The White Women's Protection Ordinance : a study in the history of Papua 1926-1934

Abstract

This thesis is about the passage by Sir Hubert Murray of Papua of the White Women’s Protection Ordinance of 1926. It was a piece of legislation so discriminatory in its provisions, so harsh in its penalties, so startingly out of character with what has come to be regarded as Murray’s ’native policy' that no appraisal of Murray's rule and its effect on Papuans, no history of pre-war Papua can be complete without an explanation of it. The White Women's Protection Ordinance was a significant expression of one aspect of the relations between black and white, the fear of sexual attack by black men on white women and girls, the 'Black Peril*. My thesis describes this fear, the passage of the Ordinance and its implementation, attempts to explain these things in order to illumine Port Moresby society in the 1920s and 1930s and to add to our knowledge and understanding of Papuan colonial history and of the Murray regime in particular.