Coranderrk
The struggle for rights 1850 - 1901
Journeys
Robinson and Gellibrand's travels through Victoria.
Establishment
Attitudes
Threat of Closure
Protest
Children
Legislation
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Legislation
Under
the guise of 'protection', the lives of Aboriginal people were controlled
and constrained by legislation.
1858 Report of the Select Committee
of the Legislative Council on the Aborigines.
Board for the Protection
of Aborigines
Aborigines
Protection Act (1869)
  
Aborigines
Protection Act (1886)
Legislation
In
1858 the Victorian Government established a select committee to inquire
into the living conditions of Aboriginal people in Victoria. The subsequent
report accepted that Aboriginal communities had witnessed 'their hunting
grounds and means of living taken from them' as an outcome of the British
occupation of Aboriginal land. Rather than accept responsibility for this
injustice the government blamed Aboriginal people themselves for this
outcome:
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Focus Questions
Extract 1
Extract 2
Extract 3
Extract 4
Extract 5
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'...had
they been a strong race, like the New Zealanders, they would have forced
the new occupiers of their country to provide for them; but being weak
and ignorant, even for savages, they have been treated with almost utter
neglect'.
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The
report recommended that a system of reserves be established in remote
areas of the colony, both to 'protect' Aboriginal people from further
injustices and to ensure that Aboriginal people be contained in order
to restrict their freedom and place greater controls over their lives.
Board
for the Protection of Aborigines
As
a result of the 1858 report the Board for the Protection of Aborigines
(BPA) was established in 1860 to administer the government reserves and
missions which increasingly controlled the lives of Aboriginal people.
On the reserves a system of Christian education and labour was enforced
whereas the traditions of Aboriginal society, including ceremonial practices,
were often banned.
Additionally,
any Aboriginal person who continued to live on their own land was subject
to the authority of government appointed local guardians, such as police,
clergymen or European landholders.
Aborigines
Protection Act (1869)
In
1869 the BPA became responsible for the administration of the Aborigines
Protection Act, which in part sought to separate Aboriginal children from
their families and communities in order to 'educate' them within a European
system. At reserves such as Coranderrk at Healesville, east of Melbourne,
separate living quarters were built for children, with an attached schoolroom.
Supported by the 1869 Act, by 1875 the BPA proposed that all Aboriginal
children be removed from what it termed 'wandering blacks' who had continued
to live an autonomous life, outside the control of the reserves:
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"It is
not practical, nor perhaps would it be humane, to compel the old natives
against their inclinations to abandon the localities where they were
born. . . but the children are being removed one by one and sent to
the stations, where they are cared for and taught in the schools."
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Aborigines
Protection Act (1886)
The Aborigines
Act of 1886 is often referred to as the 'half-caste' Act, as it was
through this legislation that the colonial government of Victoria, through
the control of the Board for the Protection of Aborigines, attempted to
break up Aboriginal families and communities on the reserves. Under the
1886 Act the government had the power to remove any Aboriginal person
from a reserve who was under the age of 34 and was categorised as less
than 'full blood'.
The effect
of this legislation had an immediate impact on Aboriginal people. For
instance, the legislation was posted at police stations throughout Victoria,
and police were regularly requested to remove so-called half-castes from
reserves. Aboriginal people affected by the act found that they could
no longer receive any assistance from the reserves, and any Aboriginal
person who continued to live on a reserve who was found to be supporting
expelled community members with food were 'threatened with having their
own rations stopped'.
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