'The British Government Is Now Awaking': How Humanitarian Quakers Repackaged and Circulated the 1837 Select Committee Report on Aborigines

Abstract

The 1837 report of the Select Committee on Aborigines ushered in a new era of Aboriginal protectorates across the Australian colonies and New Zealand. Until now, historians have often conflated different editions of the Report, paying limited attention to its circulation and colonial reception. This chapter explores three different versions of the Report: that appearing in the official Parliamentary Papers; a shortened edition circulated by the Society of Friends; and an extended version published by the newly founded Aborigines’ Protection Society. Using previously unexamined archives, we reveal why two influential Quakers gave the APS version particular moral weight, and how they distribut..