dvR_030915_G

The Mission on Croker Island was set up in 1941 by the Uniting Church as a foster home for children from mixed European-Indigenous descent to assimilate the then-called 'half-castes' into main stream 'white' society. For that purpose most of the children had been forcefully removed from their homes and taken away from their parents by Australian Government officials. They were first dumped in interim detention camps and later sent to the Misson on Croker Island. During WWII the children's mission on Croker had been evacuated. The informants recall the return of an advanced group of the "Stolen Generation" children to Croker Island accompanied by the missionary Rupert Kentish shortly after WWII. They tell how this group brought cattle from nearby Goulburn Island to Croker Island, and discuss briefly the issue of guns and the obtaining of firearms licences