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Read, Peter --- "Review - Don't Turn Your Back On Me: A Bibliographical Review of the Literature of the Stolen Generations" [1995] AboriginalLawB 33; (1995) 3(73) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 22


Review -

Don’t Turn Your Back On Me: A Bibliographical Review of the Literature of the Stolen Generations

By Peter Read

Aboriginal people have probably reminisced about their childhoods in institutions for as long as they have been raised in them.[1] Before the 1970s - when the stolen generations began to realise that their removal had resulted from state policies rather than their parents' shortcomings - recollections were sad only in their recall of days past and gone. Herbie Laughton, for example, was raised in the Bungalow in Alice Springs in the 1930s. In his song 'The Old Bungalow' Laughton utilised the country and western convention of the wanderer's nostalgic return and thus distanced the children's institutionalisation from speculation or analysis:

"I can picture the old Home so clearly
As it was many years so long ago
And I'll cherish these memories so dearly
Of the days at the old Bungalow."[2]

The mental steps linking a child's unhappiness with the policy of child removal were first apparent in the literature of the early 1970s. Removed children began to isolate the experience of separation as a discrete event in their lives, not necessarily unhappy, but at least unfortunate. Topsy Nelson Napurrula, removed to Phillip Creek Anglican Mission near Tennant Creek, recalled her parents' slow drifting from her affections in this matter-of-fact way:

"No they used to go [without us for ceremonies].
Yeah... For (ceremonial] business or somewhere else, hunting or campin' out for long weekend, and we used to stay one place [Phillip Creek].
Sometimes parents was come sometime, come and see us; and we was, but, you know, we didn't sometimes, kids, we didn't much worry about mother and father now, We used to play one place, and stay one place, because we was bit used to it."[3]

The first serious reflections on the act of separation itself appeared in print in the autobiographies of Charles Perkins (1975), Jimmie Barker (1977) and Margaret Tucker (1977)[4] Although these writers were much more critical of their removal than Laughton or Napurrula, they described their experiences as but a single, though serious, item in a complex life history. The first autobiographical work to dwell wholly upon removal was probably a film in 1981 by Coral Edwards, then a film trainee at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra [now AIATSIS] later a co-founder of the first of the Link-Up organisations. She called her film It's A Long Road Back. The film was new not only because its theme was removal, but because for the first time it included conversations with and memories of other removed girls.[5] Separation had moved in this work from the personal to the political .[6]

Some who had experienced a loving relationship with an institutional official found it sometimes difficult to separate their emotions. In 'Brown Skin Baby' Bob Randall caught the anguish of a bereft mother:

“In a native camp I'll never forget
A young black mother, her cheeks all wet",
but perhaps less consciously revealed a loyalty torn between the emotional (parental) and the actual (institutional) home:
"The child grew up, and had to go
From a mission home that he loved so,
and later
To find his mother he tried in vain
Upon this earth they never met again.”[7]

Conversely, so savage were the conditions at the Kinchela Boys Home in NSW that very few of the severely traumatised inmates have been able to talk about their experiences at all.[8]

The first practical assistance for removed children was established in Victoria and New South Wales a few years before these first autobiographical accounts were produced.[9] In the early eighties, the first actions of self-help among the removed adults was the Link-Up organisation, first in NSW, then soon after in Queensland. Victorian Aborigines continued their own relations with removed children through the Victorian Child Care Agency.

The Link-Up organisations did much to alert removed people to the fact that their separation had been a consequence of government policy. Under the question 'How and why were the children taken away', the first NSW Link-Up handbook (1984) began, 'The short answer is that for the last 100 years government policy has been to break up the association of Koori people with each other'[10] Link-Up in Queensland interpreted history just as politically: 'The removal of Aboriginal children from their families was systematically carried out, in an attempt to break down the social structure of Aboriginal culture'.[11] The first history of an Aboriginal institution by one of its inmates, Barbara Cunmings' 1990 Take This Child, adopted a similar critical voice.[12]

By the mid 1980s it was more difficult to separate Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal initiatives because many were the products of collaboration. There were three such film projects in the early 1980s. One was Lousy Little Sixpence , which ran continuously at the NSW Museum for many months.[13] Another was a film about Coral Edwards in the Anne Deveson series Women of the Eighties.[14] On behalf of the newly-established Link-Up, members of the organisation recorded a dozen radio and many TV interviews in the months following its release.[15] The third film or rather, film series, was two of four episodes of Women of the Sun of which the third, 'Nerida Anderson', showed the removal of children from Cumeroogunja (Vic) and the fourth, 'Lo-arno', followed the story of an adopted woman who discovered that she was Aboriginal.[16] At least one real-life adopted woman, who had been told she was Indian, began to seek her true identity after watching this powerful series.[17] Another collaborative work of the period was the collected oral histories of The Lost Children [18]

By the end of the 1980s the separated adults were more confident in telling their story themselves and were returning to non-collaborative presentations. Letters from people seeking information about removed relatives, or stories about them, were common in the Koorie Mail and Land Rights News. Aboriginal responses to separation entered every artistic medium, including a book of poetry by Janaka Wiradjuri [Joy Williams],[19] Sally Morgan's prints and paintings, the film Terra Nullius by Anne Pratten, the biography Auntie Rita by Jackie Huggins[20] and radio scripts by Paul Behrendt.[21] Lin Onus completed a sculpture and Archie Roach's first album included two songs about removed children.[22] Unlike the. non-Aboriginal media, removed children like Roach took a lead in re-focussing on the grieving parents as much as on the stolen children. In the song 'Munjana' Roach describes how Russell Moore's mother makes contact with him in Florida by telephone for the first time since he was removed from her:

"Hello Russell

This is your mother calling

Please forgive me, I can't stop these tears from falling

You come from this land

Sun above

And always remember the strength

Of your mother's love."

Probably the first literary reflection about the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents written by a nonAborigine in Australia was Charles Tonipsoni s 1826 poem about Governor Macquarie's abandoned Aboriginal mission. It was written in thee verandah of the chapel at the deserted hamlet of 'Black Town' [Sydney] where the poet indulged in some rather predictable reflections on the abandoned mission station:

"Thy once fair dawning beauties all are gone,
Thy gardens fallow lie, with weeds o ergrown,
Wild flow'rs and spindling grass alone are seen
Where cornfields wav'd their undulating green."[23]

Some non-indigenous observers always had misgivings at the disregard of human feelings occasioned by child removal, if not always at the policy itself, and among the earliest recorded were those of the Rev James Gunther in 1839 at the Wellington Valley mission (NSW). Though he uttered no public protest, Gunther was privately appalled by the cruelty of his child-snatching fellow missionary, William Watson.[24] Public protest came much later. Among the first of the non-indigenous to protest both at the removal of Aboriginal girls and at their subsequent treatment in domestic service was Mrs Joan Kingsley-Strack, one of two or three Sydney employers of former inmates of the Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls Home, who involved themselves in a number of legal confrontations with the NSW Aborigines Protection Board in the 1930s and 1940s.[25]

Probably the first academic article whose subject was the experience of removal was Ronald Berndt's 'Oenpelli Monologue', in 1951.[26] Another paper, in which for the first time some statistical data was attempted, was read at a national conference on adoption in 1976.[27] Research by non-Aboriginal historians, expressed both in publications and in discussions at Aboriginal centres like Tranby college, were more influential in Sydney in the early 1980s. Heather Goodall's work toward her doctoral thesis on NSW communities[28] uncovered many stories of removal, and her teaching, and those of other Tranby teachers like Chris Milne, did much to sensitise younger Aborigines who scarcely were aware that their older generations had been removed at all. Peter Read's ‘The Stolen Generations’[29] seems also to have released many removed adults from the conviction that their separation reflected badly on their own parents. The shame job became something to talk about rather than hide.

The progressive impinging of the policy of child removal upon national historical awareness can be traced through thee nationally read texts of the time. Among the first specialist historians was Richard Broome who, writing in Victoria and well versed in the strong opinions of Doug Nicholls and Margaret Tucker, gave several pages to the issues of removal in his 1982 Aboriginal Australians.[30] The 1938 volume of Australians: A Bicentennial History (1989) devoted considerable space to oral Aboriginal histories including those of separated children.[31] Tony Austin published a history in 1993 of child removal in the Northern Territory 1911-1939.[32] The more aware - or alternative - national histories noted the importance of child separation as an instrument of Aborigin: l control, as well as the individual tragedies: Creating a Nation (1994) has a subject index 'Children, Aboriginal, seizure by the state'.[33] Mainstream sociology and history was slower to understand the policy as a major determinant of Aboriginal history, as well as a principal topic of historical analysis by Aborigines. The encyclopaedia The Australian People , planned in the mid 1980s, made no mention at all of child removal in its section 'Public Policy 1788-1972'.[34] Surprisingly, The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia , which was being planned in the early 1990s, has entries for the Cootamundra Girls Home and Kinchela Boys Home, which were then most in the news, but not under 'separation of children' nor 'seizure by the state'.[35]

The Hawke and Keating governments showed a commendable willingness to support the Aboriginal child care and Link-Up agencies, and, recently, to support further investigation into the policy of child removal. The Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths In Custody investigated several cases involving removed children[36], and one consequence was nearly three million dollars granted in support of the national Link-Up work.

Some branches of state governments and their agencies have been less enthusiastic.[37] The Northern Territory Conservation Commission was unimpressed with the suggestion that the Australian Archives exhibition Between Two Worlds might be exhibited in the old Bungalow (the original Overland Telegraph Station) for fear that it might compromise the building's non-indigenous history.[38] The NSW State Government, which distributed 'The Stolen Generations' so liberally twelve years ago, mysteriously suppressed the release of the 1994 report, commissioned by its own Department of Community Services, into state removal issues.[39] A branch of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Legal Service is attempting to gather information about all children removed in the area and removed to state or religious Homes to provide evidence for similar cases, but is finding that an enormous amount of identifying material is unavailable.[40]

There is as yet no national study of Aboriginal child removal, though one is being considered by the federal government. Independently managed and financed Link-Up organisations exist only in NSW and Queensland, though all other states and the Northern Territory currently provide, or have provided, analogous services. New South Wales and the Northern Territory have experienced most of the publicity and the publications. There is some information on the history of the policy in South Australia,[41] some on Victoria[42] little on Queensland except for the Link-Up booklet and only obliquely in Western Australia,[43] and very little on Tasmania.

For the removed adults themselves the last reflections lie beyond the history and analysis of the policy of child removal. Their reflections are personal: how to identify as Aboriginal; and how to rebelong to a family and to a people. The stolen generations have always had, and continue to have, a perspective different from other Aborigines as well as from non-Aborigines. Pauline McLeod sumarised the dilemma of almost all her fellow sufferers in her poem 'The Fortunate One':

"Hey you!
You the fortunate one.
I lived part of our history
I was a stolen child, taken from my family I felt the pain, the hurt, the misery.
One amongst a thousand, searching for my Identity.
Hey you!
You the fortunate one.
Don't turn your back on me! Don't say 'I don't belong here' Don't judge or criticize me! Saying that I am no Aborigine!!!"[44]


[1] The first substantial institution was Macquarie's school at Blacktown, 1814. See J. Brook and J.L. Kohen, The Parramatta Native Institution and the Black Toumr A History, NSWUP, Kensington 1991.

[2] Herbie Laughton,'The Old Bungalow, sung version on cassette in the possession of Rowena MacDonald, Australian Archives. For an analogous view, see Hagar Roberts in Peter and Jay Read, Long Time Olden Time: Aboriginal Accounts of Northern Territory History, CD Rom, Firmware, Penrith,1993.

[3] Topsy Nelson Napurrula in Read and Arthur, 1993, (recorded 1977).

[4] Charles Perkins, A Bastard Like Me, Ure Smith, Sydney 1975; Jimmie Barker, The Two Worlds of Jimmie Barker, as told to Janet Mattheres, ALAS: Canberra 1977; Margaret Tucker, If Everybody Cared, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1977. For similar views see also Magdalene McIntosh and Elaine Rothwel,'Maddie', Aboriginal History 3 (1979), pp2-24.

[5] Coral Edwards, It's A Long Road Back', AIAISIS,1980.

[6] See also C. Edwards, 'Is The Ward Clean, in Bill Gammage and Andrew Markus, All That Dirt, Dept of History, ANU, Canberra 1982, pp4-8.

[7] Bob Randal,'Brown Skin Baby', in Bob Randall CAAMA (cassette); see also, for example, the ambiguous treatment of Father Smith in Charles Perkins, A Bastard Like Me, and Charles Perkins, Witness, Senate Select Committee an Social Environment, 14 June 1973 AGPS, Canberra 1973, p1119.

[8] Ken Brindle and Danny Adams were two who were able to do so privately (pets. comma). For further discussion see P. Read, 'A Phantom at My Shoulder: The Final Draft of Charles Perkins: A Biography', in I. Donaldson, P. Read, J. Walter (eds) Slurping Lives, Reflections on Biography, Humanities Research Centre, Canberra 1992, ppl5S170.

[9] In Victoria, through the Victorian Aboriginal Advancement League and the Victorian Child Care Agency, especially Margaret Tucker's daughter Mollie Dyer; in NSW, through the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs, especially Shirley Smith.

[10] 'Link-Up' INSW, nd, c.19831, p2; see also Carol Kendall,'Link-Up', Link-Up (NSW) Aboriginal Corporation, Canberra 1995, forthcoming.

[11] 'Link-Up [Qld nd (.19911 Ff.

[12] Barbara Cummings, Take This Child, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1990. See also a sell-published pamphlet by Marjorie Woodrow,'One of The Lost Generation', Marjorie Woodrow: Narromine 1990.

[13] Alec Morgan Lousy Little Sixpence, Ronin Films, 1983.

[14] 'Coral', dir Jenni Kendall, c. 1983

[15] Other radio projects followed, one of which resulted in Ros Bowden and Bill Bunbury (eds), Being Aboriginal ABC, Crows Nest 1990.

[16] Hyllus Maria and Sonia Borg, Wends Anderson' (1982) and 'Lo-arno'(1989), in Women of the Sun, Generational Films.

[17] Pers. comm.

[18] Coral Edwards and Peter Read (ads,) The Lost Children, Doubleday, Sydney, 1989; for oral histories of other removed children see Peter Read (en') Down There With Me orn the Co.. Mission, Pergamon, Sydney 1984, ch.8, and Mrs I. Edwards, interview saipt held in Griffith (NSW) City Library, 1992.

[19] Janaka Wiradjuri, Blackberry's Child, Breakout Press, Sydney c. 1991.

[20] Rita Huggins and Jackie Huggins, Auntie Rita, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra 1994.

[21] Anne Pratten, Terra Nullius, Australian Film School, Sydney 1992; Paul Behrendt, Paul Behrendt's Stories, Radio National Tapes.

[22] 'Munjana' and 'Took The Children Away', in Charcoal Lane.

[23] C. Tompson, in Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel, facsimile edition Sydney University Press, Sydney 1973, p46; for a comment see Brook and Kohen 1991, pp1534.

[24] James Gunther, Diary, 16 December 1839, mf in Mitchell Library Sydney; Peter Read, A Hundred Years War, ANU, Canberra 1988, ppl7-18.

[25] Re Mrs Kingsley Strack see, for example, see Truth, 5 January 1941, Sam, 21 November 1940. 1 am grateful to Ms Vicky Rose for this information.

[26] R.M. Berndt, 'An Oenpelli Monologue', Oceania XXB/1 (September 1951), pp28-30.

[27] E. Summerlad, 'Homes For Blacks: Aboriginal Community and Adoption', in C. Picton (ad) Proceedings of the First Australian Conference on Adoption, The Committee of the First Australian Conference on Adoption, UNSW 1976.

[28] Heather Goodall, 'A History of Aboriginal Communities in NSW 1909 to 1939', PhD University of Sydney 1982. See also Carla Hankins,'The Missing Links: Cultural Genocide through the Abduction of Female Aboriginal Children From Their Families and Their Training for Domestic Service 1883 -1969', B.A. (Hoes.) Thesis, University of NSW, 1982, and Peter Read, 'A History of the Wiradjuri people of NSW 1883-1969', AND, 1983.

[29] Peter Read, 'The Stolen Generations', NSW Government Printer, nd, [1981].

[30] Richard Broome, Aboriginal Australians, Allen and Unwin, Sydney 1982, pp834,1345.

[31] Bill Gammage and Peter Spearritt, eds, Arcstraliaus 1938, Fairfax Syme and W eldon Associates Broadway 1987. Another oral history by a removed person was excised from the 1938 volume at the speaker's request just before publication.

[32] Tony Austin, I Can Picture the Old Home So Clearly, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1993.

[33] Patricia Grimshaw, Marilyn Lake, Ann McGrath, Marian Quartly, Creating A Nation, McPhee Gribble, Ringwood 1994, index; see also Verity Burgmann and Jenny Lee, Making A Life, McPhee Gribble, Ringwood 1988, ppl47-151.

[34] J. Jupp (ed)The Australian People, Angus and Robertson, Ryde,1988, pp216-223.

[35] David Horton (general ad) The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra 1994.

[36] Including the Report of the Inquiry into fire Death of Malcolm Charles Smith (see above, 1989) and Roy Clarence Near. (1990) by Commissioner J.H. Wootten,

[37] For instructive but seldom cited sources of state employee views see several witnesses (eg E. Hiscocks, J. Henricksen) in NSW Parliament, Report from the joint Committee into Aborigines Welfare, NSWGP, Sydney, 1967, Vol.11 [Minutes of Evidence].

[38] In 1993 the Australian Archives prepared an exhibition Bet wee,, Two Worlds, about the removal of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory. The exhibition toured Australia for eighteen months; see Rowena Macdonald, 'Between Two Worlds', Aboriginal History 18 (1994), p163.

[39] Gungil Jindibah Centre (Southern Cross University Lismore),'Learning From the Past: Aboriginal Perspectives on the Effects and Implications of Welfare Policy and Practices on Aboriginal Families in New South Wales', October 1994; see Sydney Morning Herald, 5 March 1995.

[40] Pets. comm.

[41] C. Mattingley and K Hampton (eds) Survival in Our Own Land, ALDAA, Adelaide, 1988.

[42] For example, the oral history of Melissa Brickell, Lettie Nicholls and Mollie Dyer in Alick Jackomos and Derek Powell, Living Aboriginal History of Victoria, Museum of Victoria, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne 1991.

[43] Anna Haebich's remarks about removal children, for example, are in the context of the mission stations like Moore River; Anna Haebich, For Their Own Good, UWA Press, Perth, 1988. See also Glenyse Ward, Unno You Filter, Magabala Books, Broome, 1991 and Pat Jacobs, Mister Neville, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle 1990.

[44] Reprinted in 'Link-Up' [NSW 1,1989, p15.


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