Rights and freedoms

• Racism:

  • Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their race or ethnicity
• Protectionism: 1869 - 1937

  • 1869 - Colony of Victoria passed the Aboriginal Protection Act
  • Aimed at 'protecting' Aborigines because the government claimed they were a 'dying race'

  = Government policy that segregated Aboriginal people from Australian society and became the means of controlling their lives
• Protectionism: 

  • Established control over Aborigines by Europeans 
  • System of segregation - kept 'whites' and Aborigines separate, Aborigines effectively removed from 'white' society
  • Dictated where Aborigines could live, the work they could do and who they could marry
  • Forced them to live on specified government controlled 'Aboriginal reserves' or church controlled 'missions' outside their traditional lands
  • They were expected to adopt European ways of life - not allowed to speak their traditional languages or practice their culture
  • Denied indigenous people the same rights as European Australians
• Assimilation: 1937 - 1967: 

  • 1886 - Victoria passed the Half Caste Act 
  • Forced aborigines of ‘mixed descent’ (partly European) to leave Aboriginal reserves and missions to be assimilated into ‘white society’ 
  • This led to the Stolen generation

  
  

  • 1937 - All state and federal government agree to introduce assimilation 
  • Aboriginal people who were not full bloods' would be required to conform to the beliefs and customs of the 'white' population.

  = Federal government policy that expected Aboriginal people to conform to the attitudes, customs and beliefs of the white majority.