Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
The histories we trace are complex and pervasive. The actions of the past resonate in the present, and will continue to do so in the future. This time line provides a brief outline of the laws, practices and policies of forcible removal and some of the context in which they were developed.
45 000 years ago Rock engravings made in South Australia. The earliest dated petroglyphs.
1451 Dutch documents record the journeys of Macassan trepangers to northern Australia. From 1588 Macassan praus sail to the north-eastern coast of the Northern Territory. Trade between Aborigines and the Macassans continues until 1906.
1770 Lieutenant James Cook claims possession of the whole east coast of Australia. Cook raises the British flag at Possession Island off the tip of Cape York Peninsula.
1788 British occupation of Australia begins. Aboriginal resistance is immediate. Clashes are reported over next 10 years in Parramatta and Hawkesbury districts.
1814 Governor Macquarie's `Native Institution' opens at Parramatta. This school for Koori children closes in 1820 when Koori families withdraw their children. They realise its aim is to distance them from their families and communities.
1824 In Tasmania, settlers are authorised to shoot Aborigines. Martial law is declared in Bathurst NSW after conflict with Aborigines becomes a serious threat to white settlement.
1830 Tasmanian Aboriginal are people forcibly settled on Flinders Island. Conditions are appalling and many die. Later the community is moved to Cape Barren Island.
1834 Pinjarra massacre, WA. Governor Stirling leads 25 mounted police against Aborigines. Official records say 14 Aboriginal people are killed. Aboriginal accounts suggest a tribe is wiped out in the attack.
1837 British Select Committee examines the treatment of Indigenous people in all British colonies. Australian colonies are particularly criticised. Recommendation that Protectors of Aborigines be appointed.
1838 Myall Creek massacre, NSW. Near Inverell settlers shoot and burn 28 Aborigines, mostly women and children. The first massacre of Aborigines in Australian history where offenders are punished under Australian law.
1860 Victorian Central Board appointed to watch over the interests of Aborigines. In 1869, it is replaced by the Board for the Protection of Aborigines. The Governor can order the removal of any child to a reformatory or industrial school. The Protection Board can remove children from station families to be housed in dormitories. From 1886 the Victorian Board is empowered to apprentice Koori children when they reach 13. Children require permission to visit their families on the stations. The Protection Board is replaced by the Welfare Board in 1957. The Welfare Board is abolished in 1967.
1883 NSW Aborigines Protection Board established. In 1915 the Board is empowered to remove and apprentice Koori children without a court hearing. This power is repealed in 1940. The Board is then renamed the Aborigines Welfare Board. The Board is abolished in 1969.
1897 Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act (Qld). The Chief Protector can remove Murri people onto and between reserves and hold children in dormitories. From 1939 until 1971 this power is held by the Director of Native Welfare and the Director is the legal guardian of all `aboriginal' children (as defined), whether or not their parents are living, until 1965.
1905 Aborigines Act (WA). The Chief Protector is made the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and `half-caste' child under 16. I would not hesitate for one moment to separate any half-caste from its aboriginal mother, no matter how frantic her momentary grief might be at the time. They soon forget their offspring -- Travelling inspector, James Isdell.
1911 Aborigines Act (SA). The Chief Protector is made the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and `half-caste' child under 21 with control over the child's place of residence. The Chief Protector is replaced by the Aborigines Protection Board in 1939. Guardianship power is repealed in 1962. We have been for nearly a century under a Chief Protector. Some of the men who have held that office have acted as `protector' of the Government. -- David Unaipon, 1936.
Northern Territory Aboriginals Ordinance (Cth). The Chief Protector is made the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and `half-caste' child under 18. Any Aboriginal person can be forced into a mission or settlement and children can be removed at will. These powers are repealed in 1957.
Children are removed from the evil influence of the aboriginal camp with its lack of moral training and its risk of serious organic infectious disease. They are properly fed, clothed and educated as white children, they are subjected to constant medical supervision and in receipt of domestic and vocational training -- Chief Protector Cook.
The porridge, cooked the day before, already was sour and roped from the mould in it, and when doused with the thin milk, gave up the corpses of weevils by the score. The bread was even worse, stringy grey wrapped about congealed glue, the whole cased in charcoal -- Xavier Herbert, Acting Superintendent of the Darwin Half-Caste Home.
1925 Australian Aborigines Progressive Association formed in NSW.
The family life of Aboriginal people shall be held sacred and free from invasion and interference and ... the children shall be left in the control of their parents -- Fred Maynard, AAPA member, to the Premier, 1927.
1928 Coniston Massacre, NT. Settlers and police admit to shooting 31 Aborigines after a white dingo trapper is killed.
1937 First Commonwealth-State conference on `native welfare' adopts `assimilation' as the national policy: `the destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption ... with a view to their taking their place in the white community on an equal footing with the whites.'
1938 Australian Aborigines Conference held in Sydney. Meeting on January 26, the 150th anniversary of NSW, Aborigines mark the `Day of Mourning'.
1942 Evacuation of the NT missions. Children evacuated after the bombing of Darwin are transferred to Victoria, South Australia or NSW. Some never return.
1948 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is adopted by the UN with Australia's support.
1949 The Convention on Genocide is ratified by Australia. It comes into force in 1951.
1951 Third Commonwealth-State conference on `native welfare'. Affirms `assimilation' as the aim of `native welfare' measures: `assimilation means that, in the course of time, it is expected that all persons of aboriginal blood or mixed blood in Australia will live like other white Australians do.'
1953 Atomic tests carried out at Emu, SA. Further tests at Maralinga in 1956 and 1957. Aborigines describe a `black mist' and report sight loss and skin rashes. Many die from radiation poisoning. Hundreds of families forced to leave their homelands because of severe contamination.
1967 National referendum amending the Constitution. Australians confer power on the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people. Aborigines are included in the census.
1975 Federal Racial Discrimination Act passed.
Aboriginal Children's Service established in NSW: an Indigenous community-controlled service for the care and placement of Indigenous children.
1976 Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency established. Rapidly achieves a 40% reduction in the numbers of Koori children in children's homes. Followed by the SA Aboriginal Child Care Agency in 1978, Karu in Darwin in 1979, the WA Aboriginal Child Care Agency in 1980.
First Australian Conference on Adoption.
Aboriginal people maintain that they are uniquely qualified to provide assistance in the care of children. They have experienced racism, conflicts in identity between black and white and have an understanding of Aboriginal life-styles -- Indigenous delegates.
1980 Link Up (NSW) Aboriginal Corporation established. Followed by Link Up (Qld) in 1988. Link Up provides family tracing, reunion and support for forcibly removed children and their families.
1981 Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) established. SNAICC represents the interests on a national level of Australia's 100 or so Indigenous community-controlled children's services.
1983 Aboriginal Child Placement Principle incorporated in NT welfare legislation. Followed by NSW in 1987, Victoria in 1989, South Australia in 1993.
1988 Australia's representative to the United Nations Human Rights Committee acknowledges: `public policy regarding the care of Aboriginal children, particularly during the post-war period, had been a serious mistake.'
Thousands of Aboriginal people and supporters march through the streets of Sydney to celebrate survival on the Bicentennial of British colonisation of Australia.
1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody presents its report to the Federal Government. It finds that of the 99 deaths it investigated, 43 were of people who had been separated from their families as children.
1992 High Court's `Mabo' decision. The doctrine of terra nullius is abolished.
1994 Going Home Conference, Darwin, brings together over 600 Aboriginal people removed as children to discuss common goals of access to archives, compensation, rights to land and social justice.
1995 National Inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families established in May.
1996 NSW Premier, Bob Carr, apologises in Parliament in November: `I re-affirm in this place, formally and solemnly as Premier, on behalf of the government and people of New South Wales, our apology to Aboriginal people.'
Federal Parliamentary statement on racial tolerance: `this house reaffirms its commitment to the process of reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, in the context of redressing their profound social and economic disadvantage.'
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