Half-caste act
Encyclopedia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
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
Aboriginal Protection and restriction of the sale of opium act 1897
The Aboriginal Protection and Restrictions of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 was an Act of the Parliament of Queensland.As a result of dispersal, malnutrition, opium and diseases, it was widely believed in Queensland that Aborigines were members of a 'dying race'...
in Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
.
Victoria
The Victorian Half-Caste Act (in full, an Act to amend an Act entitled "An Act to Provide for the Protection and Management of the Aboriginal Natives of Victoria") was an extension and expansion of the Aboriginal Protection ActAboriginal Protection Act
The Aboriginal Protection Act, enacted in 1869 by the colony of Victoria, Australia gave extensive powers over the lives of Aboriginal people to the government's Board for the Protection of Aborigines, including regulation of residence, employment and marriage....
which 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 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.
In particular, the 1886 act 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 European 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.
Western Australia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Colonial Office
Colonial Office
Colonial Office is the government agency which serves to oversee and supervise their colony* Colonial Office - The British Government department* Office of Insular Affairs - the American government agency* Reichskolonialamt - the German Colonial Office...
. In 1886 an Aboriginal Protection Board was established with five members and a secretary, all of whom were nominated by the Governor.
Following the furore over the Fairburn Report (which revealed slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
conditions among Aboriginal farm workers) and the work of the Rev. John Gribble, parliament introduced the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (WA), or Half-caste act. This introduced employment contracts between employers and Aboriginal workers over the age of 14. There was no provision in the 1886 WA Act for contracts to include wages. But, employees were to be provided with "substantial, good and sufficient rations", clothing and blankets. The 1886 WA Act provided a Resident Magistrate
Resident Magistrate
A resident magistrate is a title for magistrates used in certain parts of the world, that were, or are, governed by the British. Sometimes abbreviated as RM, it refers to suitably qualified personnel - notably well versed in the law - brought into an area from outside as the local magistrate,...
with the power to indenture 'half-caste' and Aboriginal children, from a suitable age, until they turned 21. An Aboriginal Protection Board, was also established to prevent the abuses reported earlier, but rather than protect Aborigines, it mainly succeeded in putting them under tighter government control. It was intended to enforce contracts, employment of prisoners and apprenticeships, but there was not sufficient power to enforce clauses in the north, and they were openly flouted. The Act defined as "Aboriginal" "every Aboriginal native of Australia, every Aboriginal half-caste, or child of a half-caste". Governor Broome
Frederick Broome
Sir Frederick Napier Broome KCMG was a colonial administrator in the British Empire.He was born in Canada, but was living in England in 1865, when he married Mary Anne Barker...
insisted that the act contain within it a clause permitting traditional owners to continue hunting on their tribal lands.
The effect of the Act was to give increasing power to the Board over Aboriginal people, rather than setting up a system to punish whites for wrong-doing in relation to Aboriginal people. An Aboriginal Department was set up, under the office of the Chief Protector of Aborigines
Protector of Aborigines
The role of Protectors of Aborigines resulted from a recommendation of the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Aborigines . On 31 January 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report.The report recommended that Protectors of...
. Nearly half of the Legislative Council voted to amend the act for contract labour as low as age 10 but it was defeated. Mackenzie Grant, the member for the north claimed that child labour of age 6 or 7 was a necessary commonplace, as "in this way they gradually become domesticated". The Attorney General Septimus Burt
Septimus Burt
The Hon Septimus Burt KC was a Western Australian lawyer, politician and grazier, the son of Sir Archibald Burt.He was born on 25 October 1847 at St Kitts in the West Indies, and educated at a private school at Melksham, Wiltshire, England...
, in debate on the 2nd reading speech, claimed that contracts were being issued, not for current work, but to hold Aboriginal people as slaves on stations for potential future work, and so prevent them from being free to leave.
Aboriginal Protection Boards
Protectors of Aborigines were appointed by the Board under the conditions laid down in the various acts. In theory, Protectors of Aborigines were empowered to undertake legal proceedings on behalf of Aboriginal people.As the boards had limited funds Protectors received very limited remuneration, and so a range of people were appointed as local Protectors, including Resident Magistrates, Jail Wardens, Justices of the Peace and in some cases ministers of religion, though most were local Police Inspectors. The minutes of the board show they mostly dealt with matters of requests from religious bodies for financial relief and reports from Resident or Police Magistrates pertaining to trials and convictions of Aboriginal people under their jurisdiction.
Further reading
- A. Grenfell Price. Australian Native Policy: A Review. Geographical Review, Vol. 34, No. 3. (Jul., 1944), pp. 476-478. Reviewing:
- Edmund J. B. Foxcroft. Australian Native Policy: Its History, Especially in Victoria
- Paul Hasluck. Black Australians: A Survey of Native Policy in Western Australia, 1829-1897
- Norman B. Tindale. Survey of the Half-Caste Problem in South Australia (The Results of the Harvard-Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, 1938-9)
Online resources
- "Ngankat-Kalo: Aboriginal Education 1901-2001". Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc. (VAEAI).
- Mission Voices: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Koorie Heritage Trust Inc.
See also
- History of Indigenous AustraliansHistory of Indigenous AustraliansThe history of Indigenous Australians is thought to have spanned 40 000 to 45 000 years, although some estimates have put the figure at up to 80 000 years before European settlement...
- Aboriginal history of Western AustraliaAboriginal history of Western AustraliaThe history of the indigenous inhabitants of Western Australia has been dated for tens of thousands of years before European contact.-Western Australian Aboriginal history:...
- History of Western AustraliaHistory of Western AustraliaThe human history of Western Australia commenced between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago with the arrival of Indigenous Australians on the north-west coast. The first inhabitants expanded the range of their settlement to the east and south of the continent. The first recorded European contact was in...
- Stolen GenerationStolen GenerationThe 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...