The Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes, or the Aborigines Select Committee, was a select committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Fowell Buxton chaired the committee, which had 16 members. [1] Other members included Charles Lushington, Rufane Shaw Donkin, and William Ewart Gladstone (later prime minister). [2]
Buxton moved for Parliament to create the committee in March 1835. [1] Hearings started in August 1835 and the committee's report was released in 1837. [1] [3] Its terms of reference instructed it to
... consider what measures ought to be adopted with regard to the native inhabitants of countries where British settlements are made, and to the neighbouring tribes, in order to secure to them the due observance of justice and the protection of their rights; to promote the spread of civilization among them, and to lead them to the peaceful and voluntary reception of the Christian religion. [3]
The terms of reference gave the committee the ability to investigate policies of the British Empire with respect to Indigenous people in southern Africa, Canada, Newfoundland, New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Land. [4]
The committee's recommendations included more "missionary activity" in the empire; that the alienation of land by Indigenous people be regulated; an end to the sale of liquor; stricter regulation of contracts of labour with Indigenous people; and that Indigenous affairs be handled by the imperial Parliament, not colonial legislatures. [5]
The report catalyzed the formation of the Aborigines' Protection Society, which was founded soon after the report came out. [1] [6]
According to historian Alan Lester, the committee "brought the relations between officials, settlers and indigenous peoples on the frontiers of colonial settlement to the very centre of the empire". [4] John W. Cell argues that its report adopted rhetorical tropes of the Victorian era: "[t]he language of this report—its emphasis on Providence in having chosen Great Britain for a sacred mission in the world, on the need to atone for past sins, on the day of judgment when the nation would be called to account—is characteristic of this early Victorian period." [7]
This article describes the history of the Australian state of Victoria.
The Wurundjeripeople are an Australian Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of Melbourne. They continue to live in this area and throughout Australia. They were called the Yarra tribe by early European colonists.
Half-caste is a term used for individuals of multiracial descent. It is derived from the term caste, which comes from the Latin castus, meaning pure, and the derivative Portuguese and Spanish word casta, meaning race. Terms such as half-caste, caste, quarter-caste and mix-breed were used by colonial officials in the British Empire during their classification of indigenous populations, and in Australia used during the Australian government's pursuit of a policy of assimilation. In Latin America, the equivalent term for half-castes was Cholo and Zambo. Some people now consider the term offensive.
George Augustus Robinson was a British-born colonial official and self-trained preacher in colonial Australia. In 1824, Robinson travelled to Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land, where he attempted to negotiate a peace between European settlers and Aboriginal Tasmanians prior to the outbreak of the Black War. He was appointed Chief Protector of Aborigines by the Aboriginal Protection Board in Port Phillip District, New South Wales in 1839, a position he held until 1849. He is also remembered today for his role in the supply of Aboriginal remains to English 'collectors'.
John Batman was an Australian grazier, entrepreneur and explorer. He is best known for his role in the founding of Melbourne.
Warburton or Warburton Ranges is an Aboriginal Australian community in Western Australia, just to the south of the Gibson Desert and located on the Great Central Road and Gunbarrel Highway. At the 2016 census, Warburton had a population of 576.
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet Buxton of Belfield and Runton was an English Member of Parliament, brewer, abolitionist and social reformer. He married Hannah Gurney, whose sister became Elizabeth Fry, and became a great friend of her father Joseph Gurney and the extended Gurney family.
The Australian colonies and in the nineteenth century created offices involved in dealing with indigenous people in the jurisdictions.
Coranderrk was an Aboriginal reserve run by the Victorian government between 1863 and 1924, located around 50 kilometres (31 mi) north-east of Melbourne. The residents were mainly of the Woiwurrung, Bunurong and Taungurung peoples, and the first inhabitants chose the site of the reserve.
This is a timeline of Aboriginal history of Western Australia.
Dja Dja Wurrung, also known as the Djaara or Jajowrong people and Loddon River tribe, are an Aboriginal Australian people who are the traditional owners of lands including the water catchment areas of the Loddon and Avoca rivers in the Bendigo region of central Victoria, Australia. They are part of the Kulin alliance of Aboriginal Victorian peoples. There are 16 clans, which adhere to a patrilineal system. Like other Kulin peoples, there are two moieties: Bunjil the eagle and Waa the crow.
The Aborigines' Protection Society (APS) was an international human rights organisation founded in 1837, to ensure the health and well-being and the sovereign, legal and religious rights of the indigenous peoples while also promoting the civilisation of the indigenous people who were subjected under colonial powers, in particular the British Empire. In 1909 it merged with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) to form the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society.
The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America, until merged into the new Home Office in 1782. In 1801, colonial affairs were transferred to the War Office in the lead up to the Napoleonic Wars, which became the War and Colonial Office to oversee and protect the colonies of the British Empire. The Colonial Office was re-created as a separate department 1854, under the colonial secretary. It was finally merged into the Commonwealth Office in 1966.
The Constitutional history of Australia is the history of Australia's foundational legal principles. Australia's legal origins as a nation state began in the colonial era, with the reception of English law and the lack of any regard to existing Indigenous legal structures. As the colonies expanded, Australia gradually began to achieve de facto independence. Over the years as a result the foundations of the Australian legal system gradually began to shift. This culminated in the Australia Act, an act formally ending legal ties with the UK.
The Jardwadjali (Yartwatjali), also known as the Jaadwa, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria, whose traditional lands occupy the lands in the upper Wimmera River watershed east to Gariwerd (Grampians) and west to Lake Bringalbert.
The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi-wurrung, Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance.
An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th century to the 1960s to keep Aboriginal people separate from the white Australian population, for various reasons perceived by the government of the day. The Aboriginal reserve laws gave governments much power over all aspects of Aboriginal people’s lives.
Sarah-Maria Buxton was a social reformer and abolitionist, long-term companion of Anna Gurney, scholar and philanthropist.
Alan Lester is a British historian, historical geographer and author who has worked for Sussex University since 2000. He is known for his research on imperial networks, colonial humanitarianism and imperial governance. In Colonisation and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance he and Fae Dussart analysed the ways in which men considering themselves humane oversaw the destruction of Indigenous societies. Ruling the World examined how imperial governance worked 'everywhere and all at once' across the British Empire at key moments during the nineteenth century. Lester gave the Distinguished Historical Geographer Lecture at the 2022 Association of American Geographers annual conference. He is co-editor of the Manchester University Press Studies in Imperialism research monograph series. As a result of his book Imperial Networks, he has been described as “the pioneer of the idea” of “a key concept much used in recent ‘new imperial history’ writing … that of the imperial network” Lester has written of his concern at the recent politicisation of imperial history, and critiqued Nigel Biggar's representation of colonialism.
