Protector of Aborigines


The office of the Protector of Aborigines was established pursuant to a recommendation contained in the Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes, of the House of Commons. On 31 January 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report. The office of Chief Protector of Aborigines was established in some states, and in Queensland the title was Protector of Aboriginals.
The office of Protector was by appointment, by the Aboriginal Protection Board.
The report recommended that Protectors of Aborigines should be engaged. They would be required to learn the Aboriginal language and their duties would be to watch over the rights of Indigenous Australians, guard against encroachment on their property and to protect them from acts of cruelty, oppression and injustice. The Port Phillip Protectorate was established with George Augustus Robinson as chief protector and four full-time protectors.
While the role was nominally to protect Aboriginal people, particularly in remote areas, the role included social control up to the point of controlling whom individuals were able to marry and where they lived and managing their financial affairs.
A. O. Neville was a notable Protector in Western Australia.
Matthew Moorhouse was the first Protector of Aborigines in South Australia. He led the Rufus River massacre, which slaughtered 30 to 40 Aboriginal people.
The Aborigines Welfare Board in New South Wales was abolished in 1969. By then, all states and territories had repealed the legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of "protection".

Protectors of Aborigines

Protectors of Aborigines around Australia included the following.

Victoria

This was known as the Port Phillip Protectorate from 1839 to 1849.
Until 1911, Northern Territory was part of South Australia. The Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910, followed by the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 after the territory passed to federal government control, created the office of Chief Protector and the Northern Territory Aboriginals Department.
The office of Chief Protector of Aboriginals took over from the Northern Protector of Aboriginals and Southern Protector of Aboriginals Offices on 25 March 1904, and was succeeded by the Director of Native Affairs Office in 1939

Western Australia