Views from Western Australia

The Perth based ‘Anglican Mission Committee’ accepted that the ‘Australian aboriginal’ had just as much right to humane treatment as any other indigenous subject of Britain: 

“But the broad principle should stand that a Christian nation or colony should not be guilty of taking and leasing land occupied by aborigines without rendering them as compensation proper legal protection, bodily maintenance, & Christian teaching. Any forcible occupation without such compensation is theft. As God’s children we are right in possessing their land; we have present in Scripture for that fact; but if we do it otherwise than on principles of fair compensation we are thieves. Recognizing this fact and believing that we owe a duty to the natives whose land we have taken to our own advantages when we have thereby deprived to a great extent of their usual means of subsistence Mr. G. claims that we should regard them as wards of the Government. In the United States the Indians are gathered on reservations, the different tribes are placed under the different denominations of religion … The natives here [are] not in such numbers, nor so capable of improvement, nor does it need such sums of money to be laid out for their improvement, nor would a sensible effort of Government on their behalf be met with such opposition on the part of the settlers. They are humane men, who are treating the natives on their stations with kindness, and would meet any fair effort on their behalf with friendliness. NO doubt cruelties have been practiced on the stations and in the pearling boats, but there is little of that sort of thing now & why? Because the employed natives are no longer dreaded as savages, and there is greater protection of the law.”(Anglican Mission Committee, Minutes, October 1st 1887)

The statement also defined future priorities for Anglican mission activity, starting with children. ‘Boarding schools’ in each district should be established for all children aged from three to fourteen, ‘to be under the management of clergymen, the children to be taught to read & write & do useful work, clothed and brought up religiously, & returned to their stations at the end of their schooling period. A law of compulsory education for the future education of the children would be only an apparent cruelty.’