WEST AUSTRALIANA Aborigines Biography –

First Edition

• 347 p. : ill., ports. ; 21 cm. #190325

• Biography of the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia, 1915-1940; government policy and administration; creation and abolition of the North-West Ministery; repercussions of the Forrest River Massacre; influence of eugenics theory; miscegenation and assimilation policy; pass system; Moseley Royal Commission into the treatment of Aborigines, 1934-1936; publication of Australias Coloured Minority; National Association for the Advancement of Native Races; relation with anthropology; reference to Carrolup, Dampierland, Beagle Bay, Lombadia, Moore River, Moola Bulla.

• First Nations (AIATSIS) Subject:
  • Government policy – State and territory – Western Australia
  • Government policy – Assimilation – 1926-1950
  • Race relations – Racism – Stereotyping
  • Race relations
  • Government policy – Initial period and protectionism – 1901-1925
  • Moola Bulla (WA East Kimberley SE52-09)
  • Carrolup (SW WA SI50-07)
  • Forrest River (WA East Kimberley SD52-09, SD52-10, SD52-14)
  • Beagle Bay (WA West Kimberley SE51-02)
  • Djarindjini / Lombadina (WA West Kimberley SE51-02)
  • Moore River (SW WA SH50-14)

  Subject:

  • Neville, A. O. (Auber Octavius), 1875-1954
  • Western Australia. Aborigines Department — Officials and employees — Biography
  • Aboriginal Australians — Western Australia — Government relations
  • The ostensible purpose was to bring about permanent segregation of Aborigines of full descent, who were believed to be near extinction; and temporary segregation and training of those of part descent who would re-enter society as domestics and farm-workers, eventually blending with the white population through intermarriage. To this end Neville energetically pursued the plan of his predecessor Charles F. Gale to establish settlements in the State’s south-west. Carrolup (1915) and Moore River (1918) were intended as training institutions and centres for the provision of education, health services and rations. However, because of increasingly severe governmental economies, Carrolup closed in 1922 and Moore River became a repository for juvenile and adult offenders, unmarried mothers, children, and the elderly and indigent. Health and housing conditions at Moore River deteriorated rapidly, particularly during the Depression, when most Aborigines in the south-west became dependent on rations and white rural communities strove to remove them.Neville took a close interest in administration, as witnessed by his careful system of records and frequent inspection tours. While some Aborigines appreciated his concern, others referred to ‘Mister Neville’ in tones suggesting awe and even fear. His unwilling but unavoidable reliance on police as local ‘protectors’ contributed to a tradition of Aboriginal hostility towards police and ‘the welfare’. Educated Aborigines from the south-west, whose legal and social status plummeted as a result of his measures, saw Neville as their main adversary. William Harris described the protector as one of the Aborigines’ ‘worst enemies’. The irony of Neville’s administration was that in aggregating the power to assimilate Aborigines of part descent through economic and social (genetic) absorption, he accelerated the pauperization and segregation evident since the 1900s. Closer settlement in the south-west, competition from white workers, and the racial prejudice of rural communities worried by increase in the Aboriginal population, all helped to produce the ‘Aboriginal problem’ that Neville wished to solve.