Half-Caste Act
Half-Caste Act was the common name given to
The various related Acts allowed the seizure of "
The removed children are now known as the Stolen Generations.
These Acts were a major impetus for a 1967 referendum question. Some of the controls first created by the Acts remained in place until the early 1970s.
Victoria
The Victorian Half-Caste Act 1886 (in full, an Act to amend an Act entitled "An Act to Provide for the Protection and Management of the Aboriginal Natives of Victoria") was an extension and expansion of the Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 which gave extensive powers over the lives of Aboriginal people in the colony of Victoria to the Board for the Protection of Aborigines, including regulation of residence, employment, custody of children and marriage.[8][9]
The 1886 Act enabled the expulsion of Aboriginal people of mixed descent ("half-castes") aged from eight to 34 from the Aboriginal reserves. This was intended to incorporate them into mainstream European society. These expulsions separated families and communities, causing distress and leading to protests. The expulsions and other policies led to a decline in the population of the reserves, and for much of their land to be sold or leased to European settlers. By 1926 all Victorian Aboriginal reserves had been closed except for Lake Tyers in Gippsland which had a population of about 250.[10]
Western Australia
The Western Australian Aboriginal Protection Board was established in 1886, with five members and a secretary, all of whom were nominated by the Governor, by the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (WA), or Half-Caste Act.
The 1886 Act was enacted following the furor over the Fairbairn Report of 1882, which revealed
The effect of the Act was to give increasing power to the Board over Aboriginal people, rather than setting up a system to punish whites for wrongdoing in relation to Aboriginal people. An Aboriginal Department was set up under the office of the Chief Protector of Aborigines. Nearly half of the Legislative Council voted to amend the Act for contract labor as low as 10, but it was defeated. McKenzie Grant, the member for The North, claimed that child labor of 6 or 7 was a necessary commonplace, as "in this way they gradually become domesticated". The Attorney General Septimus Burt, in the debate on the second-reading speech, claimed that contracts were being issued not for current work but to hold Aboriginal people as slaves on stations for potential future work to prevent them from being free to leave.
Aboriginal Protection Boards
As the Boards had limited funds, Protectors received very limited remuneration and so a range of people were appointed as local Protectors, including resident magistrates, jail wardens, Justices of the Peace and in some cases ministers of religion, but most were local police inspectors. The minutes of the Board show that they dealt with mostly matters of requests from religious bodies for financial relief and reports from Resident or Police Magistrates pertaining to trials and convictions of Aboriginal people under their jurisdiction.[citation needed]
Aboriginal Protection Boards also issued permits to allow Aboriginal people the right to leave their respective
See also
- Aboriginal history of Western Australia
- History of Indigenous Australians
- History of Western Australia
- Indian Act (Canada)
- Stolen Generations
- Detraditionalization
- Detribalization
References
- ^ "Glossary". abc.net.au. Retrieved 1 September 2009.
- ^ Kenneth Liberman. The Decline of the Kuwarra People of Australia's Western Desert: A Case Study of Legally Secured Domination. Ethnohistory, Vol. 27, No. 2. (Spring, 1980), pp. 119-133. See page 121 in particular.
- ^ Memidex/WordNet
- ^ "Aboriginal timeline (1900 - 1969)". Creative Spirits NGO. Archived from the original on 14 August 2012. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
- PMID 15260027.
- S2CID 217537998.
- ^ "A White Australia". Australians Together. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ "Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 (Vic)". Documenting a Democracy. Museum of Australian Democracy. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
- ^ "Aboriginal people and the law". Acts and regulations Victoria. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
- ISBN 9781760528218.
Online resources
- "Ngankat-Kalo: Aboriginal Education 1901-2001". Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc. (VAEAI).
- Mission Voices: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Koorie Heritage Trust Inc.
Further reading
- A. Grenfell Price. "Australian Native Policy: A Review". Geographical Review, Vol. 34, No. 3. (July 1944), pp. 476–478. Reviewing:
- Edmund J. B. Foxcroft. Australian Native Policy: Its History, Especially in Victoria
- Paul Hasluck. Black Australians: A Survey of Native Policy in Western Australia, 1829–1897
- Norman B. Tindale. Survey of the Half-Caste Problem in South Australia (The Results of the Harvard-Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, 1938–9)