Before, and for some time after the 1967 referendum Aboriginal people were subjected to law and social policy that controlled every aspect of their lives. They were excluded from all the supports (hospitals and public housing) and payments (wages, pensions, dole, child benefit) given to non-Aboriginal people. They were subjected to curfews and condemned to absolute poverty. Many lived in ancient camping grounds or reserved lands until they were cleared out. Frequently police and Welfare Officers would raid the camps to steal children who would be taken to settlements. 

]]> 115.955833,-31.903056 #TLCMapStyle

This layer contains historical information about Aboriginal people that may be distressing.

Native Welfare Department made a sort of raid on the camps and in the Bassendean and Guildford areas and all people who weren’t working, unemployed and things, they just grabbed them all, kids who didn’t go to school, and just chucked ‘em in a big sort of cattle trucks and took them all up to Moore River Settlement. And ‘cause  two of my sisters were rounded up at my grandmother’s place and they grabbed them too, and my aunty and chucked them all on a  truck and took ‘em up to Moore River. 

TLCMap

TLCMap Layer

]]> 1930 1939 116.045833,-31.038056 #TLCMapStyle

This layer contains historical information about Aboriginal people that may be distressing.

"Aboriginal people camped on the river near the settlement in order to be near their relatives and to feed the starving children through the fence because the food at the settlement was so bad. My mother, she went up there and run away with them. She got  on a train and went to the Mogumber Siding and jumped out and snuck into the Moore River Settlement at night and went into the camps along the river side, along the Moore River. And of course  she asked an old lady there about her girls because she was one  of the old ladies that got knocked off from Guildford too ... And  she told them what dormitories they were in. And of course she  waited ‘til nightfall and she snuck in and got them out and took off  and headed for the coast from the Moore River Settlement along  the river.

TLCMap

TLCMap Layer

]]> 1930 1939 115.770219,-31.973028 #TLCMapStyle

This layer contains historical information about Aboriginal people that may be distressing.

"And she walked for days and ‘cause they came out looking for them ... and ‘cause [the tracker] was trying to track ‘em down because ... mother was a bit smart and ‘cause when they come out of the river, she’d say look, you know, in the sand plain country, walk backwards, you know, don’t walk forward, just walk backwards. And ‘cause she fooled him with her tracks and they thought that she was going the opposite way, but she was going back the other way. She’s too clever for him. And they’s climbing the trees and watching and having a good laugh because they see him on horseback with the Superintendent and trying to track ‘em down but they’re going the wrong way. She come right back to the coast and come right back to Swanbourne, to the camps." (DNA, 105/37, Native camps in the Metropolitan Area, SROWA, Cons 993, fol.1510. 93 Corrie Bodney, oral history, 22 February 2007, 6. Cited in Cook, 2016)."   

TLCMap

TLCMap Layer

]]> 1930 1939