Justification for the Stolen Generations in Australia

How was the removal of Aboriginal Children from their families justified by the Australian Government and white society?? At the turn of the twentieth century the systematic forced removal of Aboriginal children from their mothers, families and cultural heritage was commonplace. There were several reasons that the government and white society used to justify the separation but the prevailing ideology of nationalism and maintaining Australia for the ‘whites’ was the over-riding motivation and justification for their actions[1].

Progressive sciences such as anthropology espoused such theories as eugenics, miscegenation, biological absorption and assimilation which legitimated governmental policies relating to Aboriginal affairs[2]. It was perceived by white society that Aboriginal children were neglected and they were removed based on the premise that they needed protection from their community environment. It was further believed that the removal of these children was in their best interest for both the present and their future. [3] That Australia was a racist country at the turn of the twentieth century is both widely acknowledged and documented.

The British imperialist attitude of the perception of white superiority and racial purity was transported with the convicts and perpetuated by the restriction of immigrants that were not of British or white European background. The notion of the ‘white race’ as superior to the ‘black race’ evolved sometime in the 17th century and the increase in European colonialism saw blackness become linked to inferiority, barbarism and savagery. [4] This co-incided with the ideas of purity (white) and evil (black) and cemented the ‘black race’ as forever inferior in the minds of all whites. 5] McGregor has put forth the idea that the Australian people would never fully accept people of a different colour and that prejudice against appearance and colour was an inherited Australian defect and not likely to change. [6] So deep was the contempt by white Australia for the Aboriginals that in the closing years of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century, the government and white society justified the removal of Aboriginals from their traditional lands to reserves and missions in an effort to supervise them more thoroughly[7].

The ‘half castes’ were to be absorbed and assimilated into the greater white community in an effort the ‘breed out their colour. [8] It was believed by white society that the best way to induce Aboriginal people to behave in a white manner was through the children who had not yet been affected by the black culture[9]. The first 3 decades of the twentieth century saw a growing concern for the Aboriginals as a whole over their general living conditions, poor diet, housing conditions, lack of health care and lack of employment opportunity and there was an increase in the interference by the authorities in their lives based on this observation. 10] One of the most detrimental protection policies governing the Aboriginal people during that time was the forced removal of the children based on the premise of neglect and that Aboriginal mothers were unfit to raise their children[11]. White society had applied their standards of family structure and social norms in their assessment of the Aboriginal lifestyle and found that Aboriginal community life was considered to be uncivilized[12]. It was presumed by governments and white society that the only way for Aboriginal children to survive was to be removed from this environment[13].

Legislation was further enhanced to impose state guardianship over Aboriginal children (both full blood and ‘half caste’) which then allowed the various states to remove any child it felt was being neglected and needed protection[14]. Furthermore, children were removed because the state did not want them sitting around in comparative idleness when they could grow up and be productive laborers for a white society. [15] Removed children were thus separated from family, community and heritage and the state had guardianship rights over that child until the age of sixteen or twenty one. 16] As a nation, Australia worked hard to maintain ideals of whiteness and racial purity. These ideals were inevitably challenged when white society was confronted by people of mixed blood. The lack of conformity by the Aboriginal race to a white lifestyle was seen as a problem as was the growing number of ‘half castes’. [17] Some Australians found it offensive to see almost white children living amongst Aboriginal families. [18] As a solution to this problem, in 1937 the Federal Government adopted the Policy f Absorption as the future destiny of the Aboriginal people of Australia. [19] This decision was based on prevailing scientific and anthropological knowledge which suggested that Australian Aborigines were descended from the Caucasian race[20]. This theory was seized upon by officials who used it as a way to promote and justify biological assimilation. Paradoxically, this then made the absorption of Aboriginal people into white communities more palatable to white society. [21] The idea of inter breeding and effectively breeding out the ‘half castes’ was adopted wholly by A.

O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Western Australia, 1914 – 1940, and taken one step further[22]. Neville promoted miscegenation and the biological integration/assimilation of ‘half castes’. His justification for this process was that he was allowing the ‘half castes’ to effectively climb the evolutionary ladder through the selective breeding process with the end purpose being that their Aboriginality had receded enough and they could ‘reach the standard of white Australians’. 23] Specifically, the focus was on the absorption of Aboriginal people into the wider white community and the removal of both full blood Aboriginal and ‘half caste’ children was an effort to ‘breed out the colour’[24]. Girls especially were singled out as they could be trained to be domestic servants. [25] It would appear that by removing the half caste children and sending them to institutions and foster homes and demonizing their Aboriginality it was assumed that they would inevitably forget their Aboriginal heritage and would be grateful to assimilate and become white.

White Australia during the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was inherently racist and under the guise of protectionist and assimilationist policies Aboriginal children were forcibly removed for no other reason than to preserve the racial purity that white Australia protected so fiercely. Government and white society justified these policies citing parental and community neglect of the children.

Policies such as absorption were justified by the belief that white society was doing the Aboriginal people a favour in breeding out their colour when the truth was that white society was offended by the blackness of their skin and the cultural differences that set them apart from the rest of white Australia. Bibliography: Jacobs, Patricia, “Science and veiled assumptions: miscegenation in Western Australia. 1930 – 1937. ” Australian Aboriginal Studies, Vol 2 (1986), pp 15 – 23 Manne, Robert. “The Stolen Generations”. Accessed on 6th April, 2010 from http://tim-richardson. net/joomla15/index. php? option=com_content&task=view&id=29Itemid=50

McGrath, Ann and Stevenson, Winona. “Gender, Race and Policy: Aboriginal Women and the State in Canada and Australia. ” Journal of Labour History, Vol 71 (1996), pp 37 – 53 McGregor, Russell. “Breed out the Colour or the Importance of Being White. ” Australian Historical Studies, Vol 33: 120 (2002), pp 286 – 302 McGregor, Russell. “Representations of the ‘Half caste’ in the Australian Scientific Literature of the 1930s. ” Journal of Australian Studies, Vol 36 (March 1993), pp 51 – 64 Macintyre, Stuart. The Oxford History of Australia: Volume 4, The Succeeding Age 1901 – 1942, , Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 2009

McLaren, Peter & Torres, Rodolfo. “Racism and multicultural education: Rethinking ‘race’ and ‘whiteness’ in late capitalism”, (1999) in David Saltmarsh, Cultural Perspectives in Education”, Frenchs Forest NSW, Pearson Education Australia, 2006, p 120 Paisley, Fiona. “Race and Remembrance: Contesting Aboriginal Child Removal in the Inter War Years. ” Accessed on: 8th April, 2010 at: http://www. australianhumanitiesreview. org/archive/Issue-November-1997/paisley. html Read, Peter. The Stolen Generations: The Removal of Aboriginal Children in New South Wales 1883 -1969 . Accessed on 7th April, 2010 from: http://www. aa. nsw. gov. au/publications/StolenGenerations. pdf Stannner, W. E. H and Barwick, Diane. “Not By Eastern Windows Only: Anthropological Advice to Australian Governments in 1938. ” Aboriginal History, 3 (1) (1979), pp 37 – 61 Zogbaum, Heidi. “Herbert Basedow and the Removal of Aboriginal Children of Mixed Descent from their Families. ” Australian Historical Studies, Vol 34: 121, (2003), pp 122 – 138 ———————– [1] Russell McGregor, “Breed out the Colour or the Importance of Being White. ” Australian Historical Studies,Vol 33: 120 (2002): p 294 [2] Robert Manne. The Stolen Generations” (1998). ) available from: http://tim-richardson. net/joomla15/index. php? option=com_content&task=view&id=29Itemid=50 [3] Heidi Zogbaum, “Herbert Basedow and the Removal of Aboriginal Children of Mixed Descent from their Families. ” Australian Historical Studies, Vol 34: 121 (2003): p 131 [4] Peter McLaren & Rodolfo Torres, “Racism and multicultural education: Rethinking ‘race’ and ‘whiteness’ in late capitalism”, (1999) in David Saltmarsh, Cultural Perspectives in Education, (Frenchs Forest, Pearson Education Australia, 2006), p 120 and Patricia Jacobs. Science and veiled assumptions: miscegenation in Western Australia. 1930 – 1937”. Australian Aboriginal Studies, Vol 2, (1986): p. 17 [5] McLaren & Torres in David Saltmarsh, p. 121 [6] Russell McGregor. Representations of the ‘Half caste’ in the Australian Scientific Literature of the 1930s. Journal of Australian Studies, Vol 36 (March 1993): p. 57 [7] Stuart Macintyre, The Oxford History of Australia: Volume 4, The Succeeding Age 1901 – 1942 (Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 2009), p 110. [8] Russell McGregor, “Breed out the Colour or the Importance of Being White. Australian Historical Studies,Vol 33: 120 (2002): p 292. [9] Peter Read. “The Stolen Generations: The Removal of Aboriginal Children in NSW 1883 – 1969” (1981): p 3. Available from: http://www. daa. nsw. gov. au/publications/StolenGenerations. pdf [10] W. E. H Stannner & Diane Barwick. “Not By Eastern Windows Only: Anthropological Advice to Australian Governments in 1938. ” Aboriginal History, 3 (1) (1979): p 39 and Ann McGrath and Winona Stevenson, “Gender, Race and Policy: Aboriginal Women and the State in Canada and Australia. ”, Labour History, Vol 71 (1996): p. 8 and Russell McGregor, “Breed out the Colour”, p. 288 [11] McGrath & Stevenson: p. 48 [12] McGrath & Stevenson: p. 48 [13] McGrath & Stevenson: p. 49 [14]McGrath & Stevenson: p. 49 [15] Peter Read, “The Stolen Generations”, p. 17 [16] Robert Manne, “The Stolen Generations”, (1998) http://tim-richardson. net/joomla15/index. php? option=com_content&task=view&id=29Itemid=50 [17] Peter Read, “The Stolen Generations”, p. 1 [18] Heidi Zogbaum, p. 127 [19] Patricia Jacobs, “Science and veiled assumptions: miscegenation in Western Australia. 1930 – 1937. Australian Aboriginal Studies, Vol 2 (1986): p. 15 [20] Heidi Zogbaum, “Herbert Basedow and the Removal of Aboriginal Children of Mixed Descent from their Families. ” Australian Historical Studies, Vol 34: 121 (2003): p. 131 [21] Patricia Jacobs, p. 16 [22] Zogbaum, p. 123 [23] Zogbaum, p. 132 [24] Zogbaum,, p. 131 [25] Fiona Paisley. “Race and Remembrance : Contesting Aboriginal Child Removal in the Inter War Years” http://www. australianhumanitiesreview. org/archive/Issue-November-1997/paisley. html ———————– Mark/Grade HD