AustLit

'Amelia Shankelton, born in 1902, was an Aborigines Inland Mission (AIM) missionary from 1927 to 1984. In 1996, Lorna Cubillo and her supporters initiated the 'Stolen Generations' test case in which she claimed that as a child, she was illegally removed from her family and placed in a cruel institution, the Retta Dixon Home in Darwin, presided over by Shankelton. Why did the Stolen Generations case fail? In this book explores statements made by Cubillo and other children brought up in Retta Dixon. He also examines the actions of Shankelton, members other staff, AIM head office, and government officials, empathising with people negotiating child welfare challenges in very different times, in places few people can now imagine.' 

(Publication summary)