# Constructing Aboriginal identities in Australia  
In 1903-1904, the 'protection' policies gave the State control over Aboriginal people's lives: the Government removed Aboriginal people from their traditional lands, placed them on missions and reserves for their own 'protection' from punitive expeditions and removed children from their Aboriginal parents through Acts of Parliament such as the so-called 'Half-Caste Acts'. The ideology underpinning those Acts was literally to 'breed out' blackness through assimilation of mixed-race children. To maintain some identity, Aboriginal people began using colloquial language to connect to, and create a strong sense of belonging to their community, and in political activity. For example, if you were from Melbourne you called yourself a Koori and if you were from Queensland you called yourself a Murri. This was a time when Aboriginal people were creating identity using their own terms in order to resist the homogenizing effects of being labelled 'Aborigines', 'Indigenous' or 'black'.  
The racist policies of the Australian Government saw Aboriginal people making decisions about their identification as Aboriginal, as a matter of survival. This was a strange time for Aboriginal people's identity, because 'full-bloods' and 'half-castes' were treated differently in the legislation; people would identify or not identify as Aboriginal depending on what was best for them. For example,