By Eleanor McNab St. Paul's Anglican Grammar School Australia
The "Stolen Generation" issue is one that concerns almost every Australian citizen in one way or another. Racial discrimination has been present ever since white population began in Australia, and it is still not really gone.
The modern issue of the "Stolen Generation" stems from the one hundred and seventy years in which Aboriginal children were taken from their families by Europeans. The origin of the practice of separating black children from their parents was in the desire to turn them into useful citizens. Whites wanted to create an Aboriginal working class, to show other whites that Aboriginals were not useless nomads and could be civilized.
The children were simply to be absorbed into the industrial classes of the country. The Europeans reasoned that, to be effective, they would have to start by teaching the Aboriginal children; then, shortly thereafter, older generation would die out. To do this, Europeans thought it was necessary to remove the children from their families' influence, so they would have no knowledge of their culture. An estimated 40,000 Aboriginal children were removed from their families. In 1980, an organisation called "Link-Up" was established to help some of these people reunite.
The removal of Aboriginal children from their parents has been a policy in all states of Australia at different times. There were several Aboriginal children's institutions which were set up by missionaries, where Aboriginal children were taken to be away from their parents. Parents were very rarely allowed to see their children.
The first institutions (around 1827) were set up to teach the Anglican virtues of obedience, punctuality, thriftiness, and hard work. They included a very structured daily program. In some cases, the children genuinely appreciated their experiences in various welfare homes. But other children were unhappy, mistreated, and unsettled, being away from their families. If parents wished to remove their child from the home, missionaries would usually use trickery or force to separate them. On the missions, welfare officers were instructed to send light-colored Aboriginal children to ordinary welfare homes, presumably hoping that they would never know they were Aboriginal.
Probably by 1859, no more than 300 children had been separated and raised as white as a formal policy. It was not until the 1870s and 1880s that whites started to complain about the black camps gathering around the towns. They demanded that the government take measures of control -- so, the Aborigines Protection Board was established in 1883.
In 1900, the government decided to have Aboriginal children removed from their parents as a policy. The Board said that there was an urgent need for the children to be rescued from the "evilness" of their fellow Aborigines. At that time, the Board could assume full custody and control of the child of any Aborigine, without a court hearing.
The court removed hundreds of children under the Adoption Act. It was virtually impossible for black, single mothers not to have their children adopted out. The popular image among the whites of Aboriginal life was stereotyped. Aboriginals were portrayed as drunks, dirty, and diseased. Because of this image, in the 1950s, the government introduced the "assimilation policy," which stated that every Aborigine should adopt the lifestyle, habits, and thinking of white people. From this policy came the idea that black children should grow up in the influence of white families. Some white foster parents, clouded by their view of Aborigines, fell far short of being good enough parents -- but others loved their children as passionately as parents can.
Under the Adoption Act, hundreds of Aboriginal children lost their identity since, legally, it no longer existed. Foster parents were told to destroy any known evidence of the children's backgrounds, so that the children might never know they were Aboriginal. For these individuals, this loss was devastating. Many of the white people involved genuinely thought they were doing the right thing by removing Aboriginal children from their families.
I understand why people would do something like this. They thought they were doing Aborigines a favor, but it is not seen like that today. Everybody has a right to an identity. This policy caused hurt and hostility for many Aboriginal people. The whites should have given their plan more thought before making a decision for the whole of a race. If they had done this, then one hundred thousand more people would know their identity, and there would be no need for reconciliation. If the government does nothing else, it should apologize, so Aboriginal people might be able to forgive.