The Australian Aborigines Progressive Association (AAPA) was formed in New South Wales in 1924, under the leadership of C.F. (Fred) Maynard. Mrs Elizabeth McKenzie Hatton, a non-Aboriginal woman, was secretary. The group demanded children no longer be separated from their families or indentured as domestics and menial labourers, and should have access to public schools. It protested the revocation of north-coast farming reserves; advocated that all Aboriginal families should receive inalienable grants of farming land within their traditional country and that Aborigines should control any administrative body affecting their lives.
According to the Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, Elizabeth McKenzie Hatton met Fred Maynard through her work establishing the Rehoboth Home for Aboriginal girls in Homebush in early 1924.
Members of the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association made lengthy organising trips; meetings in coastal towns attracted numerous Aborigines. With Jane Duren, an Aboriginal leader from Batemans Bay, Maynard participated in debates with missionaries and public figures who were proposing changes to the administration of Aboriginal affairs. He wrote to Aborigines throughout the State who had been injured by the board's policies, such as young girls who had been raped while indentured.
The AAPA was dissolved in 1927, but Maynard continued to work until the Depression and was an important advocate for the rights of his people.
Sources used to compile this entry: 'McKenzie Hatton, Elizabeth', in The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2014, http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0194b.htm; Goodall, Heather, 'Maynard, Charles Frederick (Fred) (1879-1946)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, Melbourne University Press, 2000, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/maynard-charles-frederick-fred-11095; Goodall, Heather, Invasion to Embassy: land in Aboriginal politics in New South Wales, 1770-1972, 2nd edn, Sydney University Press (originally published Allen & Unwin, 1996), Sydney, 2008, 505 pp; Maynard, John, Fred Maynard and the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA): One God, One Aim, One Destiny, Aboriginal History, vol. 21, 1997, http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p72631/pdf/article0115.pdf; Pollock, Zoe, 'Australian Aborigines Progressive Association', in Dictionary of Sydney, Dictionary of Sydney Trust, 2008, http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/australian_aborigines_progressive_association; Thinee, Kristy and Bradford, Tracy, Connecting Kin: Guide to Records, A guide to help people separated from their families search for their records [completed in 1998], New South Wales Department of Community Services, Sydney, New South Wales, 1998, https://clan.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/connectkin_guide.pdf; We Hereby Make Protest: the 1938 Day of Mourning, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, https://aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/day-mourning-26th-january-1938.
Prepared by: Naomi Parry
Created: 21 February 2011, Last modified: 8 March 2018