The Aborigines' Protection Society (APS) was an international human rights organisation founded in 1837,
to ensure the health and well-being and the sovereign, legal and religious rights of the
indigenous people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
s while also promoting the civilisation of the indigenous people
who were subjected under
colonial powers
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
,
in particular the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
.
In 1909 it merged with the
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) to form the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society (now Anti-Slavery International).
The Society published a journal variously entitled ''Aborigines' Friend, or Colonial Intelligencer'', and ''Colonial Intelligencer and Aborigines' Friend'', often abbreviated to ''Aborigines' Friend'', from 1855 until its merger with BFASS in 1909. when the journals of the two societies were merged.
Foundation
The
Quaker background and
abolitionism were significant in the setting-up of the Society.
In 1835 Parliamentary MP
Thomas Fowell Buxton
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet (1 April 1786Olwyn Mary Blouet, "Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, first baronet (1786–1845)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., May 201accessed 25 April 20 ...
set up a
Parliamentary Select Committee A select committee is a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues originating in the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Select committees exist in the British Parliam ...
to examine the effect of white settlement on indigenous peoples, and various other colonial issues. Though a non-Quaker himself, Buxton was the brother-in-law of Quaker reformer and philanthropist
Elizabeth Fry
Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney; 21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845), sometimes referred to as Betsy Fry, was an English prison reformer, social reformer, philanthropist and Quaker. Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to improve the tr ...
. In 1837, British physician
Thomas Hodgkin
Thomas Hodgkin RMS (17 August 1798 – 5 April 1866) was a British physician, considered one of the most prominent pathologists of his time and a pioneer in preventive medicine. He is now best known for the first account of Hodgkin's disease, ...
prompted the establishment of The Aborigines Committee at an annual Meeting for Sufferings of Quakers. In 1838 some of the findings of Buxton's committee were published
[ as ''Information Respecting the Aborigines in the British Colonies''. Hodgkin's brother John Hodgkin drafted it, then it was rewritten by Thomas to sharpen the effect and reduce its references to missionary activity.][Amalie M. Kass and Edward H. Kass, ''Perfecting the World: The life and times of Dr. Thomas Hodgkin, 1798–1866'' (1988), pp. 373–4.]
Around the same time, The Aborigines' Protection Society (APS) was established, "to ensure the health and well-being and the sovereign, legal and religious rights of the indigenous peoples while also promoting the civilization of the indigenous people who were subjected under colonial powers".[ Other members brought experience from around the world: ]Saxe Bannister
Saxe Bannister (1790 – 16 September 1877) was a writer and the first Attorney-General of New South Wales, Australia.
Early life and education
Bannister was born in Steyning, Sussex, son of John Bannister. He matriculated at The Queen's Colle ...
(Australia), Richard King (North America), John Philip (South Africa). The founders were, on King's account, Buxton, Hodgkin, William Allen William Allen may refer to:
Politicians
United States
*William Allen (congressman) (1827–1881), United States Representative from Ohio
*William Allen (governor) (1803–1879), U.S. Representative, Senator, and 31st Governor of Ohio
*William ...
, Henry Christy
Henry Christy (26 July 1810 – 4 May 1865) was an English banker and collector, who left his substantial collections to the British Museum.
Early life
Christy was born at Kingston upon Thames, the second son of William Miller Christy of Woodbi ...
, Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson (28 March 1760 – 26 September 1846) was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (also known ...
, and Joseph Sturge
Joseph Sturge (1793 – 14 May 1859) was an English Quaker, abolitionist and activist. He founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (now Anti-Slavery International). He worked throughout his life in Radical political actions suppo ...
. Buxton, after the 1832 British abolition of the slave trade
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
, had taken an interest in particular in the Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...
.
The ''Report'' of the APS in 1838 put the case that colonisation did not inevitably have detrimental effects on indigenous peoples, as conventional wisdom had it, even to the point of their extinction: if the effects were negative, that was a criticism of the plan and regulation for the colony.
Activities
The Aborigines' Protection Society remained active for about 70 years. It operated in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, South Africa and the Congo. Its motto
A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mot ...
was ''Ab Uno Sanguine'', meaning "Of One Blood". Its focus was on equal rights, as Equality before the law, for indigenous people, although it did not extend to the protection and preservation of the cultures of these peoples.[ It aimed to achieve legislation that was not based on race, with "racial amalgamation". There was no commitment therefore to preserving the indigenous peoples as encountered.]
In 1840 the Society reported on the treatment of indigenous peoples of Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...
.[
The differing views of Buxton and Hodgkin on how to proceed caused some fundamental divisions in the early years. Hodgkin was interested in a forum for both scientific discussion (of early ]ethnology
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...
, a discipline that hardly yet existed separately from the study of language), and protective activities based on lobbying. Buxton shortly became caught up in the activist drive that led quickly to the Niger expedition of 1841, the failure of which was a huge personal blow and also drove missionary considerations into the background for a time. Hodgkin was unhappy with Buxton's published criticism of Elliott Cresson, and the general British disregard for Liberia as an abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
project. King issued a prospectus for the new Ethnological Society of London
The Ethnological Society of London (ESL) was a learned society founded in 1843 as an offshoot of the Aborigines' Protection Society (APS). The meaning of ethnology as a discipline was not then fixed: approaches and attitudes to it changed over its ...
in 1842, following Hodgkin's view that the humanitarian and scientific objectives should from then on be pursued separately.
In 1842 the purpose of the APS was restated: "to record the history, and promote the advancement, of Uncivilized Tribes".
On Buxton's death in 1845, Samuel Gurney took over as President. Finances improved, and from 1847 Hodgkin had an assistant as Secretary on the payroll for a period, the activist Louis Alexis Chamerovzow.[Kass and Kass, p. 377.] Chamerovzow published on the rights of Māori in 1848, and worked on Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
as opinion-former, with some success (as Dickens wrote to George Payne Rainsford James
George Payne Rainsford James (9 August 1799 – 9 June 1860), was an English novelist and historical writer, the son of a physician in London. He was for many years British Consul at various places in the United States and on the Continent. ...
). He was a perceptive analyst of the difficulties in reconciling the interests of indigenous people and settlers.
Other campaigns included the case of a black man in the Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...
accused of stealing from a white man and punished by torture (1850), the use of bonded labour
Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. Where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, the pe ...
of black children in the Transvaal Republic
The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it ...
(1880), and, later continued protesting the exploitation of indigenous South Africans during the time preceding the Second Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...
(1899–1902), which, they said, was often perpetrated under a "guise of philanthropy and Christianity".[
In 1870 the APS bought Lennox Island (Prince Edward Island) on behalf of a community of the Mi'kmaq people.]
Publications
The Society published tracts, pamphlets, Annual Reports and a journal variously entitled ''The Aborigines' Friend, or, Colonial Intelligencer'', ''Aborigines' Friend, or Colonial Intelligencer'', ''Colonial Intelligencer and Aborigines' Friend'', ''The Aborigines' Friend and the Colonial Intelligencer'', also abbreviated to ''Aborigines' Friend'', from 1855 until 1909.[
Hodgkin's concerns over the indigenous peoples in the ]Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...
territory in western Canada were pursued both by correspondence with Sir George Simpson, and in the pages of the ''Intelligencer''. In 1889 Henry Richard Fox Bourne became its editor, and took over as Chair of the APS. He was a critic of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition
The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition of 1886 to 1889 was one of the last major European expeditions into the interior of Africa in the nineteenth century, ostensibly to the relief of Emin Pasha, General Charles Gordon's besieged governor of Equato ...
, and used the ''Intelligencer'' to accuse it for the first time of "atrocities".
Merger
The Society continued until 1909, when it merged with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to form the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society (now Anti-Slavery International).
See also
* Aborigines' Rights Protection Society
* Henry Fox Bourne
References
Further reading
* Growing database of letters written to the Society, includes photographs and transcripts.
*
* Includes many scanned manuscripts, freely available online.
*
* Aborigines Protection Society
Report on the Indians of Upper Canada
(London: W. Ball, Arnold, 1839)
From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
*
{{Authority control
1837 establishments in the United Kingdom
History of the British Empire
Human rights organisations based in the United Kingdom