They took our land and then our Children
Presented by the Migration Museum
An exhibition about the 1923 Ngarrindjeri Petition
In December 1923 three Ngarrindjeri Elders, Leonard Campbell, William Rankine and Colin Stanley travelled from Raukkan (formerly Point McLeay mission) to Adelaide bearing a petition written by a Ngarrindjeri mother, Ellen Kropinyeri, which they presented to the then South Australian Governor, Sir George Bridges. The petition was a closely argued protest for the rights of mothers over the ‘rights’ of a law that enabled government officers to remove any Aboriginal child from their parents and place them in foster homes for training.
The newspapers of the day responded to the delegation with sympathy and gave the petition wide publicity. That could not, however, stop the authorities from taking Aboriginal children away from their families.
The exhibition has been jointly produced by the Migration Museum and the Ngarrindjeri Heritage Committee Inc with the support of several government departments. It tells the story of the 1923 petition, the re-enactment of the presentation of the petition to the Governor by Ngarrindjeri people in 2003 and the fracture, desolation and trauma experienced by children and their families as a result of an unjust law.
Map Ref: 17
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