ABSTRACT
The transnational debate about the origins of humankind, evolution, and the association of whiteness with civilization played an extremely important role in shaping race relations in early colonial Australia. As we have noted, white settlers, colonial offi cials, and missionaries generally considered the Aborigines to be the most savage and degraded members of the “Negroid” race.1 Aboriginal people, listening to the words of colonial offi cials, settlers, and self-righteous missionaries, developed their own understanding of the legal, social, and cultural dimensions of settler colonial civilization. Between the 1780s and 1850s, colonial encounters between the British and Aboriginal peoples resulted in the development of new Aboriginal defi nitions of civilization that were not predicated on whiteness. Charles Never, a mission-educated Aboriginal man, stated the Aboriginal position on civilization and whiteness best when he claimed: “I like to be a gentleman. Black gentleman as good as white.”2
