Vocabulary + Key dates

• Captain James Cook landed in Botany Bay

  1770
• First European settlement established at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson

  26th Jan 1788
• Governor Hunter sent troops to protect the 400 farmers around Hawkesbury River – deaths occurred


  1795
• Aborigines killed 2 European settlers near present day Inverell. 12 local stockmen (11 ex-convicts) avenged the murders, killing 28 of the nearest Aboriginies


  1836
• Colony of Victoria passed the Aboriginal Protection Act


  1869 - 1937
• 'Black Wars of Tasmania' – conflict between Aborigines and European settlers


  Mid 1820s to 1830s
• Victoria passed the Half-Caste Act


  1886
• All state and federal governments agree to introduce 'assimilation'


  1937
• Kevin Rudd makes national apology

  13th Feb 2008
• Aboriginal Australian


  A person belonging to the native/indigenous communities of Australia who lived there before Europeans arrived
• Aboriginal Protection Act


  This act gave extensive powers over the lives of Aboriginal people to the government's Board for the Protection of Aborigines. This Board had control over Aboriginal affairs including where they lived, worked and who they married
• Then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples, particularly to the Stolen Generations whose lives had been damaged by past government policies of forced child removal and Indigenous assimilation


  13 February 2008
• Assimilation


  In 1937, the Commonwealth Government held a national conference on Aboriginal affairs which agreed that Aboriginal people 'not of full blood' should be absorbed or 'assimilated' into the wider population. The aim of assimilation was to make the 'Aboriginal problem' gradually disappear so that Aboriginal people would lose their identity in the wider community
• Bringing them Home Report

  Raising the awareness of the Australian public of the historical policies of forced removal, as well as the ongoing impacts. The response of many Australians was shock and horror
• Close the Gap


  Closing the Gap is a government strategy that aims to reduce disadvantage among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people especially with relation to life expectancy, child mortality, access to early childhood education, educational achievement, and employment outcomes
• Colonisation


  When one country sends a group of people to take political control of another place. E.g. when the British colonised Australia
• Country


  For Aboriginal people culture, nature and land are all linked. Aboriginal communities have a cultural connection to the land, which is based on each community's distinct culture, traditions and laws
• Discrimination


  Treating people differently because of their membership of categories, such as sex, religion, nationality, skin colour or age
• Indigenous people


  The first or earliest people living in a place
• Institutions


  Group homes for Indigenous children who were taken from their parents. These were often run by religious orders. Conditions and treatment could be very cruel
• Kinship


  For Indigenous people it is a complex system that determines how people relate to each other and their roles, responsibilities and obligations in relation to one another, ceremonial business and land. The kinship system determines who marries who, ceremonial relationships, funeral roles and behaviour patterns with other kin
• Missions


  Missions were set up in the 19th century, usually by clergy (priests or nuns), to house, protect, and 'Christianise' local Aboriginal people. Using Christian texts to guide and justify their actions, missionaries encouraged Aboriginal people to move into mission settlements and join small European Christian communities
• Mixed-race


  A name for a person of mixed racial background. In Australia, it meant someone who was part Aboriginal and part European/other race ('half-caste' and 'mixed blood' mean the same thing but are impolite and should not be used)
• Racism


  The belief that some races are better than others
• Stolen Generations


  A term which is applied to children who were forcibly removed from their families under the Aboriginal Protection Act. It refers to the fact that these children were taken from their families and had all or most cultural and family connections broken, thus leaving generations of children who don't know their families, their culture or where they come from
• Ward of state


  Children removed from their families and placed either in the direct care of the state or placed by the state in private institutions