by Tara Rijon

Created on: January 28, 2010

Imagine that there is a knock at your door. You go to answer it and find a government employee standing on the other side, their only intent to take away your children. As members of a free society, it is hard to imagine a government that would take away your children because of your social standing, but that's exactly what Australia did. In an effort to rid their country of the dark skinned Aborigines, they stole their children and placed them with white families, intent on “breeding the color out of them.”

The origin of the Aborigines date back to the last Ice Age, and the word “aboriginal” actually means first or earliest. They are believed to be among the first to travel the landbridge from Indonesia and settle in Australia some 70,000 years ago. They inhabited the entire continent of Australia at one time, but all that changed with the arrival of the European settlers in 1788. On June 10th of that year, seven of settlers tortured and killed twenty-eight men, women and children of an Aborigines tribe. This would later come to be known as the Myall Creek Massacre.

The men responsible for the senseless killings were eventually tried and executed for their crimes, but it did not alleviate the racism that existed among the remaining Australians. In 1897 parliament passed the Aboriginal Protection Act for the intended purpose of protecting the Aborigines. It stated that the Aborigines Department be “charged with the duty of promoting the welfare of the Aboriginal natives, providing them with food and clothing when they would otherwise be destitute; providing for the education of Aboriginal children (including half-castes), and in generally assisting in the preservation and well-being of the Aboriginal people.” Protectors of Aborigines were selected and they succeeded in controlling every aspect of the the Aborigines lives, including where they could live and who they could marry. It also allowed the Chief Protector the right over all of the children, leaving the parents with no rights at all.

Seen as a benevolent act at the time, approximately 100,000 Aboriginal children were stolen from their families by the state between the 1800's and 1970 and placed in institutions or foster care. Some were taken by deception, their parents being told that they would be attending a camp or a day activity, only not to be returned. Others merely disappeared from the areas in which they were playing or while on their way to and from school.

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