People in Australia took Aboriginal girls from their families and forced them to work as house servants. As servants, they had complete control over their movements, wages, and living conditions. This led to a cycle of abuse, rape, and enslavement that has reverberated powerfully to this day, even though they were supposed to be servants. When Rita, Violet, the three Wenberg sisters, and the other five women tell their stories, Servant or Slave is a powerful piece of first-person history that shows us a dark and unknown part of our history. Servant or Slave is a work of profound grief and urgency, bringing to powerful life the human tragedy of Australia's Indigenous past via the unadorned words of those who lived it.
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People in Australia took Aboriginal girls from their families and forced them to work as house servants. As servants, they had complete control over their movements, wages, and living conditions. This led to a cycle of abuse, rape, and enslavement that has reverberated powerfully to this day, even though they were supposed to be servants. When Rita, Violet, the three Wenberg sisters, and the other five women tell their stories, Servant or Slave is a powerful piece of first-person history that shows us a dark and unknown part of our history. Servant or Slave is a work of profound grief and urgency, bringing to powerful life the human tragedy of Australia's Indigenous past via the unadorned words of those who lived it.
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