Lutheran missionary Clamor Schürmann and Assistant Protector William Thomas lived in close proximity to the Aboriginal owners of the sites on which the settlements of Adelaide and Melbourne were established.  Both men learned the local language, distributed rations and acted as intermediaries between settlers and Aboriginal people during a period in which traditional customs and networks remained largely intact. At times, in their efforts to protect the lives of women and children whom they perceived to be in physical danger, both men interfered in preordained customs and intertribal disputes. Drawing on Schürmann’s and Thomas’s remarkably detailed diaries, letters and reports, this paper shows how cross-cultural intermediaries served a purpose not only in protecting Aboriginal people from settlers and vice versa but also (unbeknownst to them) as pawns in various inter and cross-tribal political manoeuvrings.