Interfaces gráficas

The separation of Aboriginal children from their families

The history of the forcible removal and separation of Indigenous children from their families is central to the development of the principles upon which current child protection policy and practices in Tasmania are founded. Aboriginal children were forcibly removed during two periods of Tasmania’s history; in the first fifty years of colonisation and again from the 1930s onwards.5 When Van Diemen’s Land6 was first occupied in 1803, conflict between the European and Indigenous inhabitants erupted and continued for the next thirty years or so. Aboriginal people were shot and killed in such large numbers that by 1818 the Indigenous population had fallen from an estimated 4,000 to less than 2,000 (Ryan 1981, cited in HREOC7 1997).

Kidnapping Aboriginal children or otherwise taking them from their families for domestic or farm labour had become common practice in the early settlement years. Despite Governor Davey’s proclamation of “utter disgust and abhorrence”, issued in relation to the kidnappings in 1814, nothing was done to improve the situation; in fact, it continued to become even more widespread (quoted in Reynolds 1995, p. 90, cited in HREOC 1997, p. 2/8). Finally, in 1819, Governor Sorrell commissioned a report that included a list of “all the children and youths held by ‘Settlers or Stock-keepers, stating from whom, and in what manner, they were obtained’” – those found to have been taken without the consent of their parents were sent to Hobart to be educated and maintained ‘at Government expense’ (Rowley 1970, p. 44, in HREOC 1997, p. 2/8).

By the late 1820s, with the influx of new settlers taking up more of the land, conflict between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations had escalated into what became known as the ‘Black War’. After a failed attempt to drive the Aboriginal

5 _{This brief account of the removal of Aboriginal children draws on the report of the Human Rights and}

Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, Chapter 6. Canberra:

Stirling Press, April 1997. Electronic copy retrieved on 3/02/2010 from: http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/

6 _{Tasmania was called Van Diemen’s Land from the time it was colonised in 1803 until 1856.} 7 _{(HREOC) Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission}

inhabitants down to two peninsulas in the South-East, an officially sanctioned plan to move them onto Flinders Island – where they were to be provided with protection, food, clothing, and shelter – was negotiated and carried out with George Robinson acting as both negotiator and protector. More than 200 Aboriginal people had been removed to the Flinders Island settlement by 1835. The fourteen Aboriginal children who were between the ages of six and fifteen years were sent to live with the storekeeper and the catechist soon after they arrived. Disease, loss of freedom, inadequate (and presumably non-traditional) food rations and shelter had devastated three quarters of the Aboriginal population within eight years, with approximately fifty people surviving in 1843. The 48 members of the community who were still alive in 1847 were moved again, to another reserve on Oyster Cove. The children were taken from their families and sent to the Orphan School in Hobart “to ‘adjust’ to non-Indigenous society” (HREOC 1997, Ch. 6, p. 2/8).

There was another small Indigenous community, made up of the descendants of Aboriginal women and about twelve non-Indigenous sealers, who had been living on Flinders Island before the establishment of the reserve. Although the community had resisted attempts by Robinson to remove them earlier, by the end of the 1870s they had all moved to Cape Barren Island. The Government established a formal reserve on Cape Barren in 1881, and a missionary school teacher was appointed in 1890, who visited the island regularly along with other visiting missionaries. By 1908, the Indigenous

population on the island amounted to 250 people, and the term ‘Cape Barren Islander’ became synonymous with ‘half-caste’, regardless of where the person came from. Every effort was made to control the lifestyle of the community through the provisions of the

Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1912 – though with very little success – which

attempted to force the islanders to construct dwellings and fence off and cultivate the land in order to become self-sufficient agricultural farmers.

The Tasmanian Government, unlike the other state governments, did not formally adopt a policy of removing Aboriginal children – mainly because of the severe decline in the Indigenous population since they were removed to Flinders and Cape Barren Islands, and since the colonisation of Australia more generally. Government reports during the late 1920s, nonetheless, contained proposals to remove children from their families, which would have been able to be achieved with the Welfare laws relating to neglected

children which were already in place. After concerns expressed in a 1929 report about the poor living conditions and the number of children who were suffering from sickness and malnutrition, the Government appointed the head teacher on the island as a Special Constable. From 1928 until 1980, the head teacher had the powers and responsibilities of a police constable, which included the power to remove a child for reasons of neglect under the child welfare legislation. The refusal of Indigenous families to adopt the agricultural lifestyle specified in the Cape Barren Island Reserve Act (1912, 1945)

together with the ensuing problems of poverty and alcohol abuse – and the surveillance of their lifestyle specified within the Act – meant that they were constantly at risk and in great fear of losing their children. Cultural differences relating to the care of children by community members added to the risk of children being removed during this period, which led some families to return to mainland Tasmania.

An inquiry into the future of Cape Barren Island in 1944 revealed that the Aboriginal population had fallen to 106, and the health of the Islanders was continuing to

deteriorate – which was thought to be mainly due to their dependence on external food supplies. The ensuing Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1945 imposed more rigorous

conditions on the lessees in return for the free land grant than the 1912 Act; its stated intention being to enforce self-sufficiency by 1950. But other reports at the time suggest that a different objective was the “gradual but eventual total absorption of the half- castes into the white population” (Tasmanian Government Final Submission, p. A-16, cited in HREOC 1997, Ch 6, 4/8). In the 1944 census anyone less than ‘octoroon’,8 had not been recognised as Aboriginal, which meant that, officially at least, Tasmania had no Aboriginal population left:

If they were not Aboriginal then there was no need for a special Reserve. The Cape Barren Islanders had been defined as white people, after having been defined as non- white for the previous 70 years. (Tasmanian Government Final Submission, p. A-16, cited in HREOC 1997, Ch 6, 4/8)

The official designation did nothing to prevent the Aboriginal families on Cape Barren and nearby islands from being known and targeted for their ‘lifestyle’. From the 1950s the welfare laws were increasingly being used to remove children on the grounds of neglect and take them to the mainland. Housing was inadequate, and documentation

8 _{In classifications employed at the time, ‘octoroon’ is used to denote the offspring of a ‘quadroon’ and a}

shows that families, particularly single mothers, sometimes experienced difficulty obtaining relief payments, which placed them under increased threat. But the main cause of the continuing deterioration in the health of the Islanders was the lack of fresh food supplies, especially fresh milk and other perishables, which had to be brought by boat to the Island. Eventually, after health surveys carried out in 1956 and 1960, children were provided with food supplements through the health and education departments and the Save the Children Fund.

Parents were often unable to challenge decisions due to the island’s remoteness from the mainland; they could also be charged with the criminal offence of child neglect and sentenced to imprisonment, thereby facilitating the removal of any siblings or other children living in the house at the time. Children who were removed were often separated from their siblings – despite government policy that they should maintain contact with their family – and either fostered out to non-Indigenous families or placed in state homes with mostly non-Indigenous children. From the sixties through to the seventies and eighties, some initiatives were put in place to help keep families together, and to provide study grants for secondary education on the mainland, in recognition of the traumatic effects that colonisation has had on the Indigenous population.

The Aboriginal Information Service (AIS) was established in 1973 to provide legal representation for Indigenous children and parents who were involved in child welfare and juvenile justice matters, which helped to reduce the number of children who were being removed through the legal system. The AIS has since been incorporated into the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC), which continues to offer a range of supports and services to Aboriginal families and to be involved in child protection processes and decisions involving Aboriginal children. The Tasmanian Government joined with the other jurisdictions in accepting the new policy guidelines relating to the fostering and adoption of Aboriginal children and the principle of Aboriginal participation in the planning and delivery of welfare services, at the Australian Aboriginal Affairs Council Meeting of Ministers held in Hobart in 1980. The Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, which states that an Indigenous family must be the preferred placement for a child in need of alternative care, was eventually formally adopted by the Tasmanian

Principle has since been embedded in the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1997.

The Development of Child Welfare and Protection