Charles Sievwright
Charles Wightman Sievwright (born March 31, 1800 in Edinburgh , Scotland , † September 10, 1855 in Belgravia , London , England ) was a British Army officer and in 1839 became Assistant Protector of Aborigines in New South Wales in what is now Victoria in Australia appointed.
Early life
Charles Sievwrigt was the third of seven children of lawyer Andrew Sievwright and his wife Ann, née Robertson. At the age of 15 he entered a Scottish infantry regiment and served 20 years without any involvement in a war. On April 3, 1822, he married Christina Watt in Stirling , Scotland. They had seven children together. In 1837 he went from Malta to London and then got a job as an assistant protector in the Port Phillip area .
Protector of Aboringes
He arrived in Sydney in November 1838 and lived with his family in a tent among the Aborigines in the Geelong area . As Protector of Aborigines , he was commissioned by the colonial government to protect the rights and lives of the Aborigines. One of Sievwright's tasks is to report on the life of the Aborigines. He extensively examined the massacres of Aborigines and their living conditions. He lived with his family sometimes with up to 270 Aborigines. He criticized the administrations of the colonial government, which did little to counter the plight of the indigenous population. Sievwright was hated by whites, and his work in the interests of the indigenous peoples reached as far as Charles La Trobe and Governor Sir George Gipps .
Sievwright hoped that the loss of their traditional way of life through sporadic food deliveries by the colonial administration, home growing of food and employment by the Aborigines would compensate for the lost livelihoods of the Aborigines. But they continued to hunt the colonists' cattle, so the whites accused him of inactivity. When he wrote an account of the murder of three unarmed Aborigines and a child by a group of whites, he was removed from office for incompetence and received no salary from 1842. This also led to family problems that slipped into poverty. Gipps and La Trobe withheld information on Sievwright and did not order an official investigation, worried that he would not get a fair trial in London.
When Sievwright received his official recall, he returned to London in November 1845, leaving his family in poverty. In 1847 his recall was confirmed after an inadequate investigation. Until 1849 he attempted to reopen his case with a full investigation. He became deaf, blind and died in September 1855 without seeing his family again. His wife had died before him in Melbourne in 1854 .
literature
- Lindsey Arkley: The hated protector: the story of Charles Wightman Sievwright, protector of Aborigines 1839-42 , Mentone Victoria. Orbit Press 2000. ISBN 0646404210
Web links
- trove.nla.gov.au : Images by Sievwright
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b adb.anu.edu.au : Lindsey Arkley: Sievwright, Charles Wightman (1800–1855) , in English, accessed November 30, 2012
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sievwright, Charles |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sievwright, Charles Wightman |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British Army Officer and Protector of Aborigines |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 31, 1800 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Edinburgh , Scotland |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 10, 1855 |
| Place of death | Belgravia , London , England |