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The Aborigines of Australia

Chapter 2: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
By R.N. Richard Sadleir
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Archaeology & Anthropology

About This Book

A survey of Indigenous peoples across Australia that combines ethnographic observation, linguistic analysis, and colonial-era testimony. It outlines theories of origin and dialect variation, daily life, kinship and marriage practices, rites such as depilation and funerary customs, material culture and subsistence, and ceremonial performances. The text documents episodes of violent contact and of missionary and government interventions, presents regional case studies including island communities and the decline of Tasmanian groups, and closes with recommendations and reflections drawn from inquiries, missionary reports, and personal experience.

THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Shortly after my arrival in the Colony in 1826, I was appointed to a Commission of Inquiry into the state of the Aborigines. Previous to that, martial law had been proclaimed about Bathurst, where the blacks had been committing serious aggressions under Monday, their chief.

My journey, extending over 1,600 miles, occupied six months. I lived partly with these people, so as to ascertain their number, language, habits, &c., and proposed a scheme of reserves, as in Canada, a border police, and missionary education, but the cost, £6,000 per annum, was considered too much, and my suggestion was therefore not acted on.

I was subsequently examined, together with Mr. Robinson and the Rev. Mr. Threlkeld, before the Committee of the Legislative Council, about 1837, from which much information was acquired.

The present work is part of a large manuscript, and I have thought it a favourable opportunity to publish it, now that fresh interest is awakened about these people, devoting any profits to the Missions lately established within New South Wales.

R. S.