Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor Kandis Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath.
Speaker 1: Say that, Jane, when you think at the out back,
Speaker 1: what comes to mind crocodile bundy. Oh, very nice, it's
Speaker 1: very nice. I think of Koala's, kangaroo's mostly animals, boomerangs,
Speaker 1: did you reduce love those? And um, you know, funny
Speaker 1: side bar to that those are actually created in this
Speaker 1: multi step process. And the first is finding a piece
Speaker 1: of wood that's been a holida out by termites. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: I know, not quite like making an electric guitar, you know, similar. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: So the out back, I think is a pretty picturesque
Speaker 1: place in many of our minds, or at least it's
Speaker 1: one that you know, connotes adventure and and fun. And
Speaker 1: you know, Mary Ment, Australia seems on the whole like
Speaker 1: a very merry out of place. It's funny, there's water.
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman came from there and she's pleasant. Step when yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of sad now, but it's picturesque as we
Speaker 1: may envision the outback Australia has a pretty sad history,
Speaker 1: that's right. And um, it all comes down to the
Speaker 1: people who were there before the European settlers. And we're
Speaker 1: talking about the Aborigines, of course, who got to the
Speaker 1: Australian continent somewhere between about forty thousand and sixty thousand
Speaker 1: years ago, and then the British, by contrast, came in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty eight, that's right. And they weren't interesting. The
Speaker 1: Aboriginies weren't interesting. Anomaly that they were isolated from any
Speaker 1: other major civilization for so long. They were actually still
Speaker 1: hunter and gatherers when um, the Europeans arrived, and they
Speaker 1: hadn't like perfected any sort of uh, farming technique or
Speaker 1: anything like that, and they were sort of attached to
Speaker 1: the land and a lot of both religious and sort
Speaker 1: of just you know, sustenance, you know. Um, and they
Speaker 1: had sort of the same a similar sense of perty
Speaker 1: that American Indians have if you're familiar with that, is that, um,
Speaker 1: they didn't have the same sense that Europeans did, basically,
Speaker 1: and that made it easier for Europeans to come in
Speaker 1: and sort of push them out of the way, right.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned their connection to the land being a
Speaker 1: spiritual one. And that's very true because their creation myths
Speaker 1: tie them very strongly to the land, because they see
Speaker 1: divinity and natural aspects of the land and the landscape.
Speaker 1: And so when the Europeans came and essentially pushed them away,
Speaker 1: it was an insult not only their spirituality but also
Speaker 1: to their way of life because it's hunter gatherers. If
Speaker 1: they were forced into areas of the land that didn't
Speaker 1: offer any sustenance, well, there wasn't much that they could
Speaker 1: do because they had no farming knowledge and they had
Speaker 1: like their own, their own ways of gathering, and if
Speaker 1: they were pushing to a new area, they weren't sure
Speaker 1: where to go to get the best sustenance. And you
Speaker 1: mentioned that there were a lot of connections between what
Speaker 1: happened with the Native Americans and the United States and
Speaker 1: what happened with the British and the Aborigines, and you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right, because if you recall when the Native Americans
Speaker 1: were introduced to diseases that American settlers had that you know,
Speaker 1: could be innocuous to us, could wipe out, you know,
Speaker 1: a third of their population. The same thing happened there,
Speaker 1: and in Aborigines would get like small part upox and
Speaker 1: tuberculosis and things like that, and so both the starvation
Speaker 1: that was going on and these diseases, it really impacted
Speaker 1: the population of Aborigines severely, severely. Even around two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, after the Aborigine culture started to come back
Speaker 1: and really be restored on the Australian continent, I think
Speaker 1: they estimated that only about two percent of the population
Speaker 1: was made up of Aborigines, staggering and sadly ironic considering
Speaker 1: that they were the ones who were there in the
Speaker 1: first place. But if we get back to when Australia
Speaker 1: was I guess if you want to use the word discovered,
Speaker 1: you could by James Cook. That was seventeen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: and he called it New South Wales and he was
Speaker 1: there for an instant. He saw it, and then he
Speaker 1: moved on. And this is the same guy who would
Speaker 1: go on to explore Polynesia, and he was the one
Speaker 1: who also found Eastern Island. So he was down in
Speaker 1: this part of the world and it was very much
Speaker 1: about entitlement and being territorial. He saw this land, he
Speaker 1: staked it out, but then no one visited for a
Speaker 1: couple of generations after that. They had no reason to
Speaker 1: be there, that's right, and the English actually didn't want
Speaker 1: didn't have any need for it until a little bit
Speaker 1: later when um they in the past they had been
Speaker 1: sending their debtors, their prisoners over to the American colonies,
Speaker 1: and as we all know, seventeen seventy six, the American
Speaker 1: colonies were you know, declared independence and they didn't want
Speaker 1: to take any more of the English debtors, basically understandably,
Speaker 1: and so Europe or England, it's um, I should say,
Speaker 1: had all these prisoners where they wanted to send them someplace,
Speaker 1: and so they were like, well, Australia is there, Let's
Speaker 1: just send them over there. And it was a long voyage,
Speaker 1: but it's felt that purpose. But it's kind of sad
Speaker 1: that prisoners would trump and he claims to land at
Speaker 1: the native virgines had But that's exactly how it played out.
Speaker 1: And so the average the Aborigines who were in the
Speaker 1: way were beaten or killed or put into slavery, but
Speaker 1: into slavery and the women were sometimes made sex slaves.
Speaker 1: And so we see the population beginning to really really dwindle,
Speaker 1: and those who did survive. I think we're at a
Speaker 1: higher likelihood to become alcoholics, or to be depressed, or
Speaker 1: to engage in criminal activity. And this continued well until
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. That's right in the government of the
Speaker 1: Australian government at this time saw this, these risks that
Speaker 1: the Aborigines were were encountering, and they're like, we we
Speaker 1: should help out, we should make them so they have
Speaker 1: a better upbringing. And so that's when they instituted these
Speaker 1: laws that basically legalized the stealing of Aboriginal children from
Speaker 1: their families. And this took place from about nineteen tenths
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy had affected nearly a hundred thousand children.
Speaker 1: And again, this wasn't an under one prime minister's administration,
Speaker 1: or it wasn't just one person who masterminded the planet.
Speaker 1: Continued through several generations, and I think that it was
Speaker 1: sincerely a benevolent idea. These people wanted to keep the
Speaker 1: Aborigines alive, but they didn't want to do it by
Speaker 1: preserving their culture. They wanted to do it by taking
Speaker 1: the Aboriginal children. And there was a sense of eugenics,
Speaker 1: I guess behind it as well. They wanted to breed
Speaker 1: out the Aboriginal color from them right, precisely. They wanted
Speaker 1: to assimilate them into white, non indigenous Australian culture. And
Speaker 1: they did this a number of underhanded ways, and no
Speaker 1: matter if you thought it was a benevolent plan, the
Speaker 1: manner in which it was executed, it was certainly not
Speaker 1: benevolent at all. They would kidnap children, They would have
Speaker 1: parents signed them away. They would give them forms and
Speaker 1: faint that they were for uh vaccination, thank you vaccination,
Speaker 1: And in reality, the Aboriginal parent was signing away custody
Speaker 1: of his or her child, that's right. And they were
Speaker 1: like sometimes when kids were sent to hospitals or whatever,
Speaker 1: they would leave them there and and then the Australian
Speaker 1: government would legalize taking the children from there and telling
Speaker 1: the parents that the child had died. And that's what's
Speaker 1: the most tragic, because of these families underwent, you know,
Speaker 1: massive grief thinking that they had lost their children, and
Speaker 1: like was the children were sometimes told that they were orphans, yeah,
Speaker 1: which which had to hurt too. I think about being
Speaker 1: an Aboriginal child growing up in an all white family
Speaker 1: or in one of these orphanages, and knowing how different
Speaker 1: you are from everyone else, and being treated often very differently. Exactly.
Speaker 1: A lot of them were subject to molestation, or they
Speaker 1: were ridiculed, or they were abused in other ways. And
Speaker 1: it's it was a very stark difference between the Aboriginal
Speaker 1: children and the white children because, as Jane mentioned before,
Speaker 1: the Aborigines had evolved in isolation, so they all have
Speaker 1: very specific facial features and skin colorations, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of the accounts today, I think that some of
Speaker 1: the Aborigines say that on the basis of their appearance,
Speaker 1: they were made to fill inferior and ostracized in social
Speaker 1: and academic settings. And this went on for so long
Speaker 1: throughout the twentieth century, even while the American Civil rights
Speaker 1: movement was going on. And could you say, Candice that, um,
Speaker 1: the American Civil rights movement actually kind of instigated, uh,
Speaker 1: the reform in Australia. Yeah, that's an absolute fact. And
Speaker 1: while we may think of Australia being an ocean away,
Speaker 1: it actually ideologically was very closely tied to the American
Speaker 1: civil rights movement and that was used as a model
Speaker 1: for the Aborigines to reclaim their land and reclaim their rights,
Speaker 1: and they did. They got their voting rights and they
Speaker 1: got um, permission to be included in the Australian Census,
Speaker 1: which may not sound like a big deal, but it
Speaker 1: was because it meant that they were marked as Australian
Speaker 1: citizens and they threatened equality. And then in this investigation
Speaker 1: was launched into the members of the Stolen Generation as
Speaker 1: these children were called, and there was a report called
Speaker 1: Bringing Them Home and it was sponsored by the Human
Speaker 1: Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and they basically outlined about
Speaker 1: fifty different stuffs that the government could take to essentially
Speaker 1: make reparations for what happened to these members of the
Speaker 1: Stolen Generation. This written, the government didn't really um act
Speaker 1: on these immediately, or at least there were there were
Speaker 1: problems um with even making an apology. Um created a
Speaker 1: problem for the political leaders in Australia because once they
Speaker 1: did that, they felt that they were exposing themselves to
Speaker 1: lawsuits basically against the government. And they had a reason
Speaker 1: to feel that way because one of the staffs one
Speaker 1: of the four steps that the commission outlined was compensation.
Speaker 1: The others were restitution, the rehabilitation of the wrong parties,
Speaker 1: and a guarantee against future violations. And so Prime Minister
Speaker 1: back then was John Howard, and he was very adamant
Speaker 1: and insisting that there would be now apology and on
Speaker 1: the grounds that the movement may be seen today as
Speaker 1: culturally irresponsible, back then it was, you know, genuinely done
Speaker 1: as a benevolent thing to save the Aboriginal population. That's
Speaker 1: where they had good intentions, um, which you can argue,
Speaker 1: but it goes to show where good intentions can bring
Speaker 1: you sometimes exactly. But there was an apology issued by
Speaker 1: the new Prime Minister, that's Kevin Read and that wasn't
Speaker 1: too long ago, February two thousand and eight. And in
Speaker 1: the meantime, actually there haven't been many reparations made to
Speaker 1: anyone in any member of the Solen generation, except for
Speaker 1: one successful lawsuit in the late nineties, and that was
Speaker 1: a man named Bruce. It's Trevor o or Trevora. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how his last name is pronounced, but essentially,
Speaker 1: he was thirteen months old when his mother took him
Speaker 1: to a hospital on Christmas Day for stomach pains and
Speaker 1: he was kept and the mother was told that either
Speaker 1: he had died or he couldn't be given back to her,
Speaker 1: and she managed to keep her other children and they
Speaker 1: were raised in the Aboriginal culture, and she went several
Speaker 1: times back to the hospital to pursue Bruce and his whereabouts.
Speaker 1: And because there was such an intense paper trail between
Speaker 1: her requests for permission to see him and for her
Speaker 1: search for him, and because Bruce's siblings had grown up
Speaker 1: and hadn't subcome to a life of alcoholism or crime,
Speaker 1: which were some of the popular claims against the Aborigines,
Speaker 1: he was able to wage a successful case against the government.
Speaker 1: That's right, and he won. He did the amount if
Speaker 1: I think, four seven thousand U s. Dollars, which may
Speaker 1: seem like a small few for all that he endured,
Speaker 1: but it's it's something, and it is to this day
Speaker 1: the only reparation that has been made except in Tasmania.
Speaker 1: Tasmania does have a fund for reparations. That's right. And Um,
Speaker 1: there's actually other lawsuits um uh kind of related in
Speaker 1: terms of by the I think they about the seventies. Um,
Speaker 1: there were laws passed where Aborigines could actually reclaim land
Speaker 1: that had belonged to their ancestors. Um. But this actually
Speaker 1: came into would be a problem, um flicked with their
Speaker 1: religion because in order to show that they were actually there. Uh,
Speaker 1: their ancestors were there. They would have to tell their history,
Speaker 1: which meant um telling like revealing some secrets about their religion,
Speaker 1: which is very tied with their history. And uh and
Speaker 1: this was was wrong according to their religion because these
Speaker 1: secrets were supposed to be kept from the outsiders. And
Speaker 1: so it came down to your matter of you know,
Speaker 1: revealing that sacred part of their lives, your modern society
Speaker 1: that wouldn't understand, or getting the land back. And it's
Speaker 1: it's still, you know, a pretty heated debate, and it's
Speaker 1: a very charge climate right now. So we'll have to
Speaker 1: keep our eyes and ears on the news for what
Speaker 1: happens with other possible reparations for members of the stall
Speaker 1: In generation. But if you want to read more about
Speaker 1: the Stalln generation and other aspects of Aboriginal culture, be
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