George Augustus Robinson

George Augustus Robinson (22 March 1791 – 18 October 1866) was an English-born builder and self-trained preacher who was employed by the British colonial authorities to conciliate the Indigenous Australians of Van Diemen's Land and the Port Phillip District to the process of British colonization.

In 1830, Robinson, with the guidance of Aboriginal Tasmanians such as Truganini and Woureddy, led what became known as "the friendly mission" around Van Diemen’s Land, which was organised to establish contact with the surviving Indigenous clans during the Black War. The mission later evolved into a series of further ethnic cleansing expeditions to round up these survivors and place them into enforced exile at the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island. From 1835 to 1839, Robinson became the superintendent of this facility, where his mismanagement resulted in the deaths of many of those exiled.

He was appointed Chief Protector of Aborigines by the Aboriginal Protection Board in Port Phillip District, New South Wales in 1839, a position he held until 1849. His documentation of his many travels around what is now the state of Victoria are still a uniquely significant source of historical and cultural information about the Indigenous people of this region and their destruction by British colonists.

Robinson is noted as a complex and controversial individual who played an important role in both preserving a record of Aboriginal society and profiteering from enacting genocidal policies against these same people. He is also remembered today for his role in the supply of Aboriginal skeletal remains to English 'collectors'.