Aboriginal Spirituality; Stolen Generation
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- Tim Winton's Cloudstreet - was to "make ladies of them." These unhappy indigenous Australians later became known...
Submitted by freefortermpapers on 06/24/2008 03:00 PM
- Category: Social Issues
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Aboriginal Spirituality; Stolen Generation
Aboriginal spirituality: Stolen Children' by Kerrianne Cox
From the late nineteenth-century to the late 1960s, Australian governments, as a practice and as a policy, removed tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their parents under a government policy of assimilation, these stolen children were known as the "Stolen Generation" or "People of the Bleaching." Most were raised in Church or state institutions. Some were fostered or adopted by white parents. Many suffered physical and sexual abuse. Food and living conditions were poor; they received little education, and were expected to go into low grade domestic and farming work. This repugnant cruelty was tied to high-minded ideals of the worst kind. In the thirties, the government passed a law for the protection of aboriginals, which meant that "half-caste" children could be forcefully taken from their mothers and given to white families, who would provide a "better" life for them. Although racist to its core, the law was designed to "protect the natives against themselves" and offer a privileged alternative to those who would otherwise have had to live like bush rats. There was also the matter of "the unwanted third race", which, it was believed, it could be bred out in three generations. The unwanted third race was the half-caste and what needed to be bred out was "black blood."
Children as young as a few hours old were taken to live in camps or orphanages so they would grow up in the white culture and eventually marry whites. In this way their aboriginal blood would be diluted over time, and eventually bred out. The separation of children from their families took three main forms, they were either put into government or church run institutions, adopted, or fostered into white European families. Life was harsh, and they were to, look white act white think white.' Children who were part aboriginal descent were referred to as half-castes'.
The main motive was to assimilate'...
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