Protection
In the Stage 5 History course, the study of the changing rights and
freedoms of Aboriginal peoples is compulsory. In Aboriginal peoples,
you look at how state and federal government policies towards
Aboriginal peoples have changed over time and the impact of these
policies.
Can you recall what you have learnt during your previous years at school,
including Primary School and Stage 4, about the treatment of Aboriginal
peoples before Federation? Write down any notes if you wish.
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Some of the things you may have thought of are:
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dispossession of land and resources of Aboriginal peoples
•
fighting between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans
•
Aboriginal massacres, such as the Myall Creek Massacre in 1838
•
paternalism – the government acting like a ‘father figure’ to
Aboriginal peoples because they believed they knew what was right
and therefore controlled all aspects of Aboriginal peoples’ lives
•
government-run reserves
•
church-run missions
•
diseases, brought to Australia by Europeans, that killed thousands of
Aboriginal people.
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The policy of protection
At the time of Federation, individual state governments followed a policy
of ‘protection’ for Aboriginal peoples. In NSW, it started in 1883 when
the Aborigines Protection Board was set up.
From 1909, the Aborigines Protection Act (NSW) legislated that ‘the
Minister may exercise a general supervision and care over all Aboriginal
peoples and over all matters affecting the interests and welfare of
Aboriginal peoples’. All other states adopted similar paternalistic laws.
However, in ‘Aboriginal Peoples’, you will concentrate on NSW policy.
The Aborigines Protection Board’s policy for protecting Indigenous
Australians was that all Aboriginal peoples were to live on reserves. The
Board had three reasons for this policy – to protect Aboriginal peoples, to
ensure they lived separately from whites, and to ‘keep an eye on them’.
The Aborigines Protection Board wanted all Aboriginal peoples to live
on government reserves or church-run missions. As well as keeping
them segregated from white society, the Board thought they could
monitor the Aboriginal peoples’ activities and force their own European
culture on the Aboriginal population.
Reserves and missions
All states and the Northern Territory had reserves or missions where
Aboriginal peoples were expected to live. These reserves were generally
on the outskirts of towns, as the white population didn’t want the
Aboriginal peoples living too close. This fact made getting jobs difficult
for the Indigenous Australians.
By 1939, there were over 180 reserves in NSW. As you can see in the
following photograph, these reserves were similar to the shanty towns
occupied by the unemployed during the Depression. The difference was
that the unemployed were forced to live in shantytowns because of
financial hardship. Aboriginal peoples were forced to live on reserves
because of the colour of their skin.
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Changing Rights and Freedoms
Photo of housing on an Aboriginal reserve in Wellington NSW, about 1930
Source
Archives Authority of NSW
Does this remind you of any photographs you saw while studying the
Great Depression?
Life on a reserve
A government-appointed manager, who received government funding,
ran each reserve. The manager had total control over the lives of the
Aboriginal peoples living there.
The reserve managers had the right to:
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search Aboriginal peoples, their homes and confiscate property
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read any mail addressed to Aboriginal peoples
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order medical inspections
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send people to other reserves, thereby breaking up families
•
order Aboriginal peoples to work at the reserve for no pay
•
force children to sleep in dormitories away from their family.
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Life on a reserve was very strict. Some of the rules Aboriginal peoples
had to obey included:
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they were not allowed to speak their own language. They had to
speak English
•
traditional ceremonies were forbidden
•
Aboriginal peoples were forced to wear European-style clothing and
attend church
•
Aboriginal peoples were not allowed to marry without the reserve
manager’s permission
•
Aboriginal peoples were not permitted to leave or have visitors
without the manager’s permission.
Activity 1
Answer the question based on the reserve rules for Aboriginal peoples.
How were these rules paternalistic? (Hint: you may need to look up the
word ‘paternalism’ in the glossary)
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Check your response by going to the suggested answers section.
Missions were run similarly to reserves but had a Christian missionary in
charge. This meant that there was a greater emphasis placed on attending
church. Often Aboriginal people were made to attend church every day.
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Changing Rights and Freedoms
Why did Aboriginal peoples need
protection?
There were several massacres of Aboriginal peoples and random killings
by white settlers during the nineteenth century.
These killings did not stop when the six colonies became the Federation
of Australia in the twentieth century. During the 1920s there were
several more massacres.
Coniston Station massacre
The 1928 massacre on Coniston Station in Central Australia caused great
alarm within the Aboriginal community and the missionaries who were
living with them.
A group of Aboriginal men killed Frederick Brooks, a local white dingo
trapper because he had kidnapped and abused some Indigenous Walbiri
women.
A mounted policeman, Constable Murray, and six other white men set
out to find and arrest Brooks’ murderers. They hunted the district killing
many Aboriginal men, women and children. Eventually they arrested
two Aboriginal men for the murder of Brooks.
There was a great outcry from the missionaries about the killing of so
many Aboriginal people. Following the trial, where both Aboriginal men
were acquitted, there were even more protests. The government decided
to hold an official inquiry into the incident in 1929.
The inquiry consisted of two police inspectors and a government
representative. There were no missionaries or Aboriginal people at the
inquiry. The inquiry found Constable Murray and his group had killed 31
Aboriginal people but they had acted in self-defence.
The level of public anger to the inquiry’s findings was greater than after
the Myall Creek Massacre nearly a century earlier. But there was still a
fairly disinterested reaction from much of Australia’s white population to
the verdict.
Although the official inquiry found 31 Aboriginal people had been killed,
many historians believe the real number of Aboriginal men, women and
children who were killed could be as many as 100.
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Protest movements
The so-called ‘protection’ of Aboriginal peoples was not working, as the
Coniston Massacre showed. The continual poor treatment of Aboriginal
peoples resulted in the formation of groups who protested against the
paternalistic practices of the government.
The Australian Aboriginal League
One group set up to protest against the difficulties faced by Aboriginal
peoples was the Australian Aboriginal League (AAL). It was formed in
Melbourne in 1932 by William Cooper. The purpose of the AAL was to
draw attention to the difficulties faced by Indigenous Australians and the
many injustices they faced.
In 1935 the AAL called on the Federal Government to:
•
allow Aboriginal representation in parliament
•
establish a National Department of Native Affairs and state advisory
councils for Aboriginal interests.
Activity 2
Answer the following question.
Why would the AAL want a National Department of Aboriginal Affairs?
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Check your response by going to the suggested answers section.
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Changing Rights and Freedoms
Although there were debates in Parliament, there was no action on the
AAL’s call for federal control over Aboriginal affairs or Aboriginal
representation in parliament. In October 1937, Cooper presented a
petition protesting to the Federal Government about Aboriginal hardship
and asked that the petition be delivered to King George V. The
government declared the petition unconstitutional on the grounds that
Aboriginal peoples were not Australian citizens.
After the government’s refusal to send the petition, Cooper called a
meeting to discuss further ways of protesting. He suggested holding a
Day of Mourning on Australia Day 1938, to publicise the grievances of
Indigenous Australians.
Cooper and others believed that instead of celebrating the 150th
anniversary of white settlement, they should be mourning the loss of
traditional Aboriginal society.
The Aboriginal Progressive Association
Prior to the AAL’s formation, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive
Association had been set up in Sydney. It met from 1924 until 1927, but
after continued harassment from the police, it stopped meeting.
In 1937, William Ferguson, an Aboriginal shearer, called a public
meeting in Dubbo to re establish the Aboriginal Progressive Association
(APA).
The main aims of the APA were to obtain:
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full citizenship rights for Aboriginal peoples
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Aboriginal representation in Parliament
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the abolition of the Aboriginal Protection Board.
Why do you think the APA wanted to abolish the Aboriginal Protection
Board?
By the end of 1937, the Aboriginal community was becoming organised
and demanding political rights and equality. The AAL and APA
together planned a national Day of Mourning.
Go to the exercises section and complete Exercises 2.1 to 2.3 as directed
by your teacher.
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