The Stolen Generation Essay

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THE STOLEN GENERATION
• Forcible removal of the indigenous children from their family
• Policy of assimilation
• Based on the assumption of black inferiority to white superiority
• Taken from their parents
• Taught to reject their indigenous culture
• Forced to adopt white culture
• Names were often changed
• Forbidden to speak their traditional language
• Placed in institutions
• Abuse and neglect were common
• Policies focused on children
• Considered more adaptable to white society than indigenous adults
• Half caste children were vulnerable to removal
• Thought they could be assimilated easily due to their white complexion
• white society refused to accept the indigenous people as equals

1967 REFERENDUM:
• 90% of all Australians voted …show more content…

• “The Parliament will have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:”
• “The people of any race, other than the aboriginal people in any State, for whom it is necessary to make special laws.”
• Section 127
• “In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives should not be counted.”
• People widely believed
- Aboriginal people were dying out
- Indigenous people were not intellectually worth of a place in the political system
- “there is no scientific evidence that he is a human being at all” – Tasmanian MP
• Whole of section 127 was removed following the referendum
• The words “other than the aboriginal people in any state” was removed from section 51
• Allowed the indigenous to be included in the census
• Federal parliament the power to make laws regarding the indigenous population
• Previously, laws for indigenous was job of state
• Laws varied greatly from state to state
• Indigenous in NSW and SA were the only states allowed to own property
• Lead to better conditions for the indigenous people
NATIVE TITLE MABO
• Momentous legal case
• Acknowledged the history of indigenous dispossession of Australia
• Abolished the legal fiction of terra

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