Missions: The Mistreatment Of Aboriginal People

990 Words4 Pages
Missions were compounds established by the churches to provide a safer place where the aboriginal people could feel safer from the mistreatment of European settlers. Mission stations were set up to help assimilate the 'half-caste' Aboriginal children and protect them from their Aboriginal lifestyle, in doing so they caused a lot of pain and suffering because they broke up families and communities. Although the missions may have started out with good intentions they had argumently detrimental influences on the same people they were there to protect. They took away the Aboriginals freedom by controlling everything they did. By making them believe there beliefs were wrong and that the European way of life was the only proper way. The settlers…show more content…
They were banned from using their language and if caught teaching their language to their children they would be punished. Not being allowed to speak in their language meant that majority of the Aboriginal people’s culture could not be taught to the children. They did not have any legal rights what so ever and had no say in what they did and even worse, what their children did. The lack of freedom meant they could not participate in their own culture activities or perform their sacred ceremonies. Basically by being controlled by the missions meant they were stuck between the two worlds. They were being urged to give up all their beliefs and values to live the same way as the European’s way of life but they were still being looked down upon and treated like they were a waste of space. In most cases they were not accepted by either the Aboriginal or the European communities. One of the consequence the Aboriginal people suffered in the attempt of being ‘civilized’ by the missions was the serious medical conditions that came from the forced change of lifestyle. The death toll was often very high in the missions because of the new dieses the Aboriginal people were opened up to. They had not been introduced to these dieses before so therefore were not immune to…show more content…
They were restricted to the mission grounds and were not allowed to leave without permission. This was a disturbing thing for the Aboriginal to have to experience as they had a strong bond to their totem area’s and being confined to the compound grounds of the missions’ this often meant they were un able to visit their sacred land. in most cases they were not allowed to communicate with others that were on the outside of the compound, sometimes this meant no contact with family members or other tribal members who they were close with prior to living on the missions. As a part of traditional Aboriginal life the Aboriginal people would have to gather and hunt for food on a Dailey basis but with being on the missions this meant they were not allowed to go out and do that. They found themselves bored and without a purpose, and this is where the problems with the alcohol
Open Document