Stolen Generations
The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half-caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905 and 1967, although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.
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.
The Bringing Them Home Royal Commission report described the Australian policies of removing Aboriginal children as genocide.
Emergence of the child-removal policy
Numerous 19th and early 20th century contemporaneous documents indicate that the policy of removing mixed-race Aboriginal children from their mothers related to an assumption that the Aboriginal peoples were dying off. Given their catastrophic population decline after white contact, whites assumed that the full-blood tribal Aboriginal population would be unable to sustain itself, and was doomed to extinction. The idea expressed by A. O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines for Western Australia, and others as late as 1930 was that mixed-race children could be trained to work, and over generations would marry into and be culturally assimilated into white society.The Colony of Victoria was the first to pass acts that allowed for the removal of mixed-race persons from Aboriginal reserves. An 1899 regulation expressly granted permission for the removal of Aboriginal children from their families.
Some European Australians considered any proliferation of mixed-descent children to be a threat to the stability of the prevailing culture, or to a perceived racial or cultural "heritage". The Northern Territory Chief Protector of Aborigines, Dr. Cecil Cook, argued that "everything necessary to convert the half-caste into a white citizen".
Northern Territory
In the Northern Territory, the segregation of Indigenous Australians of mixed descent from "full-blood" Indigenous people began with the government removing children of mixed descent from their communities and placing them in church-run missions, and later creating segregated reserves and compounds to hold all Indigenous Australians. This was a response to public concern over the increase in the number of mixed-descent children and sexual exploitation of young Aboriginal women by non-Indigenous men, as well as fears among non-Indigenous people of being outnumbered by a mixed-descent population.Under the Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910, the Chief Protector of Aborigines was appointed the "legal guardian of every Aboriginal and every half-caste child up to the age of 18 years", thus providing the legal basis for enforcing segregation. After the Commonwealth took control of the Territory, under the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918, the Chief Protector was given total control of all Indigenous women regardless of their age, unless married to a man who was "substantially of European origin", and his approval was required for any marriage of an Indigenous woman to a non-Indigenous man.
Policy in practice
The Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 included the earliest legislation to authorise child removal from Aboriginal parents. The Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines had been advocating such powers since 1860. 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. Through the late 19th and early 20th century, similar policies and legislation were adopted by other states and territories, such as the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918, the Aborigines Act 1934, and the 1936 Native Administration Act.As a result of such legislation, states arranged widespread removal of mixed-race children from their Aboriginal mothers. In addition, Aboriginal protectors were appointed in each state who exercised wide-ranging guardianship powers over Aboriginal people up to the age of 16 or 21, often determining where they could live or work. Policemen or other agents of the state were given the power to locate and transfer babies and children of mixed descent from their mothers, families, and communities into institutions for care. In these Australian states and territories, institutions for half-caste children were established in the early decades of the 20th century to care for and to educate the mixed-race children taken from their families, with the goal of assimilation into Anglo-Australian society. Examples of such institutions include Moore River Native Settlement in Western Australia, Doomadgee Aboriginal Mission in Queensland, Ebenezer Mission in Victoria, and Wellington Valley Mission in New South Wales, as well as Catholic missions such as Beagle Bay and Garden Point.
The exact number of children removed is unknown. Estimates of numbers have been widely disputed. The Bringing Them Home report, says that "at least 100,000" children were removed from their parents. This figure was estimated by multiplying the Aboriginal population in 1994, by the report's maximum estimate of "one in three" Aboriginal persons separated from their families. The report stated that "between one in three and one in ten" children were separated from their families. Given differing populations over a long period of time, different policies at different times in different states, and incomplete records, accurate figures are difficult to establish. The academic Robert Manne has stated that the lower-end figure of one in 10 is more likely, estimating that between 20,000 and 25,000 Aboriginal children were removed over six decades, based on a 1994 Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of self-identified Indigenous people. According to the Bringing Them Home report:
The report closely examined the distinctions between "forcible removal", "removal under threat or duress", "official deception", "uninformed voluntary release", and "voluntary release". The evidence indicated that in numerous cases, children were brutally and forcibly removed from their parent or parents, possibly even from the hospital shortly after birth, when identified as mixed-race babies. Aboriginal Protection Officers often made the judgement to remove certain children. In some cases, families were required to sign legal documents to relinquish care to the state. In Western Australia, the Aborigines Act 1905 removed the legal guardianship of Aboriginal parents. It made all their children legal wards of the state, so the government did not require parental permission to relocate the mixed-race children to institutions.
In 1915, in New South Wales, the Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915 gave the Aborigines' Protection Board authority to remove Aboriginal children "without having to establish in court that they were neglected." At the time, some members of Parliament objected to the NSW amendment; one member stated it enabled the Board to "steal the child away from its parents." At least two members argued that the amendment would result in children being subjected to unpaid labour tantamount to "slavery". Writing in the 21st century, Professor Peter Read said that Board members, in recording reasons for removal of children, noted simply "For being Aboriginal."
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. This designated his position as the legal guardian of every Aboriginal child in South Australia, not only the so-called "half-castes".
The Bringing Them Home report identified instances of official misrepresentation and deception, such as when caring and able parents were incorrectly described by Aboriginal Protection Officers as not being able to properly provide for their children. In other instances, parents were told by government officials that their child or children had died, even though this was not the case. One first-hand account referring to events in 1935 stated:
The report discovered that removed children were, in most cases, placed into institutional facilities operated by religious or charitable organisations. A significant number, particularly females, were "fostered" out. Children taken to such institutions were trained to be assimilated to Anglo-Australian culture. Policies included punishment for speaking their local Indigenous languages. The intention was to educate them for a different future and to prevent their being socialised in Aboriginal cultures. The boys were generally trained as agricultural labourers and the girls as domestic servants; these were the chief occupations of many Europeans at the time in the largely rural areas outside cities.
A common aspect of the removals was the failure by these institutions to keep records of the actual parentage of the child, or such details as the date or place of birth. As is stated in the report:
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.
The children were taken into care purportedly to protect them from neglect and abuse. However sexual assault and abuse was widespread, with the report finding that among the 502 inquiry witnesses, 17% of female witnesses and 7.7% of male witnesses reported having suffered a sexual assault while in an institution, at work, or while living with a foster or adoptive family. Beyond this, conditions in the institutions were found to be invariably poor, with severe discipline, excessive child labour, poor nutrition, physical and emotional abuse, and poor quality education. Staff were found to be generally unqualified and given complete control and power over the children.
Documentary evidence, such as newspaper articles and reports to parliamentary committees, suggest a range of rationales. Apparent motivations included the belief that the Aboriginal people would die out, given their catastrophic population decline after white contact, the belief that they were heathens and were better off in non-indigenous households, and the belief that full-blooded Aboriginal people resented miscegenation and the mixed-race children fathered and abandoned by white men.