ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the concepts of amelioration and protection as instantiated in one colonial legal site and in one time/place. From 1824 the idea of amelioration and protection was bound up with the newly revived office of the Protector - first of slaves and later of Aborigines. The chapter considers the background to the drafting of the Justice William Westerbrook Burton's Draft Act. It briefly looks to the legal status of Aboriginal Australians as subjects, a status that underpins the Burton's Draft Act. The chapter examines some of the provisions of the Act. It considers the resources upon which Burton drew to construct his Act. The underlying premise of the Draft Act was that Aborigines were 'subjects of Her Majesty' and that therefore some provision must be made for their legal protection. The idea of amelioration, drawn primarily from laws relating to slaves some decade earlier, had always been connected in some way with regulating labour.
