The "Stolen Generation" happened from about 1869 to 1969. Roughly 100 years, although some children were still being taken in the 1970's. "Stolen Generation" is a term used to describe the children that were taken from there families between this time. At least 100,000 aboriginal children were taken from their families in this time, although this number may be a lot higher. Poor record keeping, changes to department and the loss of records make it almost impossible to trace any connections between parents, family or the amount of children taken. The children that were taken where mainly up to the age of 16, although some where taken up to the age of 21.
These children where then taken from their country, sometimes overseas and were placed into half caste institutions, used as guides, servants and for farm labour. Aboriginal girls in particular where taken to homes that were established by the Aboriginal Protection Board to be trained as domestic servants. Most were raised in these places after they were taken from their parents although some were adopted or fostered by white parents. Many of these children suffered physical or sexual abuse, occasionally both. Food and living conditions were poor and the children had little education and were expected to go into low grade domestic or farm work.
These children were taken because it was a federal and state government policy to remove them from their parents, especially those of mixed decent. This was mainly to assimilate the Aborigines over one or two generations. There was rarely any judicial process for this, and laws were introduced to control their movements and ability to work and associate freely, making the white assimilators job easier. In 1886, the Aborigines Protection Act deemed all "half castes" living with Aborigines to be natives.
The results this had on Aborigines:
- Grown up in a hostile environment
- No family ties or cultural identity
- Suffered: Insecurity, lack of self esteem, feelings of worthlessness, inability to trust, depression, abuse of alcohol and drugs, violence and suicide
- Difficulty raising children lack of parental control
These effects have had a huge impact of the Aboriginal community, and a national enquiry was set up in 1995. Its 1997 report "Bringing them Home" contained disturbing evidence. The report contains research on the history of the laws, practices and policies of the forcible removal of children, the consequences of removal, reparation and services for those affected. Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, made a formal apology to the Aboriginal people, which was widely applauded by Aborigines and non-indigenous people alike. This has had a great effect on the Australian public, although it was stated that NO compensation fund would be initiated. Without the compensation, the aborigines have less of a chance to rebuild their previous society. This will have a huge impact on rebuilding their race.
In conclusion, the Aborigines have been through a harrowing ordeal, more than almost any other culture on earth. The laws that were put in place tore the whole aborigine way of life apart and stole their land from them.
Nanna Nungala Fejo was born in the late 1920s.
She remembers her earliest childhood days living with her family and her community in a bush camp just outside Tennant Creek.
She remembers the love and the warmth and the kinship of those days long ago, including traditional dancing around the camp fire at night.
She loved the dancing. She remembers once getting into strife when, as a four-year-old girl, she insisted on dancing with the male tribal elders rather than just sitting and watching the men, as the girls were supposed to do. But then, sometime around 1932, when she was about four, she remembers the coming of the welfare men. Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide. What they had not expected was that the white welfare men did not come alone. They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman on horseback cracking his stock whip. The kids were found; they ran for their mothers, screaming, but they could not get away. They were herded and piled onto the back of the truck. Tears flowing, her mum tried clinging to the sides of the truck as her children were taken away to the Bungalow in Alice, all in the name of protection.
A few years later, government policy changed. Now the children would be handed over to the missions to be cared for by the churches. But which church would care for them? The kids were simply told to line up in three lines. Nanna Fejo and her sister stood in the middle line, her older brother and cousin on her left. Those on the left were told that they had become Catholics, those in the middle Methodists and those on the right Church of England.
It was as crude as that.
She and her sister were sent to a Methodist mission on Goulburn Island and then Croker Island. Her Catholic brother was sent to work at a cattle station and her cousin to a Catholic mission.
Nanna Fejo's family had been broken up for a second time. She stayed at the mission until after the war, when she was allowed to leave for a prearranged job in Darwin. She was 16. Nanna Fejo never saw her mum again. After she left the mission, her brother let her know that her mum had died years before, a broken woman fretting for the children that had literally been ripped away from her.
The stockman had found her again decades later, this time himself to say, sorry. And remarkably, extraordinarily, she had forgiven him.
