More handpicked essays just for you.
The impacts of assimilation policies on indigenous australians
Aboriginal assimilation policy
Ramifications of the stolen generation
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Focus Question 1- Why did the Australian Government decide to take the children and what led up to this?
The Australian Government believed that in the early 1900’s in order to maintain white culture they should subject all indigenous to their beliefs. The removal of children from Aboriginal parents was not a new idea, it had been happening for almost a decade before becoming the Stolen Generation. The removal policy was stepped up with the introduction of the assimilation policy. The whites believed that they were the dominant culture and their way of life and culture was the only way. Throughout the stolen generation the Australian public were led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged in their own homes and would benefit more in a white household. The “Aboriginal Protection Board” believed that if the children were living in white families being separated from their families, community, land and culture it would eventually phase out the indigenous peoples. However this decision to remove the children was not beneficial and has caused much hatred from the Aboriginals toward the Australian government.
Focus Question 2- What were the consequences of the Stolen Generation?
The Stolen Generation was an epic historic event in Australia’s history with many repercussions and consequences. Some of the consequences include depression, mistrust, culture loss and many other emotional long term effects. The children were not allowed to see their families and told they were orphans to prevent them looking for their real families. They were banned from speaking their native language or following their culture, given minimal education, provided with poor food and living conditions, and expected to move into low-grade domestic or farming work. Often they were also physically or sexually abused. It is for these reasons that even today many Aboriginals have emotionally long term effects and carry these events from the 1900’s to their grave.
Focus Question 3: What changed after Kevin Rudd’s sorry speech and the Bringing Them Home Report (BTHR)?
The Stolen Generation endured many hardships; however there have been events such as the 2008 Sorry Speech by Kevin Rudd and the Bringing Them Home Report (BTHR) in 1997 which helped many Aboriginals develop closure. The BTHR was the first acknowledgment from the Australian Government that The Stolen Generation was an event in Australia’s history that they were sorry for. The report included documentation of Aboriginals who has been removed from their homes as children which contradicted the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’.
During world war two Australia came close to being invaded, the Japanese in Sydney Harbor were a huge fright to many Australians. After world war two it seemed Australia needed to populate or perish. So the government made a big push to fill Australia. Many children were born due to this new idea. They were called the 'Baby boomers'. The baby boomers were being born at huge rates and inflating Australians population. The white Australia policy was pretty much abandoned as migrants flooded into Australia. White Australians still felt that they were superior but they needed these immigrants to populate Australia.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the government began abolishing the compulsory residential school education among Aboriginal people. The government believed that Aboriginal children could receive a better education if they were integrated into the public school system (Hanson). However, residential schools were later deemed inappropriate because not only were the children taken away from their culture, their families and their people, but the majority of students were abus...
Throughout the world, in history and in present day, injustice has affected all of us. Whether it is racial, sexist, discriminatory, being left disadvantaged or worse, injustice surrounds us. Australia is a country that has been plagued by injustice since the day our British ancestors first set foot on Australian soil and claimed the land as theirs. We’ve killed off many of the Indigenous Aboriginal people, and also took Aboriginal children away from their families; this is known as the stolen generation. On the day Australia became a federation in 1901, the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, created the White Australia Policy. This only let people of white skin colour migrate to the country. Even though Australia was the first country to let women vote, women didn’t stand in Parliament until 1943 as many of us didn’t support female candidates, this was 40 years after they passed the law in Australian Parliament for women to stand in elections. After the events of World War Two, we have made an effort to make a stop to these issues here in Australia.
Kids were scattered across the country and family ties were obliterated forcing families to grieve their lost relatives This was devastating because in the First Nations culture, children are valued very highly, and those without children are viewed as being disadvantaged. The removal of children introduced problems of alcoholism, emotional stress and low self-esteem in Aboriginal communities. The events that played out “weakened the traditional family structure, and in doing so, weakened Aboriginal society as a whole”. An entire generation was not taught about their Aboriginal culture , traditions, customs or values, and this played a major role in the shaping of their
The stolen generation is a scenario carry out by the Australian government to separate most aboriginal people’s families. The government was enforced take the light skinned aboriginal kids away from their guardians to learn the white people’s culture in the campus around the country and then send them back to their hometown and prohibit them join the white people’s society after they turn be an adult. The
The Stolen Generations refers to the forcible removal of Aboriginal, mostly those who were not full blooded taken between the 1830’s and the 1970’s. They were removed due to their mixed heritage, consisting of Indigenous mothers and European fathers. The Stolen Generations have had a damaging effect on the native owners of Australia, their culture, their identity and most importantly, their sense of belonging,
Residential schools undoubtedly created detrimental inter-generational consequences. The dark legacy of residential schools has had enduring impact, reaching into each new generation, and has led to countless problems within Aboriginal families including: chemical dependence, a cycle of abuse in families, dysfunctional families, crime and incarceration, depression, grief, suicide, and cultural identity issues (McFarlan, 2000, p. 13). Therefore, the inter-generational consequence...
Struggles by Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people for recognition of their rights and interests have been long and arduous (Choo & Hollobach 2003:5). The ‘watershed’ decision made by the High Court of Australia in 1992 (Mabo v Queensland) paved the way for Indigenous Australians to obtain what was ‘stolen’ from them in 1788 when the British ‘invaded’ (ATSIC:1988). The focus of legislation in the past w...
“Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human History. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished chapter in our nation’s history. 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” (apology by Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, 16th November 2009, Parliament House, Canberra.)
The dispossession of Indigenous Australians has been looked upon for many years. The colonisation by the British reduced the number of Indigenous people significantly; they reduce so much they are now only 2% of Australia’s population. Due to the colonisation this bought many diseases and sickness that Indigenous people had never been exposed to before. At the same time the lands the Indigenous owned were stolen by force, many were hurt but also driven away from their land. In 1992 it was recognised that the Indigenous people had rights to land, due to the connection of spiritual, religious and other obligations (Martin n.d.). Many Indigenous people still remain
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 years, this has only been expressed to the public recently and a proper apology has been issued, for the years of ignorance to the implementation of destruction of culture. The Stolen Generation has dramatically shaped Australian history and culture.
It is clear that many steps were taken to achieve the same rights and freedoms as the rest of Australia for the Aborigines especially since 1945. Major steps forward and setbacks included the Day of Mourning, the Aboriginal Protection Act, the Child Welfare Act, the ‘Freedom Ride’, the 1962 Electoral Act and the 1967 Referendum, the tent ‘Aboriginal Embassy’, the protest at Wave Hill, Frank Hardy’s project to find the ‘real Australia’, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam giving back 300 000 square kilometers of land, the Mabo decision in 1982, the Native Title Act, John Howard’s plan in 1996, and Kevin Rudd’s apology speech. Overall, there has been a long struggle for reconciliation. Indigenous Australians now have the same rights as other Australians, but social and economic equality are still to be improved.
Walker, Y. (n.d.). Aboriginal Family Issues. Retrieved November 19, 2013, from Australian Insitute of Family Studies.
Parbury (1999:64) states that Aboriginal education “cannot be separated” from the non-Aboriginal attitudes (racially based ethnocentricity that were especially British ie. white and Christian) towards Aborigines, their culture and their very existence. The Mission Schools are an early example of the connection between official education policies and key events in Aboriginal history. Aboriginal children were separated from their parents and placed into these schools which according to McGrath (as cited by Parbury, 1999:66) it was recommended that these establishments be located ‘as far as possible’ from non Aboriginal residents so as to minimize any heathen influence that Aboriginal children might be subject to from their parents. Mission Schools not only prepared Aboriginal youth for the manual labour market but also, adds Parbury (1999:67) their aim was‘to destroy Aboriginal culture and replace it with an Anglo-European work and faith ethic.’ Despite the NSW Public Instruction Act (1880) which made education free, secular and compulsory for all children Aboriginal children could be excluded from public schools based on prevailing dominant group attitudes. Consequently, the NSW Aborigines Protection Act (1909) was introduced as a result of a perceived public education crisis and Laws had already been passed, similar to protectionist type policies. This Act gave the State the power to remove Aboriginal children from their families whereby this period of time has become known as ‘Stolen Generations.’ It was during this time that Aboriginal children were segregated from mainstream schools. (Parbury, 1999; Lippman, 1994).
In 1909 the government created the Aboriginal Protection board. This government agency was given the power to remove Aboriginal minors from their families without consent and without a court order. The idea was to take aboriginal children to orphanage like institutions and have them brought up ...