Following the landmark ruling on métis kidnappings in the Belgian Congo, which will see the Belgian government pay reparations for its crimes against humanity, it is time for Britain to confront a dark chapter of its own history.
Throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, British missionaries and administrators designed boarding schools where mixed-race children — perceived as a threat to the empire — could be isolated and controlled.
18th and 19th Century India
Under the East India Company, mixed-race children in Bengal and Madras were taken from their families by the age of three, often against the wishes of their mothers who had no paternity rights.
Placed in “orphan” schools, mixed-race boys were made “useful” to the imperial enterprise as part of the lower ranks of the Company.
Forced Marriage
Mixed-race girls were trained for marriage to Europeans. At the Upper Girls’ School for “half-castes” in Calcutta, a dancing master prepared senior girls for the annual ball where English soldiers were invited to select “orphan” brides.
At the Lower School, girls were not permitted a ball and were instead married off to unknown suitors, sometimes 40 years their senior.
Making “Orphans”
In line with British philanthropic conventions of the time, the label “orphan” was based solely on the father’s status, whether deceased, absent, or too poor to care for the child. Hence, this policy ignored the demands of living mothers.
Labelling mixed-race children as “orphans” also conveniently excluded them from their father’s inheritance.
19th Century Aotearoa
Arguing that children with British fathers and Māori mothers needed to be “[rescued from] Heathen ignorance and superstition” and the “contamination” of the native population, a British official in Kororāreka established New Zealand’s first mixed-race boarding school in 1839. More schools followed in the 1840s and 1850s, with the discourse of “protecting” and “saving” mixed-race children being used to justify their removal from their mothers’ arms.
Australia’s Stolen Generations
In Australia, the British set in motion a policy for the abduction of mixed-race Aboriginal children from their families in the name of “social welfare” — what is now known as the Stolen Generations. The Aboriginal Protection Act of 1886 (the “Half-Caste Act”) in Victoria enabled the lawful removal of mixed-race individuals aged 8 to 34 from Aboriginal reserves.
Canada’s Indigenous Residential Schools
There is historical amnesia regarding Britain’s role in the foundation of residential schools in Canada, where more than 150,000 First Nations children were systematically abused until their closure in the 1990s.
It was the Bagot Report of 1845, overseen by British diplomat Charles Bagot, which proposed that the separation of Indigenous children from their parents was the most effective way to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian culture.
Southern Rhodesia’s “Coloured” Schools
Under British rule in the 20th century, mixed-race children in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today) were educated separately from Africans and Europeans, with school attendance being compulsory for “Coloured” children between the ages of seven and fifteen. Under this system of “educational apartheid”, new-borns were typically enrolled in special “orphanages” until the age of five, after which all ties with their mothers were cut.
Further Information on The Abduction of Mixed-Race Children under the British Empire
- Carissa Chew, “The abduction of mixed-race children under the British Empire,” Medium, 23 January 2025, https://medium.com/@carissatarminchew/the-abduction-of-mixed-race-children-under-the-british-empire-f84e9733fb44.
Histories of Colour 