Aboriginal mission and evolution

In his book "The Tears of Strangers" Stan Grant says this, on p. 159:

The early Wesleyan missions at Wellington Valley and Lake Macquarie had been established and abandoned by the time Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. The theory of evolution allowed settlers to see Aboriginies as a prehistoric human relic, destined to die out. Missionaries, anthrolopogists and, in turn, policy makers saw their role as protecting the blacks from extinction.


Stan Grant is an Australian journalist with aboriginal forebears.

Opps: typo corrected: it's 'from extinction' not 'for'!