George Augustus Robinson - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

George Augustus Robinson (22 March 1791 – 18 October 1866) was a builder and untrained preacher. He was the Chief Protector of Aborigines

Protector of Aborigines

The role of Protectors of Aborigines resulted from a recommendation of the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Aborigines . On 31 January 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report.The report recommended that Protectors of...

in Port Phillip District

Port Phillip District

The Port Phillip District was an historical administrative division of the Colony of New South Wales, existing from September 1836 until 1 July 1851, when it was separated from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria....

from 1839 to 1849. Prior to his appointment as the Chief Protector of Aborigines by the Colonial Office in Great Britain, he had been called upon to mount a "friendly mission" to find the 300 remaining aboriginals in Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

Early life in England

Robinson was born on 22 March 1791 to William Robinson, a builder, and Susannah née Perry. He married Maria Amelia Evans on 28 February 1814 and had five children in the next ten years. He decided to emigrate and sailed for Hobart

Hobart

Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...

on the Triton arriving in January 1824 and setting up as a builder. His wife and five children joined him in April 1826.

Time in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)

Conflicts between settlers and Tasmanian Aborigines had vastly increased during the 1830s, which became known as the Black War

Black War

The Black War is a term used to describe a period of conflict between British colonists and Tasmanian Aborigines in the early nineteenth century...

. In 1830 Robinson investigated the Cape Grim massacre

Cape Grim massacre

The Cape Grim massacre occurred 10 February 1828 in the North west of Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, when four shepherds with muskets are alleged to have ambushed over 30 Tasmanian Aborigines from the Pennemukeer band from Cape Grim, killing 30 and throwing their bodies over a 60 metre...

that had occurred in 1828 and reported that 30 aborigines had been massacred. Robinson was to be brought in as a conciliator between settlers and aborigines. His mission was to round up the Aborigines to resettle them at the camp of Wybalenna on Flinders Island

Flinders Island

Flinders Island may refer to:In Australia:* Flinders Island , in the Furneaux Group, is the largest and best known* Flinders Island * Flinders Island , in the Investigator Group* Flinders Island...

.

Robinson befriended Truganini

Truganini

Trugernanner , often referred to as Truganini, was a woman widely considered to be the last "full blood" Palawa ....

, to whom he promised food, housing and security on Flinders Island until the situation on the mainland had calmed down. With Truganini, Robinson succeeded in forging an agreement with the Big River and Oyster Bay

Great Oyster Bay

Great Oyster Bay is a broad and sheltered bay on the east coast of Tasmania, Australia which opens onto the Tasman Sea. The Tasman Highway runs close to the West Coast of the bay with spectacular views of the rugged granite peaks of the Hazards and Schouten Island of the Freycinet Peninsula which...

peoples, and by the end of 1835, nearly all the aboriginals had been relocated to the new settlement.

Robinson's involvement with the Tasmanian Aboriginals ended soon after this, though, and the Wybalenna settlement became more akin to a prison as the camp conditions deteriorated and many of the residents died of ill health and homesickness. Because of this, Robinson's place in history is generally viewed as negative, especially within the current Aboriginal community. Some historians agree that his initial intentions were genuine, but his abandonment of the community is viewed as a turning point for the worse for the Tasmanian Aboriginals. Moreover, his promises of providing a place where Aborigines could practice their cultural traditions and ceremonies never came to fruition.

Chief Protector of Aborigines in Port Phillip District

Robinson became Chief Protector of Aborigines

Protector of Aborigines

in March 1839, managing the Protectorate of Port Phillip

Port Phillip Protectorate

The Port Phillip Protectorate was created by the British House of Commons at the instigation of Lord Glenelg. The primary directives of the Protectors was to protect the Aboriginal people in their districts and to 'civilise' them, in other words to minimize conflicts between European settlers and...

with the help of four Assistant Protectors, William Thomas

William Thomas (Australian settler)

William Thomas represented Aboriginal people in various roles in the Port Phillip district during his lifetime.-Various official roles:...

, James Dredge, Edward Stone Parker

Edward Stone Parker

Edward Stone Parker was a Methodist preacher and assistant Protector of Aborigines in the Aboriginal Protectorate established in the Port Philip District of colonial New South Wales under George Augustus Robinson in 1838...

and Charles Sievwright. Maria, Robinson's wife died in 1848.

Robinson was paid a total of £8000 in his role as protector of Aborigines. He built a small community that included a church and coined the area 'Point Civilisation'. Many of the aborigines that lived at the port had been removed under false pretences from their true home in Tasmania. Point Civilisation was essentially a factory that existed to transform so called savages into Christians.

In 1841 and 1842 Robinson traveled to western Victoria where he investigated and reported on the Convincing Ground massacre

Convincing Ground massacre

When Portland, Victoria was established as a whaling station in 1829, there was tension between the local Indigenous Australian tribe, the Kilcarer gundidj clan of the Gunditjmara people and the whalers. In 1833 or 1834 this tension turned into a full fledged conflict in a dispute over a beached...

that had occurred in 1833 or 1834.

The Protectorate was abolished on 31 December 1849 and in 1852 he returned to England.

His journals are regarded as amongst the most important of early documents of the early years of Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, being significant for its observations on Koorie culture, early Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

personalities, landscape and settler society.

He was known as a 'Victorian do-gooder'.

Return to Europe

In 1853 Robinson remarried Rose Pyne, they spent the next few years living in Europe before returning to England in 1858. Robinson died on 18 October 1866 in Bath.

Semi-fictional accounts of Robinson's travels are included in Matthew Kneale

Matthew Kneale

Matthew Kneale is a British writer, best known for his 2000 novel English Passengers, which won the prestigious Whitbread Book Award and was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He went to school at Latymer Upper School and then studied Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford, and afterwards...

's book English Passengers
English Passengers
English Passengers is a 2000 historical novel written by Matthew Kneale, which won that year's Whitbread Book Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Award...

and in T.C. Boyle's short story "The Extinction Tales".
There is a reference to Robinson in the book "The Lost Diamonds of Killiecrankie" by Gary Crew and Peter Gouldthorpe, and in Following the Equator

Following the Equator

Following the Equator or More Tramps Abroad is a non-fiction travelogue published by American author Mark Twain in 1897....

, by Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

. Robert Drewe

Robert Drewe

Robert Duncan Drewe is an Australian journalist, novelist and short story writer.-Biography:Drewe was born in Melbourne, but moved with his family to Perth, Western Australia at the age of six. He was educated at Hale School, and in his final year was appointed School Captain...

s' 'Savage Crows' also incorporates the work of Robinson into the plot. See also Mudrooroo's critical portrayal of Robinson in Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World
Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World
Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World is an historical novel by Mudrooroo Nyoongah, first published in 1983. Though the protagonist Wooreddy is fictional, the novel deals largely with the real-life George Augustus Robinson, who was sent by Great Britain to Tasmania to...

, Master of the Ghost Dreaming and his Vampire Trilogy: The Undying, Underground and The Promised Land.

Protector of Aborigines
Protector of Aborigines
The role of Protectors of Aborigines resulted from a recommendation of the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Aborigines . On 31 January 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report.The report recommended that Protectors of...

External links

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