriginal people also meant that many people who supported the child removals believed that they were doing the ‘right thing’. Some people believed that Aboriginal people lived poor and unrewarding lives, and that institutions would provide a positive environment in which Aboriginal people could better themselves. The dominant racist views in the society and government also means that people believed that Aboriginal people were bad parents and that Aboriginal woman did not look after their children.

The reality was that Aboriginal children were being removed in order to stop their parents, families and communities from passing on their culture, language and identity to them. The children who were targeted for removal by the authorities of the time, in almost all cases, had one parent that was 'white' and one that was Aboriginal. The aim behind the removal of these children was often racial assimilation.
The Aboriginal Protection Boards at the time believed that by separating these mixed race children from their families, community, land and culture, assimilation into white Australian society would be more effective, with the mixed descent Aboriginal population in time merging with the non Indigenous population.
The children removed and then placed in institutions or with new foster families often received a lower standard of education, and sometimes no education at all, when compared with the standard of education available to white Australian children.
In Western Australia, for example, once removed, children were often placed in dormitories, trained as

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Despite being the “traditional custodians of the land”, Aboriginal people greatly suffered from lack of human rights, especially between 1901 and the 1960’s. In 1962, NSW was the only state in Australia that gave Aboriginals the right to have control over their children. This meant that government organisations were given the authority to take children away from Aboriginal families. The Aboriginal Protection Board is an example of a government organisation that used this authority to breed out Aboriginals in Australia. The Protection Board would infiltrate Aboriginal communities and take away half-caste children because they could be taught the “white ways.”…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1788, nearly 1000 Europeans arrived to Australia. From this year, conflicts between Aboriginals and Europeans continued until 1860. Before colonization, indigenous people were struck down by diseases introduced by Europeans. Indigenous people had no immunity to new diseases, so the common cold, sexually transmitted disease and smallpox resulted in a rapid decline of their population. In 1856, the British government authorized the appointment of a “Protector of Aborigines” to settle problems such as people’s illness, language and occupation. In 1860, the Victorian government established the Aborigines Protection Board. In 1910, Australia government forcibly took more than 100 000 Aboriginal children from their families and placed in church or state based institutions. (Jupp,J 2001, p.9).…

    • 1625 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The mistreatment of indigenous people started when the European’s took over Australia, and escalated over time. They were considered to be second class citizens. By the time of federation, in 1901, aboriginal people were not included in the constitution or the census and were excluded from society which was known as protectionism. The white Australians believed that they were helping the Aborigines by using the protection policies. But in reality these policies isolated them from their families, traditional land and removed them from their natural heritage and culture. The Aborigines were taught to live like the white Australians so the could assimilate into the white society and were often trained to be slaves for White People. Charles Perkins was an aborigine who like many was taken from his family and land. He was however treated well compared to what most Indigenous…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    The notion that people are a product of their environment has significant implications for the ways in which such people view, understand and learn about the world. With regards to students, their upbringing (including both family and schooling environments) is one of the most influential and plays a crucial role in constructing student’s subjectivities. In this way sustaining the dominant power relationships that exist in society and perpetuating dominant social discourses (Robinson & Jones Diaz, 2006, p.89). The resulting experiential knowledge acquired from parents and teachers through such an upbringing has major implications for the ways in which students filter information that ‘encompasses a variety of social, cultural, economic and symbolic meanings that shift across socio-economic class, ethnicity, gender, ‘race’, age and sexuality’ (Robinson & Jones Diaz, 2006, p.82). Thus, the filtering of such meanings suggests that racially discriminatory views of Indigenous Australians are often the product of an individual’s upbringing. Recent events such as: the development of the Aboriginal Education Policy (AEP) in 1996, Cherbourg State School appointment of Chris Sarra as principal (1998), the Redfern Riots (February, 2004), the Mulan Community Shared Responsibility Agreement (March, 2005), the Noel Pearson Hope Vale community welfare agreement, and the Northern Territory Intervention (2007); has increased the focus on disadvantage in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. This increased…

    • 2612 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Jean Lafrance and Don Collins’ article titled, “Residential Schools and Aboriginal Parenting: Voices of Parents”, elaborates pellucidly “the effect that residential schools had on [aboriginal parents’] parenting”. It seems, according to the article, predominant that ‘[aboriginal children] were treated very badly right from the beginning.’ Lafrance and Collins suggest that the establishment of residential schools has deprived of aboriginal children’s own culture. In residential schools, aboriginal children cannot get any care from their parents. Essentially, they lose attachment - the most essential emotional tie - between their parents and them: they are not able to find anyone comfortable, familiar, or responsive. Specifically, Lafrance and…

    • 273 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the early 20th century it was believed that Aboriginals we unable to care for themselves or make effective decisions as they were considered uncivilised by the Australian public. The protection policy was implemented; therefore the government would control every aspect of an Aboriginal’s life. The Aborigines Protection Act was passed in 1909 to control and restrict the movement of Aborigines across reserves, the money distribution and removing children from their families to ‘educate’ them. The removal of Aboriginal children from their families was known as The Stolen Generation. It was a system used to strip the Aboriginal culture from a child from a young age to bring them up into a civilised, white culture. The Stolen Generation continued through from 1869 to 1969 and in some places, even through till the 70’s. This destroyed many Aboriginal families, some children never saw their parents again and they were taken to reserves or white foster families which only a handful of children received a kind upbringing. This was considered the cruelest act towards Indigenous Australians which time still hasn’t entirely healed.…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Aboriginies Timeline

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages

    1934: Under the Aboriginal Act, Aboriginal people could always apply to a ‘cease to be Aboriginal’, meaning after doing so they would have equivalent rights with whites. Policy of removing children from their families to aid assimilation which was brought about in 1937 became known as “The Stolen Generation”. Aboriginals were forced to give up on their values and cultures.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    White Australia Policy

    • 955 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As Australia entered the new century after federation, deep concerns and fears of other races which had been bubbling beneath the surface since colonization began to emerge in the policies of the new government. Two of the most controversial were ‘The White Australia Policy’ and the ‘Aboriginal Protection Act’. These two policies, widely supported by all white Australians, came from the deep-rooted sense of superiority that whites held over blacks, known as Social Darwinism as well as ignorance and lack of empathy.…

    • 955 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sean Countryman Narrative

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Coming of age during an experience like losing something important in college can be a terrifying thing but for Sean Countryman, losing his innocence is what drove him to be the person he is today. Sean Countryman is a Senior Design Engineer for aerospace engineering at Honeywell, one of the top aerospace engineering companies in the world. He is a father of five children and lives a peaceful life in Mesa, Arizona.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The aim of this was to make the aboriginal race disappear, so that Aboriginal people would lose their identity and community, and there would only be one race, the white people race. Then “stolen generation” happened, this seriously impacted indigenous…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the 1920s the Aboriginals faced much prejudice in Canadian society and it was at this time that their unique way of living was most suppressed. In 1876, the Indian Act had encouraged the gradual disappearance of Indians as Indians and promoted their assimilation into Canadian society. This act had made all Indians "wards of the state" and left them with little control of their own affairs. The 1920s was the time that this act was really applied. The Indian Act had been created earlier, but the Canadian government never seriously implemented it to get rid of the Aboriginal culture once and for all until the 1920s. The government funded Residential schools and they were an extremely effective way to make the Aboriginal children forget their traditions. At first, attendance at these schools was voluntary but in 1920 all aboriginal children between the ages of 7 and 15 were now required to go to residential schools. The children were taken from their homes and at the schools were not allowed to speak their own languages or practice any cultural or spiritual rituals. This was extremely effective as these schools made aboriginal children forget their culture and when they grew up they could not pass it on to their own children, as they themselves knew nothing other than the "great Canadian way of life." In addition, all Aboriginals were sent to reserves in which they lived in poverty and despair. They lost their traditional lifestyles and were given poor land on which to farm. When the Aboriginals…

    • 1154 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sitting in the lecture theatre and taking in all the information that was put forward, really opened my mind up to a lot of the horrific issues surrounding the Indigenous people of Australia. When first being exposed to the Stolen Generation, I didn’t know how to feel toward innocent children being taken away from their homes. This was done by social workers and police officers that would invade the homes of the Indigenous people for the removal of their children (Gerrett 2013). It was concluded in 1989 the national Indigenous survey on health found almost half (47%) of Aboriginal children had been forcibly removed from both their parents (Gerrett 2013). This left me in distress, that something like this could happen to innocent children and their families. When saying this, I’m not implying that there are no children in the Indigenous community that weren’t mistreated, but this too happens in other racial communities. It is seen that incidence of sexual abuse of minors is far more worrying in other communities other than the…

    • 1438 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Residential Schools

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages

    When European missionaries began to live amongst aboriginal people, they concluded that the sooner they could separate children from their parents, the sooner they could prepare aboriginal people to live a civilized (i.e. European) lifestyle. Residential schools were established for two reasons: separation of the children from the family and the belief that aboriginal culture was not worth preserving. Most people concluded that aboriginal culture was useless and dying and all human beings would eventually develop and change to be like the 'advanced' European civilization.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Beginning in 1910 and ending in the 1970s, Australians Federal and State government agencies and church missions made a policy to forcibly take many aboriginal and Torres Strait children away from their families in an attempt to destroy the Aboriginal race and culture. There was an impact on the aboriginals with a particular policy the Australian Government had introduced, which was the policy of ‘Assimilation’. This policy was to encourage many Aboriginal people to give up their culture, language, tradition, knowledge and spirituality to basically become white Australians. Unfortunately this policy didn’t give the Aboriginals the same rights as white Australians, as a result of discrimination, aboriginals were moved to live in special housing…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Residential Schools

    • 2516 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Of the many tragedies that took place within these institutions the first being the assimilation of a culture. Many people were taught to be ashamed of their own cultures and belief system in order to promote the new one that was given to them. “It was the destruction of the Indians was the goal, and not the improvement.”[1] From the beginning of time the aboriginal people enjoyed a simple way of life and this transcended into the way the children were educated. “Traditional education of aboriginal children was mainly informal, experiential process. Nevertheless, it provided young people with specific skills, attitudes and knowledge that they needed in everyday life.”[2] Learning is for living and survival, so…

    • 2516 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays