Wikipedia
Great Father and Great Mother were titles used by colonial powers in North America during the 19th century to refer to the President of the United States, the Monarch of Canada, the King of Spain, or the King of France during interactions with indigenous peoples. Contrary to depictions in popular culture, there are no recorded instances of the terms "Great White Father" or "Great White Mother" being used, and such terms would be unlikely to have been adopted by indigenous Americans who generally did not have a concept of race. The addition of the word "white" may have entered popular lexicon via western adventure novels.
Usage examples of "great father".
It was the duty of our Great Father at Washington, by the agreement of 1868, to keep his white children away.
Why bless my soul, said the Great Father Serpent, he's got it, and the two ruffians blinked at me in stunned wonder and I myself wondered, and marveled, but what I was wondering and marveling at was the closeness with which what I had answered accorded with my feelings, my lost feelings that I had never found before.
Were it not for the fat, black- footed Suffolk sheep grazing on the grounds, or the occasional call from a rustic lad dropping his Hs, one could fancy oneself on the banks of that great father of rivers, the Nile itself.