Stolen Generations

[Music] I'm an Aboriginal of the dangui tribe of Eastern New South Wales as a fair skinned child I used to look in the mirror hoping that one day my freckles would join up and I would be a proper aborigin over the years I discovered how white authorities in Australia tried to make us go the other way towards whiteness how they attempted to systematically Wipe Out the Aboriginal race [Music] forever with [Music] my with my [Music] family I was taken away so it's my well removals began from the very beginning that is by individuals um right

back in the 1790s in New South Wales and the 1810s in Tasmania within 10 or 20 years of settlement there were Aboriginal children who in One Way or Another had been taken from their families and were living with with Europeans it didn't become really a government um process until the 20th century when of course it was much more serious on on a much larger scale governments had assumed that Aborigines were dying out that Evolution had dictated that they would eventually disappear the number of what they call full blooded abig was declining it appeared to be

proving their scientific theories it was true aboriginals were dying in great numbers but not because Evolution had determined it it was from gunshots poisoned water holes and diseases brought by the settlers the newspapers the Parliamentary Hans sards the Diaries which set out the Australian record plainly and clearly in black and white show Beyond doubt that most whites on the frontier were well aware that original people were being murdered in very large [Music] numbers this luxurious Melbourne home is a fairy tale come true for three Aboriginal girls from Melville Island 180 mi from Darwin Mr and

Mrs deutcher visited the island last year and adopted three aboriginies to bring up with their own three children Christine is four and for the first time in her life she has a mother and father 2-year-old Fay was rescued by a territory policeman who found her abandoned they've been cared for by the Methodist Mission and now they live in a 15 room Mansion Mr deutser says he believes it's possible to integrate aboriginals into white families Christine certainly seems to be proving that Mr deutser is right and said is Fay it's all so new to them and

they're still a little wide-eyed a long way from Melville Island but at last a home and the love and affection of a family of their own sleep tight children because you know the dreams do come true don't you how do you determine what is a good intention I mean there were certainly people who said particularly if they saw light colored children and said these children shouldn't be allowed to grop in the Aboriginal Camp they should be bought into white Society uh and and their level of civil Iz ation raised that that was the sort of

view there were also people who thought that the conditions in camps were bad and as they were I mean the the social medical conditions of many Aboriginal people was very very poor and so people thought well it's better if you take the children away they'll have a better life and many individuals adopted Aboriginal children on this assumption we can give them a better life so good intentions were there but behind that particularly in the 1930s and right through into the 1940s was this this quite deliberate plan to breed the aiges out Norman B tindal the

physical Anthropologist wrote The Theory of race in Australia and it looks like a stud book it looks like a breeding manual for Animals if you mix one full blood with one half cast equals a 3/4 cast one 3/4 cast mixed with one quadron equals one halfcast and that's published in a scholarly journal in an anthropological Journal Eugenics was an idea which was extremely important in most Western countries and the idea was that through breeding you would improve the race or the nation you would breed out bad characteristics with large scale plans that is you would

sterilize the unfit and that happened widely in many Western countries and in Australia it took the form of trying to breed out the [Music] color you like talking to church was part of our life on the mission you know weed to come to church every day when you small you don't really know you don't understand really like what they were doing so you know in a way we was happy to come here getting on the truck and coming you know for a long drive somewhere but we didn't know that that long drive going to last

for you know like this it end up you know for a lifetime really what made it hard was we had people controlling us all the time telling us this and that we didn't really have our own mind to speak what we wanted to say we had someone saying it for us or what you know but it wasn't us speaking when Daisy was 16 she married a man who was also on the mission other stolen children were afraid of falling in love their Aboriginal names had been replaced with English names they knew how easily they could

end up marrying their own brother or sister some didn't find out until it was too late after many years on the mission all of Daisy's links with her family had been lost I really feel for me you know I know she's my sister I really love her but it took so long for us to get together like that's the first time yesterday like we ever talked properly we never ever talk like that before so in all those years that's what I was missing out on