Editing Half-caste (section)

===Australia===
{{Further|Half-Caste Act}}
In Australia, the term "half-caste", along with any other proportional representation of [[Australian Aboriginal identity|Aboriginality]] (such as "part-aborigine", "full-blood", "quarter-caste", "[[octoroon]]", "[[mulatto]]", or "hybrid"<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.ipswich.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/10043/appropriate_indigenous_terminoloy.pdf| title=Appropriate Terminology, Indigenous Australian Peoples| author=[[Flinders University]]| date=2004| access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref>) are defunct descriptors that are highly offensive. Its use is [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal peoples of Australia]] mostly in historical documents, as it is associated with [[cultural assimilation|assimilationist]] policies of the past.<ref>{{cite web | title=Half-Caste – any term making use of the word 'half' suggests an incomplete person | website=Ruminating | date=12 September 2016| first=Stephen|last=Hall | url=https://ruminating.org/news/half-caste-any-term-making-use-of-the-word-half-suggests-any-incomplete-person/ | access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Terminology Guide | website=Narragunnawali | url=https://www.narragunnawali.org.au/about/terminology-guide | access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/321308/working_with_aboriginal.pdf| title=Working with Aboriginal people and communities: A practice resource| author=NSW Aboriginal Services Branch| publisher=NSW Department of Community Services| date= February 2009| isbn=978-1-74190-097-2| access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.reconciliation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/inclusive-and-respectful-language.pdf| title=RAP drafting resource: Demonstrating inclusive and respectful language| author=[[Reconciliation Australia]]| access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref> Such terms were widely used in the 19th- and early-20th-century Australian laws to refer to the offspring of [[European Australians|European]] and Aboriginal parents.<ref>{{cite journal|author=A.O. Neville|title=The Half-Caste in Australia. By A. O. Ncville, Esy., Former Commissioner of Native Affairs for Western Australia1|journal=Mankind|volume=4|number=7|date=September 1951|pages=274–290|doi=10.1111/j.1835-9310.1951.tb00251.x}}</ref> For example, the ''[[Half-Caste Act|Aborigines Protection Act 1886]]'' mentioned half-castes habitually associating with or living with an "Aborigine" (another term no longer favoured),<ref>{{cite web|title=Aborigines Protection Act of 1886|publisher=Museum Victoria, Australia|url=http://museumvictoria.com.au/encounters/coranderrk/legislation/index.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607042239/http://museumvictoria.com.au/encounters/coranderrk/legislation/index.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 7, 2007}}</ref> while the Aborigines Amendments between 1934 and 1937 refer to it in various terms, including as a person with less than [[quadroon]] blood.<ref name=cs1>{{cite web|title=Aboriginal timeline (1900 - 1969)|publisher=Creative Spirits NGO|url=http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-20th.html|access-date=2012-06-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120814140823/http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-20th.html|archive-date=2012-08-14|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Following the [[Federation of Australia|federation of the Australian colonies]] in 1901, Attorney-General [[Alfred Deakin]] ruled that references to "aboriginal natives" in the [[Australian Constitution]] did not include half-caste individuals. This definition was carried forward into the first federal welfare legislation, such as the [[Deakin government (1905–1908)|Deakin government]]'s ''Invalid and Old-Age Pensions Act 1908'' and the [[Andrew Fisher|Fisher government]]'s ''Maternity Allowance Act 1912'', which made half-castes eligible to receive old-age pensions and maternity allowances but excluded individuals "who are Asiatic, or are aboriginal natives of Australia, Papua or the Pacific Islands".<ref>{{cite journal|title=Conditional Inclusion: Aborigines and Welfare Rights in Australia, 1900–47|first=John|last=Murphy|year=2013|doi=10.1080/1031461X.2013.791707|journal=Australian Historical Studies|volume=44|issue=2|pages=209–210}}</ref>

The term was not merely a term of legal convenience; it became a term of common cultural discourse. Christian [[missionary]] John Harper, investigating the possibility of establishing of a [[Christian mission]] at [[Batemans Bay, New South Wales]], wrote that half-castes and anyone with any Aboriginal connections were considered "degraded as to divine things, almost on a level with a brute, in a state of moral unfitness for heaven".<ref>{{Citation |editor=Woolmington, Jean| title=Aborigines in colonial society, 1788-1850 : From "noble savage" to "rural pest" | publication-date=1973 | publisher=Cassell Australia | isbn=978-0-304-29960-7|others=Introduction by Jean Woolmington | year=1973 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Marginal Men: A Study of Two Half Caste Aborigines|author=Jeremy Beckett|journal=Oceania|volume=29|number=2|date=December 1958|pages=91–108|doi=10.1002/j.1834-4461.1958.tb02945.x}}</ref>

The term "[[Half-Caste Act]]" was given to [[Act of Parliament|Acts of Parliament]] passed in [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] and [[Western Australia]] allowing the seizure of half-caste children and forcible removal from their parents. This was theoretically to provide them with better homes than those afforded by typical Aboriginal people, where they could grow up to work as domestic servants and for [[Social engineering (political science)|social engineering]].<ref name=cs1/><ref>{{cite journal|title=The barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and the 'stolen generations'|author=Robert van Krieken|journal=The British Journal of Sociology|volume=50|number=2|pages=297–315|date=June 1999|doi=10.1080/000713199358752|pmid=15260027}}</ref><ref name=Hutnyk/> The removed children are now known as the [[Stolen Generations]]. Other [[Parliament of Australia|Australian Parliament]] acts on half-castes and Aboriginal people enacted between 1909 and 1943 were often called "Welfare Acts", but they deprived these people of basic [[Civil and political rights|civil]], [[Human rights|political]], and economic rights, and made it illegal to enter public places such as pubs and government institutions, marry, or meet relatives.<ref name=dodson/>