Aboriginal Tribes Report

The Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes focuses on the mistreatment of the Aboriginal people as a result of British settler colonies and in its entirety mentions the status of a number of indigenous people across the British Empire, however this analysis will focus on the section of The Report regarding “New Holland” or Australia. Despite this, the content of this section of The Report can only truly be understood when placed in the wider context of The Report as a whole, and when the intentions of its authors are made clear. The Report of the Parliamentary Secret Committee on Aboriginal Tribes was released by the Aborigines Protection Society, who by their own admission was created to assist in protecting the
The common belief was that different races came from differing origins, with some races naturally more superior than others. This idea is evident in The Report, as the authors clearly state that the Aboriginal people of “New Holland” were “the most degraded of the human race”, and the arrival of European settlers has only worsened their position on the scale of civilisation and humanity. This idea of racial hierarchies, with certain races being ranked above or below others on an arbitrary scale of civilisation had been present for over half a century before this report was created. Immanuel Kant wrote On the Different Races of Man as early as 1777, distinguishing the supposed superiority and inferiority of different races with what appeared to be scientific reasoning, claiming there were only four races of humans, each originating from a model ‘stem’ genus. As The Report was written in 1837, over 20 years before Darwin published his Theory of Evolution, there was still a consensus between religion and science in terms of the existence of the hierarchy of race, with Europeans placed firmly at the
The viewpoints expressed in The Report regarding the status of indigenous people in New Holland reflect many of the beliefs held at the time, such as the view that there was an innate hierarchy of races, with others being seen as inferior to the dominant white race. The Report provides an indication to the beliefs and views of the governing elite in Australia and Britain, especially when placed in wider historical context, but as with all primary sources, it is important to remember that it was written with a purpose and must be critically examined in order to obtain its true historical