‘The vacillating manners and sentiments of these people': Mobility, Civilisation and Dispossession in the Work of William Thomas with the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate

Authors

Rachel Standfield

Abstract

The Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate was established in 1838 on the instructions of the Colonial Office in London as an attempt to place colonisation in the newly settled Port Phillip district — now the state of Victoria — on a humanitarian footing. The Protectorate was established on the recommendation of the British House of Commons Aborigines Committee, which published the report of its investigation into the treatment of Indigenous people within the British Empire in 1837 (British House of Commons 1837).

Recommended Citation

Standfield, Rachel, ‘The vacillating manners and sentiments of these people': Mobility, Civilisation and Dispossession in the Work of William Thomas with the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate, Law Text Culture, 15, 2011, 162-184.
Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol15/iss1/9