The Aboriginal Protection Act, enacted in 1869 by the colony

Colony

In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....

 of Victoria, Australia gave extensive powers over the lives of Aboriginal people

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 to the government's Board for the Protection of Aborigines

Aboriginal Protection Board

There was an Aboriginal Protection Board in a number of Australian States with the function of "protecting" and regulating the lives of Indigenous Australians. They were also responsible for administering the various Half-caste acts where these existed and had a key role in the Stolen generations...

, including regulation of residence, employment and marriage.

History

Victoria enacted the Aboriginal Protection Act while democratic reforms were being introduced for the white population, such as the extension of the franchise

Suffrage

Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...

 from the wealthy to all adult males and the provision of free public education

Public education

State schools, also known in the United States and Canada as public schools,In much of the Commonwealth, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, the terms 'public education', 'public school' and 'independent school' are used for private schools, that is, schools...

. In contrast, Aboriginal people were losing their freedom. In 1871 the Board developed controls over where people could live and work, what they could do and who they could meet or marry. They removed Aboriginal children from their families, starting the process that created the Stolen Generation

Stolen Generation

The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments...

.

In 1886, Victoria's parliament passed what became known as the Half-Caste Act

Half-caste act

Half-Caste Act was the common name given to Acts of Parliament passed in Victoria and Western Australia in 1886. They became the model for legislation of Aboriginal communities throughout Australia, such as the Aboriginal Protection and restriction of the sale of opium act 1897 in...

 and started to remove Aboriginal people of mixed descent, known as 'half-caste

Half-caste

Half-caste is a term used to describe people of mixed race or ethnicity. Caste comes from the Latin castus, meaning pure, and the derivative Portuguese and Spanish casta, meaning race...

s', from the Aboriginal stations or reserves to force them to assimilate

Cultural assimilation

Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...

 into white society. These expulsions separated families and communities, causing distress and leading to protest. Nevertheless the Board refused to assist the expelled people. It was assumed that the expulsions would lead to the decline in the population of the reserves and their eventual closure. The failure of this policy and its inhumanity led to Victoria's Aborigines Act of 1910 and Aboriginal Lands Act of 1970, which abandoned this policy.