Aboriginal Children

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Aboriginal children was removed from their family because of the policies in European colonisation. The Deserted Wives and Children Maintenance Act in 1863, and The Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act in 1865 were the policies that stimulated the removal of Aboriginal children. This essay will show the motivation of government and society, and discuss how these policies were utilized to reform their culture. In fact, negative influences of these history still can be seen today, such as the identity and culture lost, juvenile crimes and mental illness.
To begin with, the concept of children removal was started from Britain. In nineteenth century, the value of “child saving” in Britain was strong, as they believed that young offenders was …show more content…
During the European colonisation, Aboriginal children was labelled as the “problem population’ by the government; therefore, policies were utilized to reform their culture (Shirleene 2010, p. 61). While white children were considered as an innocence generation, the Aboriginal children were defined as ‘savage’ and ‘vice’ (Shirleene 2013 p.305). In addition, the government believed that the Aboriginal culture and identity were barriers in the ‘normal’ part of the European-Australian society; therefore, the Aboriginal children should be ‘rescued’ and ‘transformed’ (Robert 1999, p. 298). In 1814, this motivation caused the first reform scheme in New South Wales. The government established an institution to train the Aboriginal children in menial tasks. Although it failed after nine years, the assumption of training Aboriginal children was built in the country (Haebich 2000, p. 150). During the time, the values of government has greatly influenced the society. In 1840, the Australian Sydney newspaper expressed that the training was good for the Aboriginal children, because they could be prepared in the Australian society (Shirleene 2013 p.306). Meanwhile, a journal in Western Australian reported that an aboriginal children named John Bungaree was a good example. He achieved an outstanding academic result, because of the training and civilisation (Keith …show more content…
Social identity is established from the national acceptance and tradition (Weedon 2004, p. 24). However, in the early twentieth century, the government did not count Aboriginals as Australian people who had citizenship rights in the society (Gardiner-Garden 2000). For instance, at that time, the David Berry Hospital was the only hospital could accept Aboriginal people (Colyer & Sullivan 2004, p. 8). Therefore, people argued that the Aboriginals social identity was unrecognized, but associated with social discrimination and stereotypes (Clarke 2000, p. 152). Furthermore, many Aboriginal people lived in urban because of the removal history; therefore, their native cultures was lost, such as languages and traditions (Grant 2002, p. 52). Currently, many Aboriginals’ descent were mixed regarding their history, and it caused confuses of self-identity. A study revealed that 100% of the Aboriginal children with mixed descent have been questioned about their identity, and 75% of them has denied or felt confused (Foley 2000, p. 46). Other findings revealed that the Nyungah people, one of the Aboriginals in Western Australia, were directly recognized them as white people, because they wanted to avoid onerous explanation (Boladeras 2002). A research which explored identities and cultures among Aboriginal participants by interviewing, participants expressed that the colonial history, racism experiences and
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