Aboriginal Protection Act Case Study

The introduction of Government Policy through the Aboriginal Protection Act. had a major impact on the lives of Aboriginal people past and present. This case study looks into the story of Coranderrk during this time of inequality and segregation through Government law and regulation.

The missionary period was a time of change for the Aboriginal people. After only thirty years of white settlement the population of first Australians reduced from 60,000 to just 2000. The impact of colonisation had a devastating effect, the aboriginal people were rapidly on their way to extinction, and had lost everything. They had lost their land, language, culture and freedom. Colonists denied Indigenous people the existence of their culture and therefore Indigenous

people were also losing their identity. Aboriginal people were segregated, separated to remote areas to die out alone. As followers of the Christian faith, white settlers took it upon themselves as a sense of obligation to care for the Indigenous people. The first Australians were taken to missions where they would learn to live like the European settlers. With the realisation that the Aboriginal people would not simply die off, the Protection Board was established.

Reserves were set up after the pronouncing of the Aboriginal Protection Act.

offering a safe place, with food, water and protection. Aboriginal people, however, first had to covert to Christianity and live as a European. Accepting the loss of their land, Native’s such as Simon Wonga, knew they needed to adapt to the new world. After forming a friendship, Simon Wonga and British Priest, John Green, actively took it upon themselves to educate the Aboriginal children for European life, and claimed land, Coranderrk, to do so. Green had a vision to make Coranderrk a place where Aboriginal people could have a small portion of their own land. Green held no prejudices, allowing the Aboriginal people of Coranderrk to govern themselves and work like white people. Indigenous people were required to be helpful and civil within the community, however unlike European settlers the Protection Board was under no obligation to pay them any wages. This caused conflict, and when Greens’ promises were broken by the Board, he resigned from the reserve, withdrawing his resignation only a few days later. The Board, however, refused to reinstate him. Not long later, Simon Wonga died of tuberculosis, leaving his cousin William Barak to lead. After no response to pleading letters to the Board for Greens’ reinstatement, Barak wrote directly to the minister. The Board was furious at this and decided to sell the land of Coranderrk, commencing two years of protests, which resulted in the Royal Commission

issuing Coranderrk as a permanent residence.

The Protection Board had an extensive range of control over the Aboriginal people with the ability to dictate their lives; this included their finances, residency and the ability to split families. In 1886 the Aboriginal Protection Board drafted a new law, not only making them more money but also eradicating the first Australians, leaving reserve land to be sold. The law, known as the half cast act, considered any Indigenous person with white heritage who was under the age of 34 to no longer be considered Aboriginal, and therefore must leave the reserve, only full blood Aborigines could remain. The half cast act was the Protection boards final solution to eliminate the first Australians, leaving Indigenous people to dissolve into the mainstream population. With this law in place children were unwillingly removed from the care of their parents, leading to the beginning of the stolen generation. With the community of Coranderrk reduced to 27 ageing Aborigines, Coranderrk’s living conditions deteriorated. In 1924, Coranderrk was forced to close.