Across Australia is an account of Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer’s observations with fellow anthropologist Francis James (Frank) Gillen (1855-1912) of the cultures of various Indigenous Australian peoples. In 1866-7 Spencer and Gillen made important findings on the culture of the Arrernte people of central Australia, which were first published in 1899 under the title The Native Tribes of Central Australia. They followed this influential work with another on the Arrernte people in 1904, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia. The pair continued to work together until a 1903 expedition to South Australia to study the Arabana (or Ngarabana) people. Despite making several significant discoveries about Indigenous Australian cultures, Spencer and Gillen were also men of their time and upheld attitudes that viewed Aboriginal Australians as having ‘primitive’ cultures.
The same year Across Australia was published, Spencer accepted the position of Chief Protector of Aborigines for the Northern Territory, a government position that was intended to protect Indigenous Australians in a particular state or territory but often led to greater restrictions and abuses of Indigenous rights.