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How the stolen generation changed today
How the stolen generation changed today
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The Stolen Generation The theory of Social Darwinism led Europeans to believing that indigenous people would inevitably ‘die out’. This lead to atrocious treatment being inflicted on the indigenous people. Firstly, European settlers would drive indigenous people off their land and make them live in squalor on reserves on the fringes of their newly built towns. Whilst at the mercy of the people running the reserves, indigenous people were forbidden from speaking their language or practise any of their cultural traditions. They would also remove indigenous children of mixed heritage from their families and communities. These children were then placed in orphanages, government institutions and Christian missions. In these places, children were
given very little affection, attention or education. Many left these places illiterate as adults. They were trained for menial jobs such as labours and domestic servants, in which they were usually paid little or no wages for. Many children also suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse whist in ‘care’. Like the people on reservations, these children were forbidden to practise any of their cultural traditions. White Australians argued that these children of mixed heritage had to be taken away from their dying civilisation in order to be assimilated into white Australian community. Thus these children were robbed of their identity as well as their family and community. For this reason these children are commonly referred to as the Stolen Generation.
The first step in legitimizing the take over of an indigenous person was to make them less human. In Stannard's article he says the way that this was achieved was by a ""blotting out of knowledge" of native people or the making of them into "people without history." Once the natives have thus been banished from collective memory, at least as people of numerical and cultural consequence, the settler group's moral and intellectual right to conquest is claimed to be established without question." (Stannard, 382) "The fact that indigenous societies had their own system of order was dismissed...they were not fully human, they were not civilized enough to have systems, they were not literate, and their languages and modes of thought were inadequate." (Smith, 28)
Throughout history, there has been a continuous movement of people, including European settlers and aboriginal tribes. The movement of these two groups of people has assisted in shaping and refining the world as we know it today. With each moving experience these groups of people had their own set of challenges and various difficult aspects present at various times throughout their journey. Whether they faced a foreign language upon arrival, or the difficulty with navigating a new place, challenges became their norm. A specific movement of people would be the Europeans arriving in Atlantic Canada and having contact with various aboriginal tribes. During the fifteenth century, the Europeans set out to find new land, natural resources and spices. The Europeans had contact with one particular group of aboriginals known as the Beothuk, who resided in Newfoundland. The relationship with this tribe and the European settlers was like no other. The conflict between these two groups was quite evident and caused trouble between the Beothuk and Micmac as well. The Beothuk tribe no longer exist. There are various reasons why researchers and historians believe this tribe has disappeared,one of which would be their way of life. The disappearance of this tribe has provoked a great
Until the 16th century, Aboriginal people were the only inhabitants of what is now Canada, hence, they were an independent and self-governing people till the Europeans had the capacity to dominate Canada's original inhabitants and possessors (Elias 1). The European Invasion brought about The 1876 Indian Act, which was developed over time through separate pieces of colonial legislation regarding Aboriginal peoples across Canada such as the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869. In 1876, these acts were consolidated as the Indian Act (Hanson). This essay aims to explain how the Indian Act tried to destroy the Aboriginal culture through residential schools and unequal recognition of women, successive acts,
First, is because of the attitudes of European Canadians towards aboriginals, which were mostly cruel and inhumane. This was simply because the aboriginals lived a completely different lifestyle compared to European Canadians. Evidence to support this was the statement written by Duncan Campbell Scott, who used to be head of Indian Affairs in Canada
The beginnings of colonialism, allowed Europeans to travel the world and meet different kinds of people. Their first encounter with the New World and these new peoples, created the opening ideas of inequality. These new people were called indigenous people and alien like. Europeans began to question if these people were really human and had the same intellectual capacity as Europeans did. “Alternative ideas about the origins and identities of indigenous peoples also began to appear early in the 16th century...
Under the Protectionism policy, the protector would order soldiers/police to go into settlements and remove any child who, quite clearly had lighter skin. These children were sent to missions or churches which often treated them cruelly, starved them, and generally turned them into slaves. Unfortunately, Europeans truly believed that the Aboriginals were an inferior race. They had no churches or kept records, to them tradition was passed down orally and land boundaries were simply a part of nature. For this reason, Europeans often felt that they were doing the Indigenous a favour by making all of the decisions.
As European domination began, the way in which the European’s chose to deal with the Aborigines was through the policy of segregation. This policy included the establishment of a reserve system. The government reserves were set up to take aboriginals out of their known habitat and culture, while in turn, encouraging them to adapt the European way of life. The Aboriginal Protection Act of 1909 established strict controls for aborigines living on the reserves . In exchange for food, shelter and a little education, aborigines were subjected to the discipline of police and reserve managers. They had to follow the rules of the reserve and tolerate searchers of their homes and themselves. Their children could be taken away at any time and ‘apprenticed” out as cheap labour for Europeans. “The old ways of the Aborigines were attacked by regimented efforts to make them European” . Their identities were threatened by giving them European names and clothes, and by removing them from their tra...
“To kill the Indian in the child,” was the prime objective of residential schools (“About the Commission”). With the establishment of residential schools in the 1880s, attending these educational facilities used to be an option (Miller, “Residential Schools”). However, it was not until the government’s time consuming attempts of annihilating the Aboriginal Canadians that, in 1920, residential schools became the new solution to the “Indian problem.” (PMC) From 1920 to 1996, around one hundred fifty thousand Aboriginal Canadians were forcibly removed from their homes to attend residential schools (CBC News). Aboriginal children were isolated from their parents and their communities to rid them of any cultural influence (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Parents who refrained from sending their children to these educational facilities faced the consequence of being arrested (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Upon the Aboriginal children’s arrival into the residential schools, they were stripped of their culture in the government’s attempt to assimilate these children into the predominately white religion, Christianity, and to transition them into the moderating society (Miller, “Residential Schools”). With the closing of residential schools in 1996, these educational facilities left Aboriginal Canadians with lasting negative intergenerational impacts (Miller, “Residential Schools”). The Aboriginals lost their identity, are affected economically, and suffer socially from their experiences.
Major settlements occurred after the nineteenth century. The British had quickly out-numbered the Aboriginal community, leaving them powerless to the changes or the invasion. The belief systems of the Europeans overpowered the aboriginal’s way of life, pressuring them to conform to the...
After colonization began there were countless detrimental changes to the indigenous way of life that took place. Neu (2000) discusses these detrimental changes in detail. The author accounts for the lost of their land and natural environment, the discouragement of their lifestyle focused on hunting and gathering, the separation of families via the residential school system, and the punishment received for the usage of traditional customs and language. In many ways the colonists disrespected the Aboriginal people by disregarding their fundamental needs and wants. Additionally, the process of colonization implemented some drastic gender role changes into Aboriginal culture. Colonization imposed European patriarchy, accompanied by racism and sexism, on the matriarchal Aboriginal cultures. As a result, the Aboriginal women of Canada lost their sense of purpose and responsibility, burdening them with less respect and power compared to the men. This loss contributed to many negative effects for these women and made them feel a strong sense of cultural estrangement.
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
Indigenous Australians began to be robbed of their rights and freedoms when the Europeans colonized Australia. Since then, Aboriginal people and Indigenous supporters have taken steps towards equality and reconciliation.
The European colonial expansion not only stole the land, but the lifestyle of the indigenous people. The natives were enslaved, robbed, and killed for the reason of exploitation. Those under colonial conquest would be given the social expectations of their rulers. They were to obey the larger power which deemed them inferior and benighted as they were vastly difference in behavior. Native lifestyle is simplistic and not nearly as stressful as its European counterpart. It is focused on doing what is necessary to survive. Diderot documents his interpretation of a native as rejecting all the superfluous knowledge and ways of the Europeans. The manner in which the natives were treated is abhorrent, they were dehumanized, enslaved, and exploited.
Since the British settled in Australia, Indigenous Australians have had cultural conflict. The Europeans believed that Aboriginal people were lower than the settlers and that their culture was more primitive to the culture of the British settlers. An example of this is how the Aboriginal people had a very strong spiritual connection to the land. Land could not be owned by a single person but had to be looked after by all of the community. When British settlers saw that the land had no fences they took the land for themselves to be used for farming. Many Aboriginals were losing their land. It made it worse when the Aboriginal believed that to make it fair the Europeans shared their products made from the farm. The Aboriginals then took food from the farm without consulting the British which resulted in violent conflicts between the two. Over time the government began to give the Aboriginals more rights, although still not many. They were given a certain amount of land but were not allowed to leave without permission.
Colonialism is not the only factor in the oppression of the rights and freedoms of the Indigenous peoples. It is also the bills and laws that have or attempted to have been passed by the government of Canada; effectively removing Indigenous communities from their deserved lands, in an attempt to further advance the non – Indigenous populations development in Canada.