Absorbing the Aboriginal problem: controlling interracial marriage in Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century

Abstract

[A]ssimilation is our word. Many Aboriginals take it as meaning they are to be bred out. They wish to be a distinctive people … The desire of the Aboriginals to be a distinctive people is something we should respect. 1 What did the word 'assimilation' really mean in the mouths of white Australian politicians when they referred to Aboriginal people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? This paper, part of a larger project which compares interracial marriages of white women and Indigenous men in Australia and the United States, begins from the assumption that umbrella terms such as 'assimilation' can mean different things in different times and places. Comparative historians are urged not to assume that 'because they bear the same label, ideas, institutions, or groups … perform the same function everywhere'. 2 As this paper will show, such insights prove valuable when seeking to understand the particular policies aimed at Indigenous people in a unique settler society such as Australia.