George Augustus Robinson
In mid-19th century Australia, Robinson was 'Chief Protector For Aborigines' an official, if indistinctly charged, position. The unofficial attitudes of white Australians at the time can be inferred from images like this:
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{The taboo against racial distinguishing of our present moment makes it an act of rebellion to acknowledge the 'simian' features of the aboriginal people. But an honest child would see what's there, and they do. And then must reconcile the dishonesty of their elders, just as the young of the 19th century had to reconcile that dishonesty. The flaw in the present taboo is that it accepts the implied inferiority of 'simian'. This same arrogance and hollow pride infects most of the attitudes of 'modern' men, and their women and children. The old are sexually undesirable and economically useless, therefore inferior. Only their future utility saves children from the same discarding. It is a boyish thing, written large against a background of violent physical domination. A savage violence that is only superior in its intensity, nothing more. So that the inferiority of the 'primate', the 'simian', the 'monkey', which taints the aboriginal by its closeness, is in fact less 'animal', less 'savage', than the 'civilized' creatures that judge them both, primates and primitives, with such disdain.}
John Woodcock Graves the younger [with] TruganinniShort biography of Truganinni with a fictionalized, and respectful, journal entry by the 4/5 class of Margate Primary School, Tasmania
A harsher more graphic biography of the woman also known as Lallah Rooke, from the Victoria (AU) Dept. Of Ed.Museum Victoria, Encounters
William Thomas, Guardian of Aborigines, on Aboriginal Beliefs
Craig Cormick, Sorry Business, historical short fiction concerning George A. Robinson
State Library of Tasmania, Images
Rowville-Lysterfield Community News, images
