Contested destinies: Aboriginal advocacy in South Australia’s interwar years

Abstract

In the interwar years, as protection policies took hold across Australia, Aboriginal political organisations and advocacy groups emerged to protest and demand rights and freedoms. Among the better known of the Indigenous-led organisations were Fred Maynard's Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA) in New South Wales, and William Cooper's Australian Aborigines' League in Victoria. These were regional organisations fighting mostly local issues such as the injustices of life 'under the Act', or for better access to land and resources. However, they also engaged national issues, as exemplified by William Cooper's Petition to the King, which was circulated throughout the country and called for reserved seats for Aboriginal people in federal parliament. More influential, however, were the white-run advocacy groups. The Association for the Protection of Native Races, established in 1911, had a national perspective and, among other things, sought greater federal control of Aboriginal affairs. The National Missionary Council, established in the mid-1920s, was a platform for many of the mainstream churches. More locally were groups such as the Australian Aborigines Ameliorative Association in Western Australia and the Victorian Aboriginal Group in Melbourne. As Attwood has observed, these were highly paternalistic organisations, who saw themselves working 'for' Aboriginal people 'rather than through them'. This was certainly true of South Australia's long-established Aborigines' Friends' Association (AFA), which Attwood has described as one of Australia's 'most politically conservative' missionary organisations. South Australia also gave rise to one of the most radical of the nation's advocacy groups, the Aborigines' Protection League. Established in 1925, its central issue was a petition campaign for the establishment of Aboriginal states - imagined essentially as Home Lands governed by Aboriginal people themselves.