The blacks will have to go white.
It is exemplified in the quarter castes, and by the gradual absorption of the native Australian black race, by white. I have noticed no throw-backs in such cases hitherto.
A.O. Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines, The Daily News, p.2, 8 June 1933.
Destiny of the Race:
This Conference believes that the destiny of the native of Aboriginal origin, but not the full-blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth and it therefore recommends that all efforts be directed to that end.
Key resolution adopted unanimously by the National Conference of State and Commonwealth Government Aboriginal Authorities, Canberra 1937. Proposed by A.O Neville.
When I went up to Carnarvon in 1949 I read a police manual which told police officers what to do. In a section under natives it said that if a police officer finds light caste children in a native camp they are to pick them up and send them to the nearest mission or, failing that, down to Sister Kate’s in Perth. They just picked them up and took them away. It was all done at the request of Neville to the Police Department.
Frank Ellis Gare, Commissioner of Native Welfare, 1962 to 1972.
When we tried to tell someone about the abuse, we were told, “There’s some things God does not want you to talk about. How dare you.”
Former inmate, New Norcia Mission
I know of some 80 white men who are married to native women with whom they are living happy contented lives, so I see no objection to the ultimate absorption into our race of the whole of the existing Australian native race.
A. O Neville at the National Conference of State and Commonwealth Government Aboriginal Authorities, Canberra 1937.
I am come to this Royal Commission to ask that steps be taken to breed out the half-caste, not in a moment but in a few generations, and not by force but by science we can, as I urge to be done, slowly absorb the half-caste into our own white ranks. We will do all in our power to prevent the mating of a half- caste with half-caste, and especially with black.
We will on the other hand do all in our power to displace the black strain by an infiltration of white blood.
Dr. Cecil Bryant to Moseley Royal Commission 1934.
Are we going to have a population of one million blacks in the Commonwealth, or are we going to merge them into our white community and eventually forget that there were any Aborigines in Australia?
A.O Neville, appealing to his fellow Protectors and Commissioners, Canberra, 1937
We must have charge of the children at the age of six years; it is useless to wait until they are twelve or thirteen years of age. In Western Australia we have power under the Act to take any child from its mother at any stage of its life, no matter whether the mother be legally married or not.
A. O. Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia, 1937
It is my wish that every care be taken in the admittance of children in order to ensure that they are fair enough to be regarded as white when the period of education and training has been completed.
Letter Acting Commissioner Native Affairs to office of Sister Kate’s ‘quadroon’ home, 29 October 1947, Native Welfare file.
Children placed with Sister Kate are never released to their parents. This would be a direct contradiction of the principle of their segregation from native persons, as they are placed with Sister Kate for this very reason.
Letter from Commissioner of Native Affairs to a government official station in NorthWest, 21 July 1944, Native Welfare file
Western Australia has gone further in the development of such a long range policy than has any other State, by accepting the view that ultimately the natives must be absorbed into the white population of Australia.
A. O. Neville, 1937
I was in complete accord with the mission policy of retaining the native boys and girls until sixteen years of age, and then placing them with Christian families located some distance away from the districts of their parents, in order to minimise the degree of contact and influence which is undoubtedly detrimental to the future of the child in most cases.
Letter Acting Commissioner Native Affairs to Superintendent, Roelands Mission, 27 July 1948, Native Welfare file.
The influence of the adult full blood parents … although often arising from the love of their parents for the child is completely undesirable from our standards and can only delay the process of the child to such an extent and that becomes retrogression.
Director of Moola Bulla Native Settlement, Annual Report, 1950
I know that the long distance view is to breed these people right out, but so long as the half-castes can mate with the full blacks, the process is being reversed […] The girls, constituting the greatest problem of the lot […]
I would not be above taking them away from their mothers at the earliest possible stage. […] we owe it to the future generations of white people that something should be done to stop this ever-increasing menace.
Garnet Barrington Wood MLC, in WA parliament, 1936.
The danger today lies in the native camps in the South-West where the half-castes go back and live with the full-blooded natives […]
The colour must not be allowed to drift back to the black.
We should be prepared to spend considerable sums of money in taking away the female children […] If they do go out to service, and then get into trouble, that trouble will be associated with white people which, in itself, will assist to breed out the colour.
Leslie Craig MLC MLC, in WA parliament, 1936.
Eliminate the full-blood and permit the white admixture [to half-castes] and eventually the race will become white.
A.O Neville, The West Australian 18 April 1930, (cited in Beresford and Omaji, 1998 p. 43)
Dealing with half-castes—and this clause has chief reference to these people—Dr. Bryan has spoken strongly against the mating of half-castes with half-castes, on the ground that it will perpetuate the black and coloured elements. And still, without advocating the marriage of whites and half-castes, he does support the mating of a half-caste with a coloured person higher in the white scale. To further this scheme, he says, we should do all in our power to prevent a half-caste marrying another half-caste, and to encourage him or her to look higher. This, of course, can only be done by throwing these people together and hoping for the best, and this is just what in other words I have been advocating when suggesting the Community Settlements where these coloured people, or half-castes as I have called them (without reference to the degree of colour in them), will live their lives together under proper supervision. If this scheme of breeding out the colour is really effective, and if these people assist in the policy by choosing the appropriate partners, well and good. If, on the other hand, a half-caste chooses to marry a half-caste, then I would not be a party to interfering with such choice, hoping always that, as the coloured race multiplied, effective administration might be the means of raising them in habits if not in colour.
H.D. Moseley, Report of the Royal Commissioner, p. 8, Perth 1935
The young half-blood maiden is a pleasant, placid, complacent person as a rule, while the quadroon girl is often strikingly attractive, with her oftimes auburn hair, rosy freckled colouring, and good figure…
As I see it, what we have to do is to elevate these people to our plane, and if inter-marriage between them and ourselves becomes more popular, then we shall be none the worse for it. That will solve our problem of itself.
A. O. Neville, from his book Australia’s Coloured Minority, 1947.
It seems apparent with these people of European-Aboriginal origin that like breeds like — two half-bloods will produce children of similar blood and not of quarter blood as many people think — and therefore it requires the admixture of further white blood to alter the ratio and produce the quadroon…the more they mix with us the more like us they become, and the less likelihood of reversion to the aboriginal type.
A. O. Neville, from his book Australia’s Coloured Minority, 1947.