Aboriginal Witnesses Act

The Aboriginal Witnesses Act 1848 was a series of South Australian ordinances, acts and amendments that permitted Indigenous South Australians to give unsworn evidence in Court, because at the time it was considered that Indigenous people could not make an oath. The Act existed from 1848 until 1929.

Enacted by Governor of South Australia George Grey during the early colonial period of South Australia, the act was established "To facilitate the admission of the unsworn testimony of Aboriginal inhabitants of South Australia and parts adjacent". Despite the act's stated aims being to facilitate Aboriginal testimony, it had the opposite effect, creating a situation where the massacre of Aboriginal peoples by European colonisers could not be tried solely on the evidence of Aboriginal witnesses.