Editing Stolen Generations (section)

==Emergence of the child-removal policy==
Numerous 19th and early 20th century contemporaneous documents indicate that the policy of removing mixed-race Aboriginal children from their mothers related to an assumption that the Aboriginal peoples were dying off.{{sfn|Manne|2012|pp=219–220}} Given their catastrophic population decline after white contact,<ref>{{cite web |title=Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population |url=http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/ABS@.NSF/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/bfc28642d31c215cca256b350010b3f4!OpenDocument |website=www.abs.gov.au |publisher=[[Australian Bureau of Statistics]] |access-date=30 May 2018 |language=en |date=25 January 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230408115930/https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/ABS@.NSF/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/bfc28642d31c215cca256b350010b3f4!OpenDocument |archive-date=8 April 2023}}</ref> whites assumed that the full-blood [[tribe|tribal]] Aboriginal population would be unable to sustain itself, and was doomed to [[extinction]]. The idea expressed by [[A. O. Neville]], the [[Chief Protector of Aborigines]] for [[Western Australia]],{{sfn|Cruickshank|McKinnon|2023|p=108}}{{sfn|Haebich|2023|p=558}} and others as late as 1930 was that mixed-race children could be trained to work in white society, and over generations would marry white and be assimilated into the society.<ref>{{cite news |last=Neville |first=A. O. |author-link=A. O. Neville |date=18 April 1930 |title=Coloured Folk: Some Pitiful Cases |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/31075105 |newspaper=[[The West Australian]] |page=9}}</ref><ref name="ref1">Western Australia State Archives, 993/423/38, "Absorption of Half Castes into the White Population".</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Russell |last=McGregor |title=Imagined Destinies. Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory, 1900–1972 |location=Melbourne |publisher=[[Melbourne University Publishing]] |date=1997}}</ref>

The [[Colony of Victoria]] was the first to pass acts (1869 and 1886) that allowed for the removal of mixed-race persons from Aboriginal reserves. An 1899 regulation expressly granted permission for the removal of Aboriginal children from their families.{{sfn|Cruickshank|McKinnon|2023|pp=97–98}}

Some [[European Australians]] considered any proliferation of mixed-descent children (labelled "half-castes", "crossbreeds", "[[quadroon]]s", and "[[octoroon]]s",<ref name="ref1" />{{sfn|Anderson|2003|pp=231, 308}} terms now considered derogatory to Indigenous Australians) to be a threat to the stability of the prevailing culture, or to a perceived racial or cultural "heritage".{{sfn|Anderson|2003|p=160}} The Northern Territory Chief Protector of Aborigines, Dr. [[Cecil Cook (Australia)|Cecil Cook]], argued that "everything necessary [must be done] to convert the half-caste into a white citizen".<ref name="Northern Territory">{{cite web |title=The History: Northern Territory |publisher=Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission |location=Sydney, Australia |date=December 2007 |url=http://www.humanrights.gov.au/education/bth/download/laws/bth_laws_histnt_10r.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080226224620/http://www.humanrights.gov.au/education/bth/download/laws/bth_laws_histnt_10r.pdf |archive-date=26 February 2008}}</ref> Studies that were then viewed as scientific claimed that Australian Aborigines traits were less visible after mixing with Europeans than sub-Saharan African traits are, so Australia did not apply a [[one drop rule]] to Aborigines like the American South did to people of African descent.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gates |first=R. Ruggles |date=1960 |title=The genetics of the Australian aborigines |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/amg-acta-geneticae-medicae-et-gemellologiae-twin-research/article/genetics-of-the-australian-aborigines/F2C4F99C6759C4676A9EF868D3C3FC13 |journal=Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae |volume=9 |number=1 |pages=7–50 |doi=10.1017/S1120962300018424|pmid=13826841 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Northern Territory===
In the [[Northern Territory]], the segregation of Indigenous Australians of mixed descent from "full-blood" Indigenous people began with the government removing children of mixed descent from their communities and placing them in church-run missions, and later creating segregated [[Aboriginal reserve|reserves]] and compounds to hold all Indigenous Australians. This was a response to public concern over the increase in the number of mixed-descent children and sexual exploitation of young Aboriginal women by non-Indigenous men, as well as fears among non-Indigenous people of being outnumbered by a mixed-descent population.<ref name="Northern Territory"/>

Under the ''[[Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910]]'', the Chief Protector of Aborigines was appointed the "legal guardian of every Aboriginal and every half-caste child up to the age of 18 years", thus providing the legal basis for enforcing segregation. After the Commonwealth took control of the Territory, under the ''[[Aboriginals Ordinance 1918]]'', the Chief Protector was given total control of all Indigenous women regardless of their age, unless married to a man who was "substantially of European origin", and his approval was required for any marriage of an Indigenous woman to a non-Indigenous man.<ref name="Northern Territory"/>