I went through an identity crisis. And our identity is where we come from and who we are. And I think, instead of compensation being in the form of large sums of money, I personally would like to see it go into some form of land acquisition for the people who were taken away, if they so wish, to have a place that they can call their own and that they can give to their children. My wife and I are trying to break this cycle, trying our hardest to break this cycle of shattered families. We're going to make sure that we stick together and bring our children up so they know who they are, what they are and where they came from.
Confidential evidence 696, New South Wales: man happily adopted into a non-Indigenous family at 13 months in the 1960s.
One principal effect of the forcible removal policies was the destruction of cultural links. This was of course their declared aim. The children were to be prevented from acquiring the habits and customs of the Aborigines (South Australia's Protector of Aborigines in 1909); the young people will merge into the present civilisation and become worthy citizens (NSW Colonial Secretary in 1915). Culture, language, land and identity were to be stripped from the children in the hope that the traditional law and culture would die by losing their claim on them and sustenance of them.
The culture that we should have had has been taken away. No, it's not that I don't like the people or whatever, it's just that I'd never really mixed with them to understand what it is to be part of the tribal system, which is the big thing ...
Confidential evidence 160, Victoria: removed to an orphanage in the mid-1940s.
... they have been deprived of their right to the songs and the spiritual and cultural heritage that was theirs, and I think there are direct financial consequences of that. I mean, in doing so, they have been removed from the very link which most land rights legislation demands in order for your rights to native title to be recognised. So in effect their removal in that way from their own family and context was also to deprive them of certain legal rights that we later recognised ...
... the cost is not only confined to inheritance losses, the loss of rights from father to son, mother to daughter; they also lost their sense of identity very clearly (Rev. Bernie Clarke, Uniting Church, former Superintendent at Croker Island Mission, evidence 119).
The response of some people `brought up to be white' is to deny their heritage. In turn their descendants are disinherited.
If just one Aboriginal person denies their Aboriginality, by the third generation of descendants from that person, there may be 50 or 60 Aboriginals who up to now were not aware of their heritage (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 165).
Others work to renew their cultural links.
When we left Port Augusta, when they took us away, we could only talk Aboriginal. We only knew one language and when we went down there, well we had to communicate somehow. Anyway, when I come back I couldn't even speak my own language. And that really buggered my identity up. It took me 40 odd years before I became a man in my own people's eyes, through Aboriginal law. Whereas I should've went through that when I was about 12 years of age.
Confidential evidence 179, South Australia: man removed as an `experiment' in assimilation to a Church of England boys' home in the 1950s.
I had to relearn lots of things. I had to relearn humour, ways of sitting, ways of being which were another way totally to what I was actually brought up with. It was like having to re-do me, I suppose. The thing that people were denied in being removed from family was that they were denied being read as Aboriginal people, they were denied being educated in an Aboriginal way.
Confidential evidence 71, New South Wales: woman who lived from 5 months to 16 years in Cootamundra Girls' Home in the 1950s and 1960s.
Many witnesses spoke of their strong sense of not belonging either in the Indigenous community or in the non-Indigenous community.
You spend your whole life wondering where you fit. You're not white enough to be white and your skin isn't black enough to be black either, and it really does come down to that.
Confidential evidence 210, Victoria.
I felt like a stranger in Ernabella, a stranger in my father's people. We had no identity with the land, no identity with a certain people. I've decided in the last 10, 11 years to, y'know, I went through the law. I've been learning culture and learning everything that goes with it because I felt, growing up, that I wasn't really a blackfella. You hear whitefellas tell you you're a blackfella. But blackfellas tell you you're a whitefella. So you're caught in a half-caste world.
Confidential evidence 289, South Australia: speaker's father was removed and the speaker grew up in Adelaide.
The policies of separation were often administered in such a way as would directly cause feelings of alienation.
I was taken there because I was `half-caste'. I started thinking, `Why do I deserve to be treated like this?' But as the years went by, I sort of accepted all that. We were treated differently to white and black people. We weren't allowed to go down to see our Aboriginal people, or go into the houses where the white people were. We just had to live around the outside of the house. They made us feel like we weren't allowed to do anything: no freedom of movement, even to think for yourself. They had to tell you what to do, and how to think.
We were locked up in the dormitories, and had to go and ask for anything. We had to go and ask if we could go and see our people. We were more or less like slaves, I think. We didn't think that was wrong. We just thought it was our duty. We did what we were told.
Years later, when we were grown up, our own boss - by this time we were married and having our children - we were having families and still couldn't go up and ask the managers if we could get married. They had to tell you who you had to marry. We didn't know what was their plans for us. We just lived and did what we were told.
I was almost ashamed to be half-caste sometimes. I had no confidence in myself, or how to make up my mind what to do ... When I was growing up I wanted to be a teacher or a nurse. But you couldn't say that because you had to go to school and go out and work in the house, do domestic duties. That's what they said. We lost much of our culture, our language and traditional knowledge, our kinship and our land.
Confidential evidence 821, Western Australia: woman removed to Moola Bulla Station at 5 years in 1944.
This loss of identity has ramifications for individuals' well-being and in turn for the well-being of their families.
The alienation from culture can create an increase in anger and frustration which can also lead to increases in violence and lawlessness, and we're talking here about a profound sense of alienation ... a lack of ego strength, a lack of the capacity to test reality ... I think there is a connection between people's loss of identity and their experience of lawlessness and being gaoled and then losing that sense of identity within the context of that very big institution and the experience of total alienation from themselves, resulting in death (Lynne Datnow, Victorian Koori Kids Mental Health Network, evidence 135). ... it is our experience that most Aborigines raised within the Tasmanian Aboriginal community are far more secure in where they belong than are those who were raised outside the Aboriginal community. We have seen Aborigines raised outside the community being confused, uncertain and insecure about their belonging. That is not, of course, the case with every displaced child (Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre submission 325).
Anna's story illustrates the inter-generational transfer of the effects of forcible removal. Anna's Koori grandmother was forcibly removed from her family and her mother abandoned her when she was six years old. In time Anna moved in with her uncle and his family and only then, at the age of 16, did she realise her Koori heritage. She sought to identify herself as Koori but her uncle opposed this. She was forced to leave home, joining the airforce after concealing her true age. Anna continues to experience problems relating to her Indigenous identity (confidential evidence 217, Victoria).
The removal of `Stolen Generations' people from their families has, in the majority of cases, prevented them from acquiring language, culture and the ability to carry out traditional responsibilities and in many cases, has prevented them from establishing their genealogical links.
`Stolen Generations' people are therefore prevented or seriously prejudiced from successfully asserting rights under the LRA [Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth)] or NTA [Native Title Act 1993 (Cth)] (Central Land Council submission 495 pages 2-3).
Separation has broken or disrupted not only the links that Aboriginals have with other Aboriginals, but importantly, the spiritual connection we should have had with our country, our land. It is vital to our healing process that these bonds be re-established or re-affirmed (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 14).
Separation from their families has dramatically affected people's land entitlements as summarised for the Inquiry by the legal firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth (submission 704). In all jurisdictions the ability to bring a native title claim will generally be extinguished by forced removal. The Full Court of the Federal Court considered an analogous situation in the case of Kanak in 1995 and concluded that,
... native title can be enjoyed only by members of an identifiable community who are entitled to enjoy the land under the traditionally based laws and customs, as currently acknowledged and observed, of that community. Individuals may have native title rights that are protected, but these rights are dependent upon the existence of communal native title and are `carved out' of that title. The only persons entitled to claim native title are those who can show biological descent from the indigenous people entitled to enjoy the land under the laws and customs of their own clan or group.
Establishing `biological descent' is the first hurdle for separated people seeking to re-establish their relationship with `their' land. The person must be able to trace his or her family and the family's community of origin must be known. Although a separated person is unlikely to be able to sustain a native title claim independently (and native title claims are collective claims in any event), a person who has been accepted back into his or her community of origin may participate in a claim brought by that community.
It is possible for Aboriginal people who were removed from their traditional families to become a participant in a collective claim by a group or clan of Aboriginals. However, in order for this to happen it would first be necessary for them to be accepted as a member of the Aboriginal community which has collectively maintained the requisite use and spiritual and cultural ties to the land that have allowed the group's native title to survive.
As a matter of practicality, Aboriginal people who have been removed from their families may be accepted back into Aboriginal communities. The issue is one for the Aboriginal clan or group to decide. However, there may be traditional laws and customs which govern the acceptance of people in the community and it is possible they may be refused permission to rejoin a community, or refused recognition as a member of a community, because they have not participated in the traditional and cultural activities of that community for a length of time. If this is the case, the disentitlement to claim as a member of a group would be a direct result of the forced separation of that person from the community as a child (Corrs Chambers Westgarth submission 704 page 27).
Including a person who has yet to be fully reintegrated into the traditional laws relating to the land in a claimant group may jeopardise the land claim under some legislation, for example the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth), although the Inquiry received no evidence that this has occurred. However, once a claim is successful (for example under the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth)), or once traditional lands have been granted (for example under the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act 1981 (SA)), it is entirely up to the traditional owners to decide whether they will accept a person taken away in childhood and permit him or her to share in the enjoyment of the land.
Where collective land ownership is vested in an association, the rules of the association usually provide for the acceptance of new members (for example Aboriginal Land Grant (Jervis Bay Territory) Act 1986 (Cth); Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW)).
Under some legislation a requirement of a period of uninterrupted residence is imposed before the person can become a member of the land-owning group (for example with respect to Framlingham Forest, Victoria, under the Aboriginal Land (Lake Condah and Framlingham Forest) Act 1987 (Cth)).
We can't even claim for that, because we're not living on it. But that's not our fault. The Government took us off our land, so how can we get land rights when this is what the Government has done to us?
Confidential evidence 450, New South Wales: woman removed at 2 years in the 1940s, first to Bomaderry Children's Home, then to Cootamundra Girls' Home; now working to assist former Cootamundra inmates.
I have no legal claim to come back here. I can't speak on the board of management, I'm not a living member out here on this mission. What right have I got to speak out here? And this is the way that a lot of the Aboriginals living on this mission see me - as a blow-in, a blow-through. Yet I've got family that are buried out here on the mission ... and I have no rights. As an Aboriginal I don't have any rights out here.
Confidential evidence 207, Victoria: man whose mother was removed from Lake Tyers as a child; mother buried at Lake Tyers.
Although they may not be able to make land claims based on a traditional connection to the land, some separated people may succeed by proving an `historical association' instead. Queensland (Aboriginal Land Act 1991 section 54 and Torres Strait Islander Land Act 1991 section 51), New South Wales (Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983) and the Northern Territory (Pastoral Land Act 1992 with respect to pastoral excisions for community residential areas) all recognise this as a basis for claim. Thus, a group dispersed from their traditional lands and detained on a mission station may be able to reclaim the mission land on the basis of historical association.
Queensland also permits claims based on a group's need for `economic or cultural viability' (Aboriginal Land Act 1991 section 55, Torres Strait Islander Land Act 1991 section 52). The group's land claim may succeed if it shows the land would assist in restoring, maintaining or enhancing the capacity for self-development and the self-reliance and cultural integrity of the group.
A number of governments have established funds to permit the acquisition of land for Aboriginal groups or communities, regardless of their traditional or historic ties. The primary basis for these land purchases will be cultural or economic need. Such land would also usually be held collectively. The principal fund is the Commonwealth's Indigenous Land Fund established in 1995 for the purchase of land for Indigenous corporations. The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 also established a fund from which land could be purchased for economic or other purposes.
Rose We always lived by ourselves. Not that we thought we were better than any other Koori family. It's just that the white welfare, if they seen a group of Koori families together, they would step in and take their children away never to be seen again. ... never to be seen again We moved from South Gippsland to East Gippsland. By this time I was about 9 years old. My parents pulled me out of school because the Welfare was taking the Koori kids from school never to be seen again. My parents didn't want this to happen to us. That's why we always lived by ourselves. My parents made a little mia-mia with bushes and sticks around our heads and our feet at the fire which would burn all night. We all shared the 2 big grey government of Victoria blankets and was a very close family. Our little jobs were to gather whatever we could while our parents were picking [bean and pea picking for a local grower]. We were never allowed to walk down to our camp the same way because our parents didn't want the welfare to find us. That's why we couldn't make a beaten track. Then my parents got paid from picking. They went into Lakes Entrance to get a few groceries and left me, being the oldest, to care for my other brothers and sisters, which I always done. I was like their second mother but big sister. [4 younger siblings aged between 6 months and 7 years.] The baby started crying so I went and got my uncle to come and watch the kids until I walked in town to look for my parents. The town was about 15 ks so I left the camp and walked through the bush. I wouldn't walk along the main Highway because I was scared someone might murder me or take me away. I got into town just before dark and this Koori woman who I didn't know asked me was I looking for my parents. I said yes. She said they got a ride out to the camp with some people. That's how I missed them because I wasn't walking on the highway. She said to me what are you going to do now. I said I'm going to walk back to the camp. She said it's getting dark, you can't walk out there now. You better come and stay with us and go back out tomorrow. I said OK. I trusted this Koori woman whom I didn't know. She gave me a meal and a bed. The next day I thought and knew that my parents would be upset with me for leaving the kids but I knew they would be alright because they were with Mum's brother. While I was walking through the bush the police and Welfare were going out to the camp which they had found in the bush. I was so upset that I didn't walk along the Highway. That way the Welfare would have seen me. The next day I knew ... The next day I knew that the Welfare had taken my brothers and sisters. This lady who I stayed with overnight: her brother came that morning and told her the Welfare had taken the kids to the homes. She called me aside and said, babe it's no good of you going out to the camp today because the Welfare has taken your brothers and sisters away to the homes. I started crying and said to her no I have to go back to the camp to see for myself. She got her brother and sister to take me out there and I just couldn't stop crying. All I could see was our little camp. My baby brother's bottle was laying on the ground. And I could see where my brother and sisters were making mud pies in a Sunshine milk tin that we used for our tea or soup. I didn't know where my parents were. I was sad crying lost ... I was sad crying lost didn't know what I was going to do. I wished I had of walked along the Highway so my brothers and sisters would have seen me and told the Welfare just so I would have been with them. Eventually I found my parents in Lakes Entrance. They were shattered upset crying so they went and got a flagon of wine, which they never ever worried about drink. They took the kids to Melbourne Allambie Children's Home and bought them back when it was court day. The Welfare and the Police told my parents that they would have to get a house, furniture, plenty of food in the cupboard and my Dad had to get a job. It was very hard in those days what Welfare put on my parents. Just couldn't happen. People wouldn't let black people have a good home. Or give them anything - not like now. My parents knew that what the Welfare wanted them to do they couldn't. We just weren't allowed to be up to white man's standards. That's why they knew that they had my brothers and sisters for good. At court my parents knew that was the last time they would see their kids. So they told the court that they didn't want them split up. The kids was glad to see Mum and Dad at court. They were jumping all over them. Glad to see them. When the Welfare took the kids off Mum and Dad they were holding out their arms trying to stay with Mum and Dad. Everyone was crying sad. Sad. Sad. After the kids had gone to the home Mum and Dad hit the grog hard as they had done everything in their power and in their hearts to keep us away from the (predators) the Welfare. But they sniffed us out of the bush like dogs. ... they sniffed us out of the bush like dogs. My parents couldn't handle the trauma of not having the closest warmth loving caring family we were. They separated. My Mum went one way; my Dad went his way. And I was 9 years of age left to go my way. I didn't know anyone. So I lived with Koori families who took me in. And in return I would look after their kids while they went picking just so I had some sort of family caring. I done this for years. Still not knowing where my brothers and sisters were. I tried hard to find them but couldn't. The families that took me in I have a lot of respect for them because they tried to mend a 9 year old's broken heart. I love them dearly. Eventually I got married when I was 21 years old. I thought maybe I could get my brothers and sisters and give them the home that the Welfare said my parents had to do. My husband worked in a sawmill and we had a sawmill house. After about 14 years my [eldest] brother came to live with us. One sister found us through the Salvation Army about 16 years later. Then my brother [the baby] who died last year who was caught up in the System was like a lost street kid and was bashed by the police in Melbourne a couple of years ago ended up with a tumour on the brain and was never the same again. My second sister who I or my family didn't see for 27 years. What could anyone do now to make up for those 27 years of not having their sister a part of their life. A terrible big hole in my heart that will never be filled. We all are in contact with each other now and we try to make up for all those lost years. But something's missing. Could you put yourself in the situation that we were put through?
Confidential submission 316, New South Wales. These events occurred in 1958.
| In the hard copy version of this report there is a reproduction
of the following item:
Fair-haired boy, Mt Margaret Mission, north-eastern Goldfields, WA, 1954-55 Courtesy University of WA Berndt Museum of Anthropolgy.
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I often used to ask my foster mother who she was, this old lady who would come to the gate, and the answer I always got was, `She is some silly old black woman'.
Confidential evidence 56, Tasmania: man removed 1930s; his grandmother died before he was able to find her.
I was there for 16 years and I was brainwashed every day of the week. You never go near Blacks. Your people don't want you anyway. They're just dirty. They don't want anything to do with you ... We were playing in the schoolyard and this old black man came to the fence. I could hear him singing out to me and my sister. I said to [my sister], `Don't go. There's a black man'. And we took off. It was two years ago I found out that was my grandfather. He came looking for us. I don't know when I ever stopped being frightened of Aboriginal people. I don't know when I even realised I was Aboriginal. It's been a long hard fight for me.
Confidential evidence 10, Queensland: NSW woman removed 1940s and placed in Cootamundra Girls' Home