Aboriginal Assimilation Essay

Assimilation caused a drastic change to aboriginal lives. In the beginning half of the twentieth century, up until the 1960’s, the Government of Australia wanted to create a single, white Australian culture. They sought to do this through assimilation policies, which had disturbing effects on the Indigenous communities. This essay examines the policies of Aboriginal assimilation between 1930 and 1960, and highlights the changes that these policies had on Aboriginal lives. These policies were supported by racist conventions and settler nationalist laws. One of the constant motivations for assimilation back in the first half of the twentieth century came from the nationalist message of white Australia. The way this essay will tackle this question

The definition of assimilation for aboriginals, can be dated back to the 1963 statement by Aboriginal affairs ministers: The policy of assimilation means that all Aborigines and Part-Aborigines will attain the same manner of living as other Australians and live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians. But not only where the Aboriginals affected by this policy, but all foreign migrants were affected by this policy when it became an official policy in Australia. Anyone who came to Australia from overseas, where expected to fit in with the culture at the time, they were expected to assimilate. Aboriginals and migrants were expected to part with their traditions and adopt the ‘white’ culture. So the governments solution was to stop the policy of protecting the aboriginals, which separated the aboriginal people from white society by placing them on reserves and missions, and instead to adopt the assimilation approach. Assimilation, originated on the assumption of white superiority and black inferiority, which proposed that Aboriginal people should be allowed to “die out” through a process of natural elimination, while ‘half-castes’ were encouraged to

Many of the parents faced great grief from having their children taken away from them. as a result of this grief many parents turned to alcohol as a way of coping with the grief. Furthermore, the removal of several generations of children caused a massive disruption in the aboriginal oral culture, and as a result much of the cultural knowledge was lost. So from this we can see that these assimilation policies greatly changed the lives of many aboriginals. It caused much heart ache and pain not only for the families effected but for the greater aboriginal community as a whole. The assimilation policy failed in its attempt of improving the life of the Aboriginals. The main reason for this was because of the contradictory logic behind the assimilation. It expected the Aboriginals to take responsibility for becoming the same as white, but never gave them the same opportunities. Regardless of the governments efforts to assimilate the Aboriginals, they were never accepted as equals in a society that still considered them as a lesser race. The constant belief in the inferiority of the Aboriginal people and their traditions weakened the assimilation policy which ultimately lead to its failure. The effects of the assimilation policies are still prevalent today in the Aboriginal communities.

So from this we can see that assimilation