The aboriginal protection act was an act that involved the removal of half caste aboriginal children from their families and it limited the freedom and the rights of aboriginal people. The intention of this essay is to argue that the 1869 aboriginal protection act was a tragedy for aboriginal communities and families. The reasons why the aboriginal protection act was a tragedy for aboriginal families and communities was that it took away the rights and the liberty of the aboriginal people, children were separated from their families and put into institutions, the act solidified the hatred between aboriginal people and white Australians, and the aboriginal act started what was called “The Stolen Generation”. The 1869 aboriginal protection …show more content…
This lead to an even more tragic event, The Stolen Generation. This caused a lot of heart ache and tragedy within aboriginal communities. Almost every Aboriginal family has been affected in some way by the policy of child removal. The removal of half caste children is said to be is one of the most devastating practice since white Australian settlement, and we can see that it has profound percussions for aboriginals today. An example of this is the poor record keeping. Many people of aboriginal descent have no idea of their culture and who their family are. Phillip Coller from New South Wales states “At age 50 I have no idea who my grandfather was and no contact with any other family members on my mother’s side. We have searched for the past couple of years but to no avail as we are tracing events from 80 years ago” [2]. On February 13th 2008 our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, apologised for what the white Australian people did to the aboriginal people. This apology had a huge emotional response from the nation. Yuko Narushima, an indigenous Australian reports “Mr Rudd 's speech was just magnificent. It 's a wonderful day. Pity about the Opposition speech." [1] This quote puts emphasis on how people viewed the prime minister’s speech. This speech meant a lot to the indigenous people, it was the first step of reconciliation. It had a huge emotional response from the nation as people still today are suffering from the actions of the white Australians. Therefore the aboriginal protection act had catastrophic effects on aboriginal families and communities, this then lead to the stolen
Grant utilises traumatic anecdotes, allusion to contemporary issues and his first person’s point of view to bring forth the readers values and attitudes of accountability for the past, and criticalness of previous actions against Indigenous people. For example, Grant details personal tales of how his grandmother was turned away from the hospital because “she was giving birth to the child of a black person”. The anecdote attacks the latter part of the Australian Dream, stating “(..)deep sense of belonging that allows all Australian to thrive” which was unfortunately not the case where Grant’s elder was reprimanded of her right to treatment. Furthermore, Grant talks about his grandfather who fought wars for Australia but came back to a nation where “he couldn’t even share a drink with his digger mates in the pub because he was black”. The anecdotes again contradicts core Australian values of mateship and equality as Grant’s grandfather who served alongside his caucasian friends was not recognized as a citizen thus was denied the ability to socialise with his soldiers.
Acknowledging the wrongs against Indigenous communities in Australia is critical, as this poem shows. The Stolen Generation was a dark chapter in Australia’s history that still affects Indigenous peoples today. From the late 1800s to the 1970s, thousands of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by the Australian government. The policy was designed to assimilate Indigenous children into White Australian culture, and many suffered abuse and neglect.
Further disconnection occurred because the children were automatically made ‘wards of the state’ (Hegarty 1999: 20). However, the impact of the regulations; to their freedom, way of life, and structure of the family unit as Indigenous Queenslanders; became evident after they had entered the reserve (Hegarty 1999: 12; Donovan 2008:
Here, the Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 (VIC) was made to establish an inclusive scheme of control over the lives of First Australians (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2014). New South Wales’ equivalent to this was the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW) which was to provide protection and care of Aboriginal People but rather legislated for the control of their lives. The policies of assimilation directly related to and relied on segregation and protectionism policies. This policy reflected the views of all governmental bodies of Australia, in that they thought it necessary that Aboriginal people were to eventually exercise the equivalent method of living as non-Indigenous Australians and to live as members of a sole community appreciating the same rights and freedoms, accept the same responsibilities, observing similar duties and be predisposed to the same loyalties, hopes and
Aboriginal leaders were one of the key and vital parts of the development of the Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement. Without those Aboriginals or anyone fighting for aboriginal rights wouldn't have had anyone to follow, anyone to inspire them to push for what was really right. The main points of this essay will be the impact that the leaders Charles Perkins, Paul Keating, Eddie Mabo and Kevin Rudd had on the aboriginal civil rights movement and how their involvement the Aboriginal civil rights movement wouldn't have made the same changes it did. In 1965 Charles Perkins who was the first Aboriginal to graduate from an Australian University led the Freedom Ride.
Sorry Speech (2007) in the acknowledgement of the maltreatment of Aboriginal people which brought Australia closer to
Between 1937 and 1965, it would be rare to see every Aboriginal person truly express his or her happiness. Although there were improvements to some Aborigines’ lives, the Policy of Assimilation did not ameliorate the lives of most Aboriginal Australians between 1937 and 1965. The assimilation policy conveys the idea of white superiority and black inferiority, manifesting racial inequality and discrimination against Aboriginal Australians. Assimilation policies prompted the forcible removal of Aboriginal children, decreased and oppressed the Aboriginal population and their culture and Aborigines had lacking rights to citizenship. The negative impacts evidently preponderate the positives (if any).
This article discusses the speech given by an Indigenous journalist, Stan Grant who participated in a debate where he spoke for the motion “Racism is destroying the Australian Dream’’. Hence, the main points of this article are mostly evidence given by Grant in his debate to support his idea that the Australian Dream is indeed rooted in racism. One of the main points is that the indigenous Australians are often excluded and disregarded as non-Australians simply due to their race and skin colour. Grant pointed out the incident where AFL player Adam Goodes was publicly jeered and told that he did not belong to his country as he was not an Australian despite the fact that Australia indeed is the land of his ancestors.
The Aborigines Act was one of the most horrific acts of hatred and racism to ever commence in history, and has affected generations of Indigenous Australians, and will continue to affect several generations of Indigenous Australians to come. It led to decades of generational trauma, an irreversible loss of cultural identities within society, and ongoing educational and occupational inequalities. Mistreated children often grow up to have children of their own, who are often mistreated due to their parent’s trauma. This is called Generational Trauma, which can impact several generations of children, often called a ‘cycle of abuse’, much like a ripple effect. In other words, Generational Trauma involves the transmission of trauma from one generation
[Accessed 17 November 2015]. Stolen Generations—effects and consequences - Creative Spirits. 2015. Stolen Generations—effects and consequences - Creative Spirits. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/stolen-generations-effects-and-consequences#axzz3sJgfoA1L.
Can you imagine being a child that has been forced to grow up without the loving care and influence of their mother and father? We as a nation need to recognise what we did wrong, and make it right. We need to find a way to live together in harmony with the rightful owners of this land, and restore the sense of community, responsibility, freedom, and love in the Aboriginal
Abstract Being an aborigine in a white dominated society is a complicated identity. Australia, one of the white governed nations, also owns many aboriginal tribes. They lived harmonious lives in the early period. But European colonization has made a profound effect on the lives of Aboriginals in Australia, which led to the total demolition of their native culture, identity and history. As a result the new generation Aboriginals have lost their Aboriginal heritage and have been accepted neither by Aboriginals nor by whites.
Picture book review: Stolen girl August 2015 ‘Stolen girl’ written by Trina Saffioti and illustrated by Norma MacDonald, is a touching, emotionally stirring picture book about the tourment a young aboriginal girl experiences when she was taken away from her mother, by the Australian government. The story takes place in a children’s home and is told with the use of small bursts of detailed paragraphs and intense, colourful and melancholy illustrations. Written for 8-10 year olds, the purpose of the book represents the experiences of children who were a part of the stolen generation in the 1900s-1970s. In this time period it was government policy in Australia that each indigenous Australian child was to be removed from their families as the
"Reconciliation will not work if it puts a higher value on symbolic gestures rather than the practical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in areas like health, housing, education and employment." Warren Mundine AO Reconciliation is the action of making one view or belief compatible with another according to the Oxford dictionary of English. The term reconciliation was used as a symbolic gesture in an address made on February 13th 2008 by the former Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd. Kevin Rudd was the first political figure to speak out and seek reconciliation for the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders after being elected as prime minster in 2007. He spoke out after many generations of mistreated Indigenous Australians that had their rights and equality continuously ignored, but after all that has happened, including the effect of broken families, which still in 2018 have the aftermath of "The stolen generation", there was only one public apology and no compensation for the damages caused to the native people of this country.
The rationale behind these polices was to protect children, a though that aboriginal people would die out and the belief that aboriginal people frowned up miscegenation. Other claims suggest that this was part of the attempt to whiten Australia. The horrific irony here is that there are few if any aboriginal families which have not been impacted by these child removals. It has created an array of psychological issues, an increased risk and exposure to sexual abuse, a taught rejection of their culture, a loss of links to the land, an inability to participate in cultural and spiritual life with their communities and not being able to have a native title. Quite often the intuitions and families in which these children were placed with were more damaging and detrimental to their health and wellbeing that if they had remained with their families.