THE STOLEN GENERATIONS

Judy Beddoni
23rd May 2011
 Table of Contents
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................4
Colonisation......................................................................................................................................5
Protection and Segregation...........................................................................................................5
The Aborigines Protection Act (1909).........................................................................................6
Forced removal.................................................................................................................................7
Cootamundra Girls Home.............................................................................................................9
Native Welfare Conference in 1937..........................................................................................10
Assimilation.....................................................................................................................................10
Governments Lack of Understanding......................................................................................11
Bringing Them Home report.......................................................................................................13
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report - April 1997...........................13
Continued Impact..........................................................................................................................14
National Apology............................................................................................................................15
Sorry Day.....................................................................................................................................15
Sorry to the Stolen Generation..............................................................................................16
The Sorry Speech.......................................................................................................................16
Compensation.................................................................................................................................17
Acts of Genocide.............................................................................................................................18
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................20
Referencing......................................................................................................................................21

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 Table of Figures

Figure 1: Aboriginals on a Reserve.........................................................................................................5

Figure 2: Aboriginal girls at home (photo 1936) Figure 3: Aboriginal girls living in civilised
conditions..............................................................................................................................................6
Figure 4: Forced Removal of children....................................................................................................8
Figure 5: Advertising little girls..............................................................................................................8
Figure 6: Statistics why Aboriginal girls away (in %) taken....................................................................9
Figure 7: Stolen girls..............................................................................................................................9
Figure 8: Map of reserves and Homes.................................................................................................10
Figure 9: Stolen boys...........................................................................................................................12
Figure 10: Bringing them Home Report...............................................................................................13
Figure 11: victim of stolen generation.................................................................................................14
Figure 12:: John Howard......................................................................................................................15
Figure 13:The Sorry Day poster...........................................................................................................15
Figure 14: Kevin Rudd..........................................................................................................................16
Figure 15: Sorry Speech.......................................................................................................................16
Figure 16: Grim Government...............................................................................................................18

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 The Stolen Generations

Introduction
“The Stolen Generations” refers to Aboriginal Australians who were forcibly removed, as
children, from their families and communities by government, welfare or church authorities
and placed into institutional care or with non-Indigenous foster families. The content of this
report explores the policy of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families.

The report also contains an outline of the practices from the beginning with colonisation to
the impact of the forcible removal of Aboriginal children. The policies were designed to
‘assimilate’ or ‘breed out’ the Aboriginal people. The similarities of what happened to the
Jews because of Hitler and what the British did to the Aboriginal children. The Stolen
Generations was ‘genocide’ just like the holocaust in Germany.

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 THE STOLEN G ENERATIONS

Colonisation
Aboriginal children have been forcibly separated from their families and communities since
the very first days of the British invasion. Violent battles over rights to land and food and
water sources, characterised race relations in the nineteenth century. Since the first white
settlers had arrived in 1788, they had tried to impose their own values, customs and beliefs
onto the Aboriginal people who they referred to as savages.

Protection and Segregation

Aboriginal people were forced onto reserves from the 1850s onwards; their traditional way of
life was eroded even further. They were not allowed to have Aboriginal names or continue
their traditional customs. Then in the mid-20th century, as many Aboriginals were forced off
the reserves and into towns and cities, they were expected to leave their beliefs and
traditions behind them. The Aboriginal Protection Board said “they had to develop from 'their
former primitive state to the standards of the white man.” Then due to racism and
discrimination Aboriginals were forced off their land to the edges of white settlements; they
became dependent upon government rations, if they could not find work. They suffered from
malnutrition and disease, their presence, was unsettling and embarrassing to the white
people. The Governments typically viewed Aboriginal people as a nuisance.

Figure 1: Aboriginals on a Reserve

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In the name of protection, Aboriginal people were subject to near-total control. Their entry to
and exit from reserves was regulated, as was their everyday life on the reserves, their right
to marry and their employment. Then, with a view to encouraging the conversion of the
children to Christianity and distancing them from their Aboriginal lifestyle, children were
housed in dormitories and contact with their families strictly limited. In 1914, the Board
instructed that all children of ‘mixed blood’ aged 14 years and over were to leave the
reserves. The girls went either into domestic service or to the Cootamundra Training Home
for Girls. All boys were to find employment or be sent to a similar institution for boys.

The Aborigines Protection Act (1909)

The Aborigines Protection Act (1909) gave legal power over Aboriginal people to the
Aborigines Protection Board, which had been established in 1883. The responsibility of the
Protection Board was to:  "Exercise general supervision and care over all matters affecting
the interest and welfare of Aborigines; and to protect them against injustice, imposition and
fraud." Specifically it was responsible for the custody, maintenance and education of
children, the provision of apprenticeships, and wages. It held the power to remove
Aboriginals from the vicinity of reserves and towns, to apportion earnings and to maintain
good order on reserves. However, this was never the case as no protection was ever given,
especially towards Aboriginal children as stated in the ‘Bringing Them Home Report, 1997’.

Figure 2: Aboriginal girls at home (photo 1936) Figure 3: Aboriginal girls living in civilised conditions

Child removal policies were clearly formulated as a way of controlling Aboriginal

employment, with the Board demanding legislative powers in loco parentis over all Aboriginal

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children explicitly to remedy the 'comparatively small' number of Aboriginal children in
service. Complaining that parents refused to allow their girls to be sent away, and,
repeatedly, that they refused to allow their wages to be held in trust, the Board aggressively
pursued powers to enable it to remove and apprentice Aboriginal children even where they
could not be legally considered 'neglected', and sought to bring all young workers under
apprenticeship conditions, whether or not they were first removed from their parents. While
this determination might be seen as a way of 'protecting' Aboriginal children from employer
exploitation, it is quite evident that securing control of their labour — and the wages of their
labour — was the Board's paramount consideration in this intervention.

Forced removal
The removal policy was managed by the Aborigines Protection Board (APB). The APB was a
government board; by 1909 they had the power to remove children without parental consent
and without a court order. Children could be put into an institution or mission dormitory,
fostered or adopted. Many children were fostered or adopted soon after birth or after
spending time in a children’s home.

The term ‘Stolen Generations’ refers to Aboriginal who were forcibly removed, as children,
from their families and communities by government, welfare or church authorities and placed
into institutional care or with white foster families.

The forced removal of Aboriginal children began as early as the mid 1800s and continued
until 1970. It’s important to understand that the term “Stolen Generations” refers to those
children who were removed on the basis of their race alone. In contrast to the removal of
white children, proof of neglect was not always required to remove Aboriginal children. That
one of their parents was of Aboriginal descent was enough.

Figure 4: Forced Removal of children

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Aboriginal children were expected to become labourers or servants, so in general the
education they were provided was very poor. Aboriginal girls in particular were sent to
homes, established by the Board to be trained in domestic service.

Figure 5: Advertising little girls

Some of the reasons why Aboriginal girls were taken away (in %), the following statistic
chart, considers why Aboriginal girls were removed from their families. "Other" reasons
include "being female on an Aboriginal reserve" and simply because of being "Aboriginal" to
protect their welfare and give them better living conditions (Creative spirit, 2004).

Figure 6:

Statistics why Aboriginal girls away (in %) taken

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 Figure 7: Stolen girls

Cootamundra Girls Home

Cootamundra Training Home for Girls opened in 1911 and operated until 1969.
Cootamundra was one of several institutions throughout Australia where Aboriginal girls
were taken after they were removed from their families.

The following map shows the location Cootamundra Girls Home, also some of the other
better-known reserves, missions and institutions in NSW.

Figure 8: Map of reserves and Homes

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Native Welfare Conference in 1937
Following the Native Welfare Conference in 1937, and an inquiry into the operation of the
Aboriginal Protection Board, the NSW Government changed the Aborigines Protection Act.
This 1940 amendment changed the name of the Aboriginal Protection Board to the
Aboriginal Welfare Board. The 1940 legislation also changed the Board’s powers to remove
children. The Welfare Board once again had to prove to the Children’s Court that a child was
‘neglected’ or ‘uncontrollable’ before removing the child from its family. The courts only
became involved if the parents would not give permission for their children to be removed.

Assimilation
With the abolishment of The NSW Aborigines Protection Board, the Aborigines Welfare
Board became the principal agency for Aboriginal affairs in NSW. Its ultimate goal was the
assimilation of Aboriginal people.

Under the White Australia and assimilation policies; Aboriginal people who were ‘not of full
blood’ were encouraged to become assimilated into the broader society, so that eventually
there would be no more Aboriginal people left. At the time Aboriginal people were seen as
an inferior race.

Children were taken from Aboriginal parents, so

they could be brought up ‘white’ and taught to
reject their Aboriginality. Children were placed
with institutions and from the 1950s began
being placed with white families. They were
taken miles from their country; some overseas.
The government’s main motive was to
‘assimilate’ Aboriginal children into European
society over one or two generations by denying
and destroying their Aboriginality. Not allowing
them to speak their own languages and
practicing their ceremonies was forbidden.

Figure 9: Assimilation progress

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Boys and girls were brought into separate which they (and some experts) would later
compare with German concentration camps and the holocaust. Many tried to run away but
with limited success. Many never saw their parents again or were told they were orphans.

Assimilation was another government policy that was presented as being 'for the good' of the
Indigenous people, but became just another way of destroying Aboriginal culture. It has
become obvious with hindsight that the logic behind assimilation was contradictory.
Aboriginal people were always being told they had to be more 'white' but they were never
given the freedom to change. They were told they had to take responsibility for assimilating
into society, but they had never been given the opportunity to assume responsibility for
anything - many of them had spent their entire lives being controlled by a reserve manager
or a missionary. When some Aboriginal people did try to assimilate they were told they were
not 'ready' yet to enter white society. Assimilation never gave Aboriginal people the same
rights as other Australians, even though they were supposed to act like them.

Governments Lack of Understanding

The lack of understanding and respect for Aboriginal people and their culture also meant that
many people who supported the child removals believed that they were doing the ‘right
thing’. Some people believed that Aboriginal people lived poor and unrewarding lives, and
that institutions would provide a positive environment in which Aboriginal people could better
themselves. The dominant racist views in the society, and government also means that
people believed that Aboriginal people were bad parents and that Aboriginal woman did not
look after their children. Whereas this was not the case, Aboriginals,’ beliefs were different
then the whites, children were looked after by all kin, not just their parents.

No-one knows how many children were taken, as most records have been lost or destroyed,
but it is estimated up to 100,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families. Many
parents whose children were taken never saw them again, and siblings who were taken
were deliberately separated from each other. Today many Aboriginal people still do not know
who their relatives are or have been unable to track them down. There were generations of
children taken from their families and the practice of removing children continued up until the
late 1960s meaning today there are Aboriginal people as young as their late 40s or 50s who
are members of the Stolen Generations.

Although the removal of children remained policy

until 1969, public awareness of the issue seemed

The Stolen Generations 11

low. The Stolen Generation only began to gain attention in the late 1980’s through the efforts
of Aboriginal activists, artists and musicians. When under scrutiny, the Australian
Government - and church groups who had also had a hand in the practice - used the
defence that it was done in the best interest of the children, to offer them a better life than
they could have with their parents but alas most ended up, abused, raped or murdered if
they survived, they ended up in a life of slavery.

Figure 9: Stolen boys

But records show the far more sinister underlying motive of biological absorption, an attempt
to ‘breed out’ the Aboriginal race. A Federal Government conference on Native Welfare, in
1937, concluded in its final report that “…the destiny of the natives of Aboriginal origin, but
not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth,
and it therefore recommends that all efforts be directed to that end” (Policies, 2004). Thus,
they were condoning genocide as mentioned in ‘The Bringing them Home Report’.

Bringing Them Home report

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report - April 1997

In the 1990s the Australian Human Rights Commission

started a national inquiry into the practice of removing
Indigenous children. The ‘Bringing Them Home Report,’
on the national inquiry in to the separation of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was
tabled in Parliament on 26 May 1997.

Figure 10: Bringing them Home Report

The report outlined the devastating impact the child removal policies had on children and
their families. It found that many of the institutions and homes in which the children were
placed were very cruel, and sexual and physical abuse of the children was common. It found
that many of the people, who managed the removals, including both the government and
churches, abused their power and breached their supposed obligations as protectors and
‘carers’.

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Figure 9: Bringing them Home Report

The report told a story of welfare boards, of segregation, of so-called ‘assimilation’ policies
which did not work. The report also told stories of mothers fleeing into the bush with their
babies, of the virtual slavery of the young girls who were sent out to rural properties to work
as maids and of nannies of the children being treated like cattle. Young girls were all lined
up in white dresses and people would come round and pick one, just like a slave market.

The report found that the practice of forced removal was highly traumatic not only for the
children but also for their families. The policy broke important cultural, spiritual and family
ties which crippled not only individuals, but whole families and even whole communities. The
report found that members of the Stolen Generations suffered higher rates of sexual abuse,
maltreatment, dislocation of family life, poverty and hardship than other Aboriginal people.

The report also found that the policy of forced removal was based on racist assumptions
about the benefits that would flow from such policies. The aim of the policy was to ‘breed out’
the Aboriginal race. In international law practices designed to destroy an entire race of
people are known as genocide, and are forbidden, under the 1948 Convention of Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Continued Impact
While some Aboriginal children were removed from their families on genuine welfare
grounds, and some gained access to some advantages (such as increased educational
opportunities), the great majority of Aboriginal children who were removed suffered life-long
negative consequences.

Some of the continued impact on Aboriginal people, who

were members of the Stolen Generations, is that they are
more likely to suffer from depression, have worse health and
a shorter life span than other Aboriginal people, and are also
more likely to be imprisoned than other Aboriginal people.
For example 50% of deaths investigated by the Royal
Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody were of
Aboriginal people who had been removed from their families
as children.

Figure 11: victim of stolen generation

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The physical and emotional damage to those taken away was profound and lasting. Many of
these children grew up in a hostile environment without family ties or cultural identity not
knowing where they belonged. As adults, many suffered insecurity with lack of self esteem
and feelings of worthlessness, depression and many committed suicide. They became
violence, and abused alcohol and drugs and had an inability to trust anyone.

Lacking a parental model to learn from many had difficulty bringing up their own children.
The scale of separation also had profound consequences on the whole Aboriginal
community, they felt angry and powerlessness, with a lack of purpose as well as an abiding
distrust of police, officials and the Government.

Many Aboriginal people who were placed with white families did not find out about their
background until late in life. Disconnection from land and language meant loss of culture for
many. The impact of the Stolen Generations has also passed on to the families, who
suffered the loss of the children, and to the next generation - whose parents were part of the
Stolen Generations.

The effects have been multiple and profoundly disabling on Aboriginal people, as stated in
the (Bringing Them Home Report, 1997). ‘Psychological and emotional damage renders
many people less able to learn social skills and survival skills. Their ability to operate
successfully in the world is impaired causing low educational achievement, unemployment
and consequent poverty. These in turn cause their own emotional distress leading some to
perpetrate violence, self-harm, substance abuse or anti-social behaviour and ending up in
jail.’

National Apology
While many Aboriginal groups feel they can never be adequately compensated for the loss
of their families, since the ‘Bringing Them Home Report’ was released there was a strong
campaign for an official apology by the Australian Government. One of the key
recommendations of (Bringing Them Home Report, 1997) was an official
apology from the government, as well as financial compensation for the
suffering caused by the government. In 1997 when the report was first
released the former Prime Minister John Howard refused to make an
official apology. He argued that the current generation should not be
responsible for the mistakes of the past.
Figure 12:: John Howard

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Critics pointed out that the Prime Minister had been a Member of Parliament in the 1960s –
when forced removal was still government policy, thus Howard new and condoned the
government’s actions and started it again, with his the ten point plan. Aboriginal rights
activists also argued that it was important to recognise the truth of Australia’s history, if we
are to deal with it and move forward in reconciliation. Instead of an apology the Prime
Minister passed a ‘Statement of Regret and Motion of Reconciliation’ in Parliament.

Sorry Day

As part of the grassroots campaign calling for a

national apology, the 26 May 1998 became the first
national Sorry Day. Sorry Day was marked by
ceremonies, rallies and meetings. Across the
country millions of people signed, Sorry Books.
Sorry Day continues to be recognised each year
on 26 May. More recently Sorry Day has become
known to some as Journey of Healing Day.

Figure 13: The Sorry Day poster

In 2007 a new Labor Government was elected, and promised to finally make an official
apology to the Stolen Generations. At the first session of the new Federal Parliament, on 13
February 2008, the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued an official apology to the Stolen
Generations on behalf of the Australian Government.

Members of the Stolen Generation were invited onto the floor of Parliament and to watch the
apology from the gallery. The apology was welcomed by the majority of the Australians and
celebrations were held across the country.

Sorry to the Stolen Generation

On 13 February 2008 Kevin Rudd Prime Minister made the first item of
Australia's new government, an official apology to the Stolen
Generations. The apology received bipartisan support.

The Stolen Generations 15

 Figure 14: Kevin Rudd

The Sorry Speech

"The time has now come for the nation to turn a new
page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the
past and so moving forward with confidence to the
future. We apologise for the laws and policies of
successive Parliaments and governments that have
inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our
fellow Australians We apologies especially for the
removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
children from their families, their communities and their
country. For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen
Generations, their descendants and for their families
left behind, we say sorry.

Figure 15: Sorry Speech

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families
and communities, we say sorry, and for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a
proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."(Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Apology, 13
February 2008).

Although the Australian Government, took some time to apologise, at the State level
governments responded more positively to the Bringing Them Home Report. In 1997 and
following years all state and territory leaders apologised for the role that State Governments
had played.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II apologized for the role of Catholic groups in the Stolen
Generation and many other church leaders have also apologised, and have started
programs to raise awareness amongst their members about the Stolen Generations. The

The Stolen Generations 16

United Nations condemned past Australian policies as violations of human rights. And the
2002 film Rabbit-Proof Fence further caught the attention of the international community.

Many Aboriginal families were denied the right to rear, educate and to see their children
grow up. They lost these children, and the children became lost themselves, often these
children had been taught to hate everything Aboriginal, and this hatred could extend to
themselves once they realised their skin was not white but black.

Despite the disadvantages in terms of employment and education family bonds remain
strong. Aboriginal family life has many positive aspects, which in most cases prevail over the
hardships and the pain. A main characteristic of the family is the sense of kinship - the
feeling of togetherness, the ability to rely on each other, and the creation of spiritual bonding
which helps to give hope and strength to Aboriginal people.

Compensation
The Government has also stated there will be no compensation fund. People of the Stolen
Generation have started legal actions for compensation against the Government. The cases
have been hard fought, as Government lawyers are arguing that removal of children was
done for their own good. In 2007 - in a landmark case in the State Supreme Court of South
Australia, Bruce Trevorrow became the first member of Australia's "stolen generation" of
Aboriginal people to win compensation.

Acts of Genocide
The Human Rights Commission’s “Bringing Them Home report of
1997”, which investigated the history and effects of Aboriginal
child removal in the nineteenth and twentieth century’s, had
controversially argued that Australian child removal practices, fell

The Stolen Generations 17

within the definition of genocide, used in the UN 1948 Genocide convention. In other words,
Australia had its own history of genocide.

Figure 16: Grim Government

Raphael Lemkin the originator of the term ‘genocide’ had advocated international action
against such activities since 1933. Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention states that:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

These include:
 Killing
 Causing serious physical or mental harm
 Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction
 Imposing measures intended to prevent births
 Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

‘The historical interpretation, the nature and extent of Aboriginal child removal, and
assimilation and much of it has been about whether ‘genocide’ is an appropriate or a
misleading term for characterising some or all of these events. Some think that ‘genocide’
properly referred only to the Holocaust, with the killing of millions of Jews by Nazi Germany,
and that any comparison with that Holocaust was insensitive to the latter’s uniquely terrible
nature as well as wildly exaggerating the negative aspects of Australia’s history of
colonisation, dispossession, institutionalisation, and cultural imposition.’

Genocide can involve removal from homes, as with the conditions imposed on Jews in
the occupied countries of Europe Shortly after the occupation in the west, the German
military commanders issued regulations forbidding Jews who had fled from the occupied
territory to return to their homes. As with the Aboriginal people they also were issued
regulations forbidding them to return to their lands.

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Genocide involves issues of forced labour and free movement. Genocide occurs when
an action infringes on the ‘liberty’ of inhabitants when such action is committed because they
belong to a national, religious, or racial group. Depriving Aboriginals the right of free
movement was a violation of Article 43 of the Hague Regulations. The denial of wages to
Aboriginals amounts to involuntary servitude, which is a violation of the laws of humanity’.

There is also cultural genocide. The German occupiers prohibited or destroyed cultural
institutions and activities. In the incorporated areas the local population was forbidden to use
its own language in schools and printing. A rigid control of all cultural activities was
introduced, national monuments were destroyed, and libraries, archives, museums and art
works were carried away.

What happened to the Jews is exactly the same as what happened to the Aboriginal people
in Australia. The Aboriginals were not allowed to use their own languages, not allowed to
perform ceremonies, sacred sites destroyed, children forcibly removed from their families,
assimilation. They were not allowed to return to the land where they were removed from, not
allowed to move freely, forced labour, stolen wages, poor education, rape, murder and
massacres. The government’s policies were made with the idea to wipe out the Aboriginal
race just like Hitler tried with the Jews. The Australian government violated international law
by committing acts of genocide.

Conclusion

Beginning of the end for the Aboriginals, that’s what the British tried to do, wipe out the
Aboriginal race. From the days of colonisation the government had imposed its power with
laws and policies to control all Aboriginal people and the lands, in which they lived.

The Stolen Generations 19

The Stolen Generation is the end result of a white government’s policy to assimilated
Aboriginal children into white families hoping to make their skin whiter over the generations
to come. Forcibly removing the children was the government’s way to stop the next
generation of children not to be savages but a civilised white people like them.....that was
their giant mistake.

Failed welfare policies, all the government did was to cause years of heartache and pain to
those stolen children, as they grew up, and inflicting them with emotional and physical scars
for life by taking them away from their land and culture and parents. The Australian
government violated international law by committing acts of genocide.

Referencing

Aboriginal Protection Act 1909, viewed 23th May, 2011<http://www.caught-in-the-

act.kathystavrou.net/1909-ab.-prot.-act.html>

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Bringing them home, The 'Stolen Children' report 1997, viewed 23th May,
2011<http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/index.html>

Bringing Them Home Report, 1997, viewed 26th May,

2011<http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/report/ch11.html>

CreativeSpirit-policies, viewed 21th May,

2011<http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/stolen-generations.html>

Policies and Heritage, 2004, viewed 22th May,

2011<http://hsc.csu.edu.au/ab_studies/heritage/heritage_and_identity/hipolicies.htm>

Reconciliation Jul 28th, 2007, last updated: 10 May 2011, viewed 27th May,
2011<http://reconciliaction.org.au/nsw/education-kit/stolen-generations/>

Map Source: Bringing them home, Sydney, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission, 1997, p 45. Viewed 26th May,
2011<http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/report/ch11.html>

The Stolen Generations 21