‘Breaking up these camps entirely’: the dispersal policy in Wiradjuri country 1909–1929

In my paper 'A rape of the soul so profound' I sketched out what seemed to me to have been the major theme of European/Aboriginal relationships in New South Wales this century: the attempts of successive governments to disperse Aborigines from their living areas and from each other, and the Aborigines' response to that policy.1 I des cribed two principal techniques of dissociation -the removal of children from their parents, and the expulsion of adults from the reserves, stations and fringe-camps. In this paper I examine the working of the second of these techniques to see what dis persal actually meant to the Aborigines subjected to it. The area of investigation is eastern Wiradjuri country in the first two decades after the passing of the Aborigines Protection Act in 1909.