Jewely,

Yes, there were marriages between Aboriginal men and white women, going back - at least down here in SA (and, I've heard, in southern Queensland at least, Aka) going back to at least the 1850s. That's the eighteen fifties.

Plus a couple of marriages I know of in the 1880s and 1890's: one where an apprentice shoemaker at Raukkan ran off with the trainer's wife and lived happily together for sixty years, the other of a guy on the railways, first in the south-East and then at Tailem Bend. Then there were quite a few marriages in the 1950s and many after that. After all, it wasn't illegal for Aboriginal men to associate with white women, and/or to marry each other.

I guess is the glass half-full or half-empty ? To some, inter-marriage was anathema, 'breeding out', as you call it: to others it was a wonderful example of two people loving each other and wanting to be together for life. That certainly was the case with me and my beautiful darling.

People should be able to marry whoever they like, no force, no restrictions. Long live a coffee-coloured world and to hell with the racists on both sides.

Joe

Joe,
there were many inter-racial marriages but that is not the issue relating to 'breeding out the colour' policies as well you know. I am aware of these marriages over the entire time since colonisation - sometimes it was done on the sly by obliging priests. When the law prohibiting cohabitation between Indigenous Australians and settlers, marriage by the churches circumvented the legislation. Remember that most Aboriginal people were not free to choose thier spouses - that was the role of the so called 'protectors of Aborigines'.

Warwick Anderson's 2005 'The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia (2nd ed.)': Melbourne University Press gives a clear picture of how the policies for breeding out the colour were developed and the quasi science that was used to justify it. But I am sure I have suggested this and other references to you before in similar threads on similar topics.

Hi Aka,

Are you referring to Cooke amd Neville's attempt to assist what were called 'quarter-castes' and 'octoroons' to socially merge into the general population ? My understanding is that extremely few of those attempts were successful, that there was no force used and that, anecdotally, the people involved usually married each other (i.e. male and female) or eventually married other Aboriginal people.

But believe the myth if you want to, Aka :)

I'm fascinated by the way myths get circulated without much evidence, how they might resonate with the way people might be thinking - "Oh yeah, that sounds about right ... " - and how often they promote the themes of either segregation from or distrust of whites, or both.

Either way, they seem to be spurious ways to try to build a sense of oppositional identity, when there are many other more positive and healthy ways to celebrate identity.

And when one looks for any evidence of a particular myth, either the myth falls apart altogether (secret women's business, for example), or the evidence just isn't there (deaths in custody, for example).

But those are other cans of worms ;)

Joe

Didn’t you get scared Poirot or want to go home?

Wonder what the house mother got paid for being there, sounds like a 24/7 supervisor role.

Was there education happening in these places?

What’s the BFG?

Joe:”Assert, therefore prove. Sorry, I don't make the rules.”

What rules are you talking about?

“My point is more that governments only acted when they had to, and even then probably reluctantly.”

I wish I lived in this world you’ve made where the native peeps were always treated with dignity and respect and lived lives where love ruled the races and children were only removed reluctantly for their own good by the nicest and kindest of folk.

La la lalala la la lalala la… oh crap I tripped over an ancient artifact... lala la la lalala la...

Jewely,

I wasn't so much scared as totally bemused - I had been lifted from one environment to something totally alien to me. I was used to swimming at Cottesloe (nice suburb by the sea in WA) - I was a city girl.

....so that first evening, I waiting until I got under the shower and I cried and cried....

But, as with everything, one adapts and I soon found myself getting used to my different surroundings.
We used to get bused into the nearest big town for school.

The BFG is a Roald Dahl book about a big friendly giant who takes a young girl on an adventure - from her bed in a dormitory in the middle of the night. It's a classic children's story and absolutely delumptious : )

You poor thing Poirot and sounds like my first day at boarding school.

The other girls you met seem to have shown symptoms of not being attached to anything. Kids go from scared or hysterical and terrified then enter this kind of ‘slate’ phase. Wonder if the house parents could see it.

I can imagine you adapting with the knowledge someone would eventually come back and get you or visit you, situation temporary.

Strikes me that no matter the intention of people removing children from their families it is a horrible abuse for a young one to endure.

I missed the whole Roald Dahl thing somehow but I remember my kids having some of the books. But that BFG sounds appropriate and I remember reading books when younger about a girl at a boarding school which I remembered fondly when I found myself in the same situation.

Way off topic now I guess. I’m kinda surprised any country would question preserving such a moment in time.