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| 'Mr. George Augustus Robinson on his Conciliation Mission' in Van Dieman's Land, now known as Tasmania. |
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| Painting by Benjamin Duterray, 1840, from a postcard dated to c. 1914. Contributed from the A.C. Dreier postcard collection, La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. |
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| Gobur Station, the 'squattage' of Henry Godfrey, c. 1845, when Robinson was Aboriginal Protector. The people represented include Billy Hamilton (with war shield), a woman (seated) in a possum skin cloak, and three European males. |
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| Drawing by Henry Godfrey (1824-1884), contributed by the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. |
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George Augustus Robinson was a self-educated builder and lay evangelist who emigrated to Hobart in 1824, arriving at a time of bitter conflict between European settlers and the traditional owners of Van Diemen's Land.
Five years later, he took a job as an intermediary between the administration and the indigenous people gathered on Bruny Island. He hatched an ambitious plan to collect the island's Aboriginal people together, and from 1830 until 1834 he travelled around the remote parts of the island, establishing contact with hostile groups and 'bringing them in'.
These efforts had terrible results for the indigenous Tasmanians, who were taken against their will to Flinders Island, where their numbers were reduced rapidly by disease and deprivation. The Europeans, however, feted Robinson for having resolved the 'native problem', and in 1838 he was offered a position as Chief Protector of the Aborigines in the recently occupied Port Phillip District.
At Port Phillip, the Protectorate was set an impossible task. With only five staff, it was expected to implement a policy of co-existence on a fast-moving frontier where violent confrontation between squatters and indigenous owners was the norm. Colonial courts would not convict a white man on the word of a 'native', so there was no chance of obtaining legal redress for violence against the traditional owners. The most that could be done was to persuade the authorities to deny squatting licences to the most blatant offenders.
Robinson's attitude to his subordinates did not help. He was haughty and inconsiderate, placing intolerable burdens on the Assistant Protectors and often failing to support them against complaints by hostile squatters. The Protectorate was abolished at the end of 1849 and in 1852 Robinson returned to England, where he lived out his days on a handsome pension.
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| Dispossessed land owners, possibly Watha wurrung, at Geelong, 1852, after the Aboriginal Protectorate was abolished. |
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| Photographer unidentified. Image contributed by the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. |
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Further reading: Gary Presland (ed.), 'Journals of G. A. Robinson' in Records of the Victorian Archaeological Survey, no. 7 (1977) and no. 11 (1980).
Copyright Imagine The Future Inc. and Australian Film Commission, 2002.
Text by Jenny Lee for ITF.
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