Historical Background: Australia and Canada

A Brief History of Australia's Colonial Policy  

The pioneering efforts were undertaken in the last decades of the nineteenth century. As the Commonwealth of Australia gradually moved towards formal independence from the British Empire, the individual states within the nation-to-be were beginning to seek ways of imposing control over the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through official legislation. Beginning in the 1850s and 1860s, the individual state governments established the Aborigines Protection Boards, in collaboration with the new Chief Protector of Aborigines, to regulate and control the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. [1] This process was initiated in the late nineteenth century at a time when white settler-colonials perceived the Indigenous peoples as "pitiful, benighted creature[s] who [were] too backward, too low-down on the evolutionary scale to survive in modern, civilized society without the right 'protection'" that white society had a 'moral obligation' to provide. [2] Shortly thereafter, the Aborigines Protection Boards began to take 'blood quantum' levels into consideration to discern the degree of an individual's aboriginality, in order to classify them accordingly within the contemporary legislation. [3] 

The two major cornerstones of the future assimilationist policies both emerged in 1886: the State of Victoria's The Aborigines Protection Act 1886, also known as the infamous Half-Caste Act 1886; and the State of Western Australia's The Aborigines Protection Act 1886. [4] Both of these pieces of legislation were landmarks in the history of Aboriginal policy, and established a precedent for the 'protection'of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations as well as a legislative model that other states and/or territories could emulate within their own jurisdictions thereafter. This was a legislative attempt to provide the necessary 'protection' to 'inferior' peoples that were understood to be slowly dying out as a result of their primitivity. [5] According to former Chief Protector of Aborigines Herbert Basedow in his book, The Australian Aboriginal published in 1925, “…the Australian aboriginal stands somewhere near the bottom rung of the great evolutionary ladder we have ascended — he the bud, we the glorified flower of human culture". [6]

Adhering to the 'natural' order of things, the colonial state governments endeavoured to forcibly relocate the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations to "camps, Christian missionaries, and government reserves" where they were subject to dismal living conditions and referred to as "inmates". [7] This type of demeaning terminology persisted well into the twentieth century as demonstrated with image 2, a photograph of the "Halfcaste inmates" at the Groote Eylandt Mission on the island of Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, as part of John William Bleakley's government-supported investigation into the Northern Territory in 1928. [8] 

The nineteenth-century policy of protection by way of segregation and isolation was abandoned, for the most part, in the early twentieth century as the newly federated Australian State began to unofficially pursue the assimilation of strictly the 'Half-Caste' population. This particular form of action entailed the removal of children deemed 'Half-Caste' according to the existing legislation, initially with The Aborigines Protection Act 1886 and Half-Caste Act 1886, and later The Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910, Aboriginals Ordinance 1911, and Aboriginals Ordinance 1918. This was a legislative response to the quadrupling of the 'Half-Caste' population over a twelve-year period, from 1898 to 1910. [9]

Within the Northern Territory specifically, the removal of 'Half-Caste' children began in earnest under the direction of Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer, who served as the Chief Protector of Aborigines for the territory in the early to mid-1910s. Specifically in 1913, Spencer declared that "no half-caste children should be allowed to remain in any native camp, but they should all be withdrawn…even though it may seem cruel to separate mother and child, it is better to do so". [10] 

The prevailing view of the era was that 'half-caste' children had to be "saved" from the primitive, inferior existences of the full-blood Aboriginals and to do so would require them being taken in hand by white society. [11] Though, there was also an extent of fear and guilt associated with the assimilationist endeavour since it was not only 'unacceptable' to allow children of European heritage to 'waste away' in Aboriginal communities, but it was also potentially a serious threat to the eventual achievement of an entirely 'White Australia'. [12] This idea of a 'White Australia' was initially sought through legislation prior to Federation with the Indian Immigration Act 1882, Chinese Immigration Act 1888, and the Coloured Immigration Restriction Act 1896 in the Northern Territory, and with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 following the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia. [13] According to one contemporary, the 'Half-Castes' were "a very undesirable breed, with the white man’s intelligence and the aborigine’s cunning and treachery all combined" which thereby made them perfectly suited for leading revolutionary uprisings against the European settlers. [14] 

Another notable figure in the history of assimilation in the Northern Territory was Herbert Basedow, who was appointed Chief Protector of Aborigines in 1911 and was the first to propose the "collection of 'half-caste' children in Darwin". [15] In his 1925 book, The Australian Aboriginal, Basedow asserted: 

"The Australian aborigine is not a remote animal creation which happens to belong to the human species — he is our racial brother…For this reason we cannot in a strictly scientific or racial sense speak of a difference between ourselves and the Australian aborigine as it exists, for instance, between ourselves and the Negroids or the Mongoloids. Modern research, beginning with the doctrines of Thomas Huxley, has convinced us that we and the Australian Aborigine are the extremes in the evolution of one and the same type. For this reason alone we are not even justified in referring to a blood-mixture of the two extremes as a bastard…a child born of an Australian Aboriginal mother and an European father is not a half-caste but represents the union of long separated and differentiated but still of the same strain or caste. I am by no means advocating this blend, for the progeny is quite as likely to inherit the mother’s pristine cunningness as the father’s intellectuality or refinement…" [16]

The removal and institutionalization of 'Half-Caste' children continued thereafter under Spencer's successors, most notably Dr. Cecil E.A. Cook in the late 1920s and 1930s. In a letter dated December 16, 1937, Cook made his support of assimilation quite clear by stating "the backwardness of a certain number of coloured individuals should not preclude others, more nearly approaching the white norm, from the opportunities of full education available to white children". [17] 

To achieve that end, Cook instituted a policy of "breeding out the colour" which was a strategic aim to biologically eliminate the aboriginality within the population over several generations. [18] Accordingly, the Chief Protector was incredibly supportive of the marriages between 'Half-Caste' women and settler European men, which received confirmation from Daisy Cusack — a survivor of Kahlin Compound in Darwin — who remembered that Cook "never wanted [the 'Half-Caste' children] to mix with the full-blooded Aborigines” because his intention was for them to "marry into white and get rid of [their] own…Aboriginality". [19] This belief in the promise of interracial marriage is abundantly clear in one of Cook's letters dated June 27, 1933: 

"The excess white male population living in rural districts, deprived at present of the company of women of its own race, is denied any opportunity of making homes. These men live, therefore, for the most part in camps many of which are a very low order and closely approximate to those favoured by the aboriginal. It is only a matter of time under these conditions before cohabitation with the aboriginal female follows. This cohabitation is attended by moral, economic and physical deterioration of the individual which react unfavourably upon the development of the Territory generally. Many such men would be prepared to marry half-caste females and make decent homes. Provided the girl has been reared to a moderately high standard there can be no objection to such a mating resulting as it does in the white man rearing a white family in good circumstances instead of a half-caste family under degrading conditions. Experience shows that the half-caste girl can, if properly brought up, easily be elevated to a standard where the fact of her marriage to a white will not contribute to his deterioration. On the contrary under conditions in the Territory where such marriages are socially accepted among a certain section of the population, the results are more beneficial than otherwise since the deterioration of the white is thereby arrested and the local population is stabilised by the building of homes. It is not to be supposed that such marriages are likely to produce an inferior generation. On the contrary a large proportion of the half-caste female population is derived from the best white stock in the country whilst the aboriginal inheritance brings to the hybrid definite qualities of value..." [20]

In the same year, the Report of the Northern Territory Administrator actually acknowledged the active effort "being made to breed out the colour by elevating female half-castes to the white standard with a view to their absorption by mating into the white population". [21] 

Summary of Australian Legislation

The Aborigines Protection Act, 1886 (Western Australia)

• Established The Aborigines Protection Board with the duty to offer proposals or recommendations for the "care, custody, or education of the children of Aboriginals". [28]
• Created the position of Protector of Aborigines that would be subordinate to the Board. [29]
• Included 'Half-Caste' within the legislative definition of "Aboriginal" — "...every Aboriginal half-caste or child of a half-caste, such half-caste or child habitually associating and living with Aboriginals". [30]

The Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (Victoria)

• Defined "half-caste" as "all other persons whatever of mixed aboriginal blood". [31]
• Included under the definition of Aboriginal:
  • "Every half-caste who habitually associating and living with an aboriginal" older than 34 years of age. [32]
  • "Every female half-caste who has...been married to an aboriginal...[and] living with such aboriginal". [33]
  • "Any half-caste other than is hereinbefore specified who for the time being holds a licence in writing from the Board under regulations to be made in that behalf to reside upon any place prescribed as a place where any aboriginal or any tribe of aboriginals may reside". [34]
• Established a precedent for the "transfer of any half-caste child being an orphan to the care of the Department for neglected children or any institutions within the said colony for orphan children subject to the provisions of any law now or hereafter to be in force for the transfer of orphan children to the said Department or such institutions". [35]

Northern Territory Aborigines Act of 1910

• Established the Northern Territory Aboriginals Department "charged with the duty of controlling and promoting the welfare of the aboriginals". [36]
• Created the position of Chief Protector of Aboriginals for the Northern Territory. [37]
• Recognized the Chief Protector as the "legal guardian of every aboriginal and every half-caste child...until such child attains the age of eighteen years". [38]
• Endowed the Chief Protector with the responsibility to "provide, when possible, for the custody, maintenance, and education of the children of aboriginals" which enabled the removal of said children to "an aboriginal institution or industrial school". [39]
• Included in the vestige of the Chief Protector's powers was the ability to sanction the lawful removal of "any aboriginal or half-caste" and their placement within the "boundaries of any reserve or aboriginal institution". [40]
• Mandated the need for government approval of any marriage between a "female aboriginal with any person other than an aboriginal". [41]

Aboriginals Ordinance 1911 

• Passed after the federal government assumed control over the Northern Territory from the State of South Australia in 1911
• Granted the Chief Protector the discretionary powers to "undertake the care, custody, or control of any aboriginal or half-caste" by way of written authorizations for the police to assist in any removals deemed 'necessary'. [42]

Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 

• Included under the definition of "Aboriginal". [43]
  • a Half-Caste with an Aboriginal spouse. [44]
  • a Half-Caste that "habitually lives or associates with such aboriginal natives". [45]
  • a male Half-Caste under the age of eighteen. [46]
  • "a female [Half-Caste] not legally married to a person who is substantially of European origin or descent and living with her husband". [47]
• Defined "Aboriginal Institution" as "any mission station, reformatory, orphanage, school, home or other institution for the benefit, care or protection of the aboriginal or half-caste inhabitants of the Northern Territory". [48]
• Defined 'Half-Caste' as "any person who is the offspring of parents, one but not both of whom is an aboriginal and includes any person one of whose parents is a half-caste". [49]
• Referred to "aboriginal and half-caste" children in Aboriginal Institutions as inmates. [50]
• Repealed the Aboriginals Ordinance 1911. [51]
• Nullified The Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910. [52]

Aboriginals Ordinance (No. 2) 1924

• Extended the Chief Protector's guardianship of half-caste men from age of eighteen to the age of twenty-one. [53]

A Brief History of Canada's Colonial Policy 

According to Ens and Sawchuk, the Canadian government had permitted those of mixed Indigenous-European heritage, known as Metis, to "enter treaty and live on reserves" since at least the early nineteenth century; however, the Metis were not considered distinct within contemporary legislation, unlike First Nations peoples. [54]   

With the acquistion of Rupert's Land in 1869-1870, the Canadian government assumed control over the vast territorial expanse which became known as the North-West Territories. The passage of the Manitoba Act of 1870 also brought the province of Manitoba into Confederation; however, even more importantly, the act represented the first recognition of Metis status within legislation. [56] Section 31 outlined the relinquishment of "one million four hundred thousand acres" of land to extinguish the "Indian title...of the families of the half-breed residents" within the Province of Manitoba upon the transfer of Rupert's Land. [57] To carry out the scrip process, there were several Half-Breed Commissions that went on expeditions throughout the North-West Territories from the 1880s to 1920s. [58]

Over the same forty-year period, the existence of the Metis and their place within the national landscape became a frequent topic of discussion, especially in the wake of the North-West Rebellion of 1885. Following the end of the rebellion and the execution of Louis Riel, the Metis underwent somewhat of a transformation in identity formation and nationhood that amounted to a 'muting' of the more visible aspects of their 'Metis-ness' whilst emphasizing their European or First Nations heritages instead. [59] 

Similar to the Australian context, there was widespread belief across Canada in the early twentieth century that 'full-blood' Indigenous peoples would eventually 'die out' and therefore, settler society had an obligation to 'save' and 'uplift' those with some European blood, which could only be done through interracial marriages and forced assimilation such as with the residential school system. [60]

Contemporary discourse on the promise of racial mixing was indeed widespread, as can be seen in the example below, which appeared in the local newspaper — The Raymond Leader — of Raymond, Alberta on November 2, 1911. [61] Under the title, "Cross-Breeding Improving Humanity," the article discusses the contentions of scholars as to the positives of racial mixing in relation to the "fertility, vitality and cultural worth" of mankind. [62] The article also confirms the belief in the eventual extinction of the "native race" or merely full-blood Indigenous peoples as a result of their inferior "stock" in comparison to the "superiority of the mixed people" whose biological strength in fertility and vitality allows the Metis to survive, even as the "native race" declines or disappears altogether upon coming into "contact with foreigners". [63]

This belief in the necessity of assimilation was a driving force behind the Metis admittance into residential schools. Similar to Australia's institutionalization of 'Half-Caste' children in Aboriginal Institutions in the early twentieth century, Metis children were forced at times to attend government-supported residential schools. The need for Metis children to receive institutional care — at least from a white settler perspective — was made abundantly clear in a letter to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education: 

"The condition of these Métis is deplorable. Large families live in one or two rooms. Children have grown up without learning to read or write; some cannot even speak English reasonably well. I feel that only through education can we help these people, and at the same time prevent our Métis problem from becoming more serious. Unfortunately, as I said before, I fail to see how adequate schools can be financed unless some Department of either the Dominion or the Provincial government accepts more responsibility for these people, who seem to be looked down upon by both the white people and the Indians." [64]

For the most part, the actual admittance of Metis children into residential school was dependent on specific criteria that determined the child's eligibility according to the nature of their lifestyle and upbringing: "1. Those who live, in varying degrees of conditions, the ordinary settled life of the country. 2. Those who live, in varying degrees, the Indian mode of life. 3. Those who—and they form the most unfortunate class in the community—are the illegitimate offspring of Indian women, and of whom white men are not the begetters." [65]

In the midst of the increasingly assimiliationist attitudes and efforts of the Canadian government, and by extension much of settler society, there was a revitalization of the Metis identity and culture that coincided with the reorganization of the  L’Union nationale métisse Saint-Joseph du Manitoba, or National Métis Union in 1909-1910. [66] Originally, L'Union was founded a few years after the conclusion of the North-West Rebellion, on March 1, 1888 with the aim to make the Metis more prominent within the Canadian landscape; however, the resentment and anger towards the Metis was still very fresh in light of the two rebellions — the Red River Rebellion of 1869-1870 and the North-West Rebellion of 1885 — that were both within recent memory. [67] 

After about a twenty year timespan, the societal atmosphere had calmed enough to permit the reorganization of L'Union on June 13, 1909 with a new generation of Metis leaders who were determined to "instill some pride in the Métis, who had become silent and withdrawn since 1885, 'their heads bowed low under an avalanche of calumny'". [68] Essentially, the new generation sought to rewrite the history of the Metis from a Metis perspective rather than the traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestant interpretation of the Canadian past that was pervasive in the early twentieth century. [69] To that end, the newly revitalized organization established a historical committee, narrowed the requirements to be eligible for membership in the Métis Nation, and enlisted Auguste-Henri de Trémaudan to write a national history of the Metis, which was ultimately published in 1935 under the title, Histoire de la nation métisse dans l’Ouest canadien. [70] A year later, the sense of a revitalized Metis Nation was almost palpable in an excerpt from G.F.G. Stanley's book, The Birth of Western Canada: 

"The half-breeds as a race never considered themselves as humble hangers-on to the white populations, but were proud of their blood and their deeds ... They developed a resolute feeling of independence and a keen sense of their own identity which led them to regard themselves as a separate racial and national unity, which found its expression in their name "The New Nation." [71]

Summary of Canadian Legislation

Manitoba Act, 1870

• Admitted the North-West Territories (formerly known as Rupert's Land) into the Dominion of Canada. [72]
• Allowed for the Province of Manitoba to enter into Confederation. [73]
• Under Section 31, outlined the extension of "one million four hundred thousand acres" of land to extinguish the "Indian title...of the families of the half-breed residents" within the Province of Manitoba upon the transfer of Rupert's Land to Canada. [74]

Indian Act, 1876 

• Distinguished between Metis and First Nations on the basis that "no half-breed in Manitoba who has shared in the distribution of half-breed lands shall be accounted an Indian" with the exception of "the widow of an Indian, or a half-breed who has already been admitted into a treaty". [75]

Dominion Lands Act, 1879

• Extinguished the existing land claims of Metis residents of the North-West Territories outside the provincial boundaries of Manitoba. [76]

The Metis Population Betterment Act, 1938

• Defined "Metis" as "a person of mixed white and Indian blood but does not include either an Indian or a non-treaty Indian as defined in The Indian Act". [77]
• Endowed the Minister of the Executive Council with power to create Metis settlements on tracts of land set aside for their exclusive use by the provincial government of Alberta. [78]