Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2013

Australia's Policy of 'Breeding out' Mixed Blood Aboriginal People

(Abstract)

Yang Honggui

Long-term contact between whites and Aboriginal people in Australia has resulted in the dwindling of the indigenous community and the emergence of groups with mixed blood. From the late 19th century to the Second World War, after full-blooded Aboriginal people had been driven into reserves, Australians saw "half-caste" groups as the main threat to their ideal of "White Australia." Between the two world wars, "breeding out" mixed-blood Aboriginal people was the Australian government’s basic strategy for dealing with the issue of "half-castes." The policy encouraged white males to marry Aboriginal women, in order to gradually eliminate the physiological features of people of mixed descent and ultimately make them white. This effort was recognized as a failure around the time of World War II. The policy then changed into one of assimilating full-blooded Aboriginal people and those of mixed descent. As an important step taken to realize the ideal of White Australia, “breeding out” was deeply imprinted with racism from the outset.