Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Definition
Aboriginal Australians needed to be separated from white Australians and
protected for their own good.
Time Period
1800s 1930s
Aims of the
To separate Aboriginals from white people, and to put them in missions or
policy
reserves to be protected.
Ideas guiding
Aboriginal people were a dying race, expected to die out soon as they had not
the policy
evolved as much as white people and were inferior.
Legislation
As this policy was predominantly in place before federation, most of the
introduced
legislation introduced was different for the states. Even once we became one
under the
nation, it took a while until Aboriginal laws were passed nationally.
policy
NSW: 1881 Protector appointed, 1909 Aborigines Protection Act
Vic: 1869 Aborigines Protection Act, 1886 Aborigines Protection Act
SA: 1836 Protector appointed, 1856 Protector abolished, 1893 Fisheries
Amendment Act, 1895 Opium Act, 1909 Licensing Act, 1911 Aborigines Act,
1915 Crown Lands Act
Qld: 1897 Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1904
Torres Strait Islanders under same legislation as Aborigines
WA: 1905 Aborigines Act
NT: 1910 Aborigines Act
Why was it
This was the first of the four major policies towards Aboriginals; before the
introduced? ie: policy of protection they were not regarded at all by white people. The
What factors
government partly brought in the policy as they didnt know what to do with the
made the
indigenous peoples and they were generally getting in the way of European
government
settlement and development. The belief in Social Darwinism and that Aboriginals
change the
really were inferior as they had not evolved the way Europeans had and were less
policy from the civilised was also very popular at the time, and this affected the governments
previous one?
policy.
What happened Aboriginal people were moved into missions or reserves, run either by the
to the
government or by churches. Many were removed from traditional lands and
Aboriginal
separated from their families and communities. This separated from the two
people under
fundamental parts of Aboriginal culture: a close tie to the land and importance of
the policy?
kinship and closeness to families. Protectionism was a policy of segregation, so
the discrimination against Aboriginal people only heightened. Those who werent
deported to missions ended up living in small isolated communities where they
had no right to vote, receive a wage, a pension or any other privilege white people
had. In this era what is now known as the Stolen Generations, ie the removal of
half-blood Aboriginal children from their tribal areas, was also common. In many
instances the government thought they were doing the right thing by the children,
and some half-blood children were seen as out of place in their indigenous
groups.
What was the
The policy of protectionism impacted general society as well as Aboriginal
impact of the
people: normal white people discriminated against indigenous groups more than
policy?
they had previously. They were also able to take advantage of these people in
many ways, including underpaying them and sexual abuse. These Aboriginals
were hard-working, dirt cheap to hire and knew how to look after the land and
many lazy land-owners took advantage of this.