The Queensland Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897
The Act
1897 – the Queensland Government passed the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act. Aboriginal people would be protected by keeping us away from white society on reserves and missions. This also included protecting us from vices such as the drug opium.
The major outcome of the Act and its amendments was that it sealed in law the dispossession of our people. We were forcibly removed and the land was taken from us – it was now owned by the settlers.
