ABSTRACT
This chapter argues an in between position entailed difficulties of its own, for interlocutors, the Aborigines Protection Society (APS) and historians alike. It reviews that engagement and negotiation with colonizers were significant forms of mid-century resistance for colonized peoples, even though postcolonial and nationalist historians have sometimes neglected their study in favor of more dramatic modes of resistance or stories of victimhood. The chapter has explores how one particular subset of those adversely affected by Anglophone colonialism sought to engage with British metropolitan society by making use of personal networks, and by presenting themselves as variously authoritative, 'authentic' and informed. James Clifford argues that while local, tribal or family identities can predominate for aboriginals living on traditional lands and larger, pan-regional or national identities are adopted by indigenous peoples in Diasporas. Projections of authority that balanced claims to native 'authenticity' with evidence of assimilation to British or European norms of civilization are clearly entangled with questions of identity.
