The Stolen Generations

Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.

After many years of European settlement in Australia, many Aboriginal people had been removed from their families and placed into schools with white Australians. This was due to the ‘protection policy’ laws that encouraged the removal of Indigenous children. Because fewer indigenous children were able to learn about their own culture, there was a slow decline in the culture of the indigenous people. As a result of this, there were continued tensions between the free settlers and Indigenous people as they had no roles in the government and couldn’t vote. This made them feel as if they were excluded from greater society and had long term negative impacts upon their sense of belonging to the new

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

‘The Sapphires’ by Wayne Blair was the trigger that led my research into the effects of the Stolen Generation on Aboriginals in Australia. This film is about an Aboriginal singing group who want to make a name for themselves, but find it difficult because of the racism against them. This film also tells the stories of their cousin Kay, who was a half-caste and was stolen from her Aboriginal family at a young age to be taught the ways of white people, and forget her culture. This film made me realise that I am lucky to live in a country where racism of such an extent in which children are stolen from their indigenous families, isn’t part of our history, and has not affected me personally. From my research, I have found six main sources that have helped me to understand how large this problem was and continues to be. My sources: ‘The Sapphires’ by Wayne Blair; a film about a group of Aboriginal singers who are affected by racism which is based on a real life singing group; ‘The Sorry Speech’, by Kevin Rudd who was the Prime Minister of Australia in 2008 who explains the damage and apologises for the way that the actions of past governments tore apart the lives of their indigenous people. Then there is ‘Blind Eye,’ the documentary in which people who were stolen are interviewed and tell their stories. The film, ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ this tells the story of two girls who were stolen and gives us insight into how brutally that they were treated after being ripped apart from

The Stolen Generation has had a great effect on Aboriginal rights and freedoms as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders didn’t even have the rights to raise and look after their children and as a result 100,000 Aboriginal Australian’s were displaced and placed into white families. The lack of understanding and respect for Aboriginal culture also meant that many people who supported the removal of these children really thought they were doing “the right thing”. The impact on Australian life today is still being felt as the Stolen Generation is seen as a recent event has it only ended in the early 1970s. Children that where taken away back then now cannot trace back their roots and therefore have no record of their family history or where

The “Stolen Generation” was caused by the Assimilation policy. Children under fourteen years old were taken away from their parents and placed in “training homes” such as the “Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls”. It was easy for the governments to defend their decision to remove Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children due to the destitute conditions of the reserves. In 1939 the “Exemption Certificate” was introduced.

The Stolen Generation has left devastating impacts upon the Aboriginal culture and heritage, Australian history and the presence of equality experienced today. The ‘Stolen Generation’ refers to the children of Aboriginal descent being forcefully abducted by government officials of Australia and placed within institutions and catholic orphanages, being forced to assimilate into ‘white society’. These dehumanising acts placed these stolen children to experience desecration of culture, loss of identity and the extinction of their race. The destructive consequences that followed were effects of corruption including attempted suicide, depression and drug and alcohol abuse. The indigenous peoples affected by this have endured solitude for many

Throughout the early 20th century, the Australian public was led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged in their communities, and that there was a high risk of physical and sexual abuse. Aboriginal children were being removed in order to be exposed to ‘Anglo values’ and ‘work habits’ with a view to them being employed by colonial settlers, and to stop their parents, families and communities from passing on their culture, language and identity

Government policies authorising the removal of Aboriginal children have caused extensive and unrepairable damage to every aspect of Indigenous culture. It could be argued that the emotional turmoil which occurred as a result of this policy, is greater than any physical abused ever faced by the Australian Aboriginal people. The act of child removal would be a scarring experience for parents and children of any race or culture. This policy had a particularly damaging impact on the Indigenous people as their identity is based within a set of strong traditional guides and teachings. These lessons are not recorded, but can only be taught through speaking with elders and learning through a connection to others within the mob, connection to art forms

The period (1814-1980s) saw the establishment of the Stolen Generations where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly separated from their families. Neglect was used as the basis for removal (Anderson, 2002). The direct impact of this policy was the death of hundreds of Aboriginal children in residential care, due to physical, nutritional and psychological neglect (Kidd, 2000). From an Indigenous perspective, this removal policy and practice has been considered a genocidal act, which spread injury trans-generationally. It continues to cause considerable grief, loss and trauma among Aboriginal families thus impacting on Aboriginal health and wellbeing (Healing Foundation, 2016). The 2014-2015 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social survey

‘Australia’ also showed how the government controlled how children of Aboriginal descent were brought up with language used such as “The mixed raced children must be dislocated from their primitive full blooded Aborigine, how else are we to breed the black out of them”. This presented again the reason as to why the Aboriginal children were taken away from their own cultures to be raised in something completely different.

During the 1890’s and 1970’s, Indigenous Australians did not have equal rights as the ‘white’ Australians and were treated callously, anguished and tortured due to their race. The Stolen Generation was the event where children, who were of an Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, were removed from their families. Many Indigenous children were forcefully removed from their families, never being able to see them again. The treatment towards the Indigenous Australian’s was horrific, as these children were taken away from their community, placed into an institution to be changed into the ‘white’ ways of doing things whilst being treated with brutality in the procedure. To demonstrate to what extent did the Stolen 3 Generation affected the Australian population several key areas of the will be examined. This includes; what was the Stolen Generation, when did the Stolen Generation start and when did it end, what was the cause of the Stolen Generation. how did the Stolen Generation affect the Indigenous Australians and the non – Indigenous Australians and how significant was the event to Australian History. Once these aspects have been observed, it will become clear that the affect of the Stolen Generation to the Australian population was a significant part of the Rights and Freedoms movement which change the way the Indigenous population were recognised in our society.

In conclusion the stolen generation was a traumatizing time for young indigenous children, as being a children were torn from families and forced to live with white people and forget their heritage and culture which lead to the aboriginal culture which would lead to the culture being forgotten. The policy assimilation was introduced by the government, individuals were traumatized by assiliamation. The stolen generation affected the whole indigenous

Residential schools have played very important role in Aboriginal people’s life and Canadian Government, same as Australia’s Government had created “The Stolen Generation”. Canada and Australia had very common history, both countries were colonized by the European, White people. Residential schools were seen by society as a way to modernize the native population so, they could teach and prepare them for the society they want to create and the way they see their society. Austrian government had same intention but, they wanted to stop their entire society. They both government may have different perspective but, they both wanted the same thing. This essay will mainly focus on how these two government change two communities and their society so,

Describe and discuss how Australian Aboriginal people were affected during the Stolen Generations and how these effects still resonate today. Australia’s short colonist history has shed light onto how the lives of Indigenous individuals and groups have been greatly impacted as the invasion of White Settlers in 1788 set up centuries of inequity and unfair treatment of Aboriginal peoples. This paper will be outlining a sample of how significant the acts of the Stolen Generations impacted the country and in particular Aboriginal individuals, groups and cultures. The term now coined as the ‘Stolen Generations’ allowed governmental bodies to remove Indigenous children from their families under Australian policy for purposes such as, but not limited