Posted on 11/15/2009 12:25:22 PM PST by Dan B Cooper
As many as 150,000 poor British children were shipped off to the colonies over three and a half centuries, often taken from struggling families under programs intended to provide them with a new start - and the Empire with a supply of sturdy white workers.
Forty years after the program stopped, Britain and Australia are saying sorry to the child migrants, who were promised a better life only to suffer abuse and neglect thousands of miles from home.
The British government said Sunday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would apologize for child migrant programs that sent boys and girls as young as 3 to Australia, Canada and other former colonies. Many ended up in institutions where they were physically and sexually abused, or were sent to work as farm laborers.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
“The British government has estimated that a total of 150,000 British children may have been shipped abroad between 1618...”
I thought you were supposed to apologize for wrongs that you personally committed. What is it with these politicians apologizing for long past sins? Yes, human beings have been doing naughty, evil or just plain stupid things for ages. The thing that matters is that we’ve stopped doing most, or at least a lot, of them!
My family owned slaves long ago. I never did. I refuse to apologize for something I am not responsible for!
There was a nasty trade in kidnapping British children and selling them into indentured servitude in America during the early days of American colonization as well. The kidnappers were known as “crimps”.
The British government has estimated that a total of 150,000 British children may have been shipped abroad between 1618 - when a group was sent to the Virginia Colony - and 1967, most of them from the late 19th century onwards.
After 1920, most of the children went to Australia through programs run by the government, religious groups and children’s charities.
A 2001 Australian report said that between 6,000 and 30,000 children from Britain and Malta, often taken from unmarried mothers or impoverished families, were sent alone to Australia as migrants during the 20th century. Many of the children were told that they were orphans, though most had either been abandoned or taken from their families by the state. Siblings were commonly split up once they arrived in Australia.
Authorities believed they were acting in the children’s best interests, but the migration also was intended to stop them from being a burden on the British state while supplying the receiving countries with potential workers. A 1998 British parliamentary inquiry noted that “a further motive was racist: the importation of ‘good white stock’ was seen as a desirable policy objective in the developing British Colonies.”
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When human beings believe they and their children belong to the GOVERNMENT - ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!!!!
A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have....
Reparations Alert: Where is MY free Obama money???
Send me my free money now... I gots lots of stuff to by.
If that bill ever became a reality, I would NEVER use or accept it as legal tender.
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