According to the historian, Molly and Gracie were removed from their families on the Jigalong Depot more than 75 years ago because of their “sexual activity with white men working in the area”.
The West Australian chief protector responsible for their removal, Auber Octavius Neville, had not been trying to “breed out the colour” by marrying off half-caste Aboriginal girls to whites as depicted in the film, Windschuttle said.
His claim was born of a review of state archives, where he found a letter to A.O. Neville in December 1930 by a Mrs Chellow, from Murra Munda Station near Jigalong, in which Molly and Gracie were accused of “running wild with the whites”.
“`Running wild’ was said to be a contemporary euphemism for promiscuity, which meant the girls were having sex with the white males in the area,” Windschuttle writes in the preface of his new work.
He told The Australian yesterday: “They didn’t say these girls were screwing boys, they said they were running wild . . . anyone from that era knows the meaning of the term.
“That is the big lie of the film. Neville did not use child removal in order to breed out the race.”
Windschuttle maintains that the Aborigines Act in Australia at the time of Neville’s tenure was not racist and was motivated by a genuine desire for child protection.
