ABSTRACT
Before Archibald Meston contributed to the crafting of Queensland’s first protection legislation and was appointed Southern Protector of Aborigines, he toured The Wild Australia Show through Australia’s eastern colonies. Recruited from north and north-west Queensland, the troupe members’ presence and performances in Brisbane and Sydney in late 1892 and early 1893 provoked ‘protection talk’—debates and discussion in the popular press and within official circles about the governance and future of Aboriginal people. As a touring group, the Wild Australia Show interacted with different agents and regimes of protective governance, revealing the distinct arguments, visions, and practices at play in Queensland and New South Wales in this period. The chapter makes an argument for including popular performance, itineraries, and spaces within histories of protective governance and debates about it.
