JAC'S STORY

PhD Thesis Due for Submission  in 2024

Download Jac's PhD First Confirmation Assessment Report - Submitted February 2021


Jac's PhD Mid-Candidature Assessment Report - Submitted April 2023

Report unavailable at this time; material in this report will be published for the first time in Jac's thesis, due for submission Feb / March 2024.



Download Jac's Bio and PhD Thesis Abstract

PhD Thesis Abstract


Historically, the colonisation of Australia has been told as a success story with little reflection on how this narrative has influenced Aboriginal families historically and to this day. Jacinta’s research directly challenges this problem.


With care and compassion, in collaboration with her Great Uncle Walter Eatts, her birth father, and family in Western Australia, she is telling her family’s story of reconnection and healing, through relational understandings that time is synchronous (the past lives in our present). Jacinta’s story centres her Great Grandmother Mabel Ita Eatts, née Frederick (1907-1991), a Jaru woman and a Stolen Generations Survivor, born on Country in Ceremony in Lugangarna/ Palm Springs, near Halls Creek in Western Australia.


Through archival evidence, her Great Uncle’s memoir, family memory, and further research, this thesis will document how Mabel and the man she married survived oppressive, racialised policies in Western Australia and Queensland between 1900 and 1960. This narrative will give agency to Mabel’s life, her strength and resilience and her influence on generations since.


Jacinta advocates for First Nations family standpoints inside of the Academy, Indigenous family access to all the archives that relate to them, and processes of culturally informed intergeneration truth-telling and healing through story.



Australian History from an Indigenous families perspective

The early to mid 1900's in Australia was a dark period for Aboriginal families. In Western Australia for instance, under the Aborigines Act 1905, The Chief Protector of Aborigines became the legal Guardian of all Aboriginal children in Western Australia till the age of 16 years, overriding all legal guardianship of their mothers. Aboriginal families were under the control and surveillance of the Department of Aborigines. 

Aboriginal people were required to seek permission from local and State protectors, to do many things. During this time, 1000's of letters were written to the Aborigines Department by Aboriginal parents. All these letters were written with the hope for something better.

The Western Australian Government filed these letters away and many have survived and can be found in the State Archives of Western Australia. 

Jacinta's Great Grand Father Jack Albert Eatts and her Great Grand Mother Mabel Ita Frederick were among those who wrote to the Protector of Aborigines. Jacinta's family now have copies of the letters written by Jack and Mabel and the replies they received from the Department between 1929 - 1939.

These letters form the basis of this PhD.

Jacinta's thesis will be dedicated to her Great Grandmother Mabel Ita Frederick. As the 2018 NAIDOC week theme stated, “Because of her we can”. Through the letters she and her husband Jack Albert Eatts wrote in the 1930’s to the Protector of Aborigines, her family have learnt of their fierce efforts to keep the family together in an era where the Australian government was actively separating and controlling Indigenous Australian families. 
 
The Aborigines Act of 1905 created the position of Chief Protector of Aborigines. The Chief Protector's role in the removal of Aboriginal children and the administration of control over the lives of Aboriginal families is central to my study.  The letters exchanged between Jacinta's family and the Protector of Aborigines during the 1930’s will provide the backbone for exploration and discussion in my thesis.
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One letter at a time, this thesis will engage the heart. It will be a story about the love, family, strength and resilience. The notion of healing though access to the archives is a key theme to be explored.

Finally Jacinta will explore the idea of writing back. As a therapeutic, transformative and empowering response, Jacinta would like to write back to her Ancestors, acknowledge their strengths and write to her children and future grandchildren for the future she wishes for them. 

Key Themes


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