'Killing me inside': The legacy of government policies and stolen kids

Bronwyn Smith with her grandparents and siblings, a year before she was forced into the girls' home. (Supplied) Link copiedShareShare articleWarning: This story contains images of First Nations people who have died. Standing in the principal's office at her local primary school, Bronwyn Smith knew she was about to receive some bad news. A grade 3 student at the time, she was surrounded by a group of police sergeants, the principal and the manager of the Aboriginal girls' dormitory in Cherbourg, Queensland. Without a guardian in sight, she was told to go to the children's dormitory, where her sisters and brothers were taken, with the instructions not to return home. After years of pain and trauma, Stolen Generations survivor Aunty Bronwyn Smith shares her story for the first time. (ABC News: Yasmine Wright Gittins) "I didn't have any voice or advocacy about what was happening and why it was happening," the now 62-year-old Wakka Wakka woman said. As the school bell rang, she went to the dormitory just as she was told, but what unfolded next created years of deep trauma that still impacts her today. Inside the Aboriginal girls' dormitory. (Supplied: Queensland Museum, Betty McKenzie Collection) Ms Smith shares the experience of many Stolen Generations survivors who testified to the landmark inquiry, Bringing Them Home, which investigated the impact of discriminatory government policies. The inquiry found from 1910 to 1970, up to one third of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families. While the total number could not be confirmed due to inaccurate records, the inquiry estimated many thousands of people were and still are affected. In Queensland, First Nations peoples were lawfully removed from their families as far back as 1865, under the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act. Stolen Generations survivor Uncle Michael 'Widdy' Welsh was optimistic that change was coming when a groundbreaking national inquiry was launched to bring light to history, recognising experiences like his. This legislation authorised the removal of "neglected children" to live in reformatories, known today as juvenile detention centres. The Act defined "any child born to an Aboriginal or half-caste mother" as a "neglected" child. Over the years, the laws used to remove children changed names, but the intent was consistent. By the 1970s, standing in the principal's office surrounded by authorities, Ms Smith was torn from her family. "I'm so broken as a result of it, in the way that I live my life, the way that I am a partner, a mother, grandmother, the way I am with my siblings and my nieces and nephews. All those relationships are impacted," she said. "It's taken me this long, 50-odd years, to be even comfortable about talking about this. Opening of the expanded girls' dormitory at Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement in 1925. (Supplied: Queensland Museum) The Cherbourg Aboriginal Girls' Dormitory was situated on the government-controlled settlement, which segregated children from their families, imposing a harsh, strict routine. This regimented way of life started before the sun came up. "We had a five o'clock wake-up and had to go and get boiling water from a fire outside in the yard and carry the scalding water in a bucket up two flights of stairs and mop the floor every morning," Ms Smith reflected. "There were no excuses and you did your bit because if you didn't, you'd get punished for it. But it also meant somebody else had to pick up the slack." Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement had strict rules on who could enter or leave. (ABC News) Children weren't allowed to leave the premises unless they had permission. Contact with their parents and siblings in the other dormitories was forbidden. Ms Smith's brothers lived in the boys' dormitory. One day by chance, she spotted them playing in the front yard. "It was really horrible because I missed my brothers," she said. There were strict rules about how to set the dinner table, to tucking the sheets of the bed with hospital corners – all part of the "conditioning" young girls endured while training to become domestic servants. "Christmas, we would have white dignitaries, someone from the department or the local town council would come into the community to see how the Blacks were behaving, I guess," Ms Smith said. Bronwyn Smith vividly remembers the day she saw her older brother and held his hand. (ABC News: Yasmine Wright Gittins) But in those four long years she was living in the girls' dormitory, Ms Smith says, hope still prevailed. It lived in the visits her "dormitory sisters" were granted with their families. "Whenever parents did come, it was a celebration for all of the dormitory kids," she said. "Those aunties and uncles would give us a cuddle, and it was really lovely, because we never got that. "If we were upset about anything, there was no emotional connection or kind words unless we did that for ourselves," she explained. Hope

'Killing me inside': The legacy of government policies and stolen kids

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