Ndtyjky

Native Police, Rockhampton, 1864

Australian native police units, consisting of Aboriginal troopers under the command usually of a single white officer, existed in various forms in all Australian mainland colonies during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentieth centuries. The Native Police were utilised as a cost effective and brutal paramilitary instrument in the expansion and protection of the British colonial frontier in Australia. Mounted Aboriginal troopers of the Native Police, armed with rifles, carbines and swords escorted surveying groups, pastoralists and prospectors into frontier areas. They would usually then establish base camps and patrol these areas to enforce warrants, conduct punitive missions against resisting local aboriginal groups, and fulfil various other duties. To maintain the imperial British method of "divide and conquer" and to reduce desertions, the aboriginals within the Native Police were routinely recruited from areas that were very distant from the frontier places in which they were deployed.^[1] As the troopers were Aboriginal, this benefited the colonists by minimising both the wages of the police and the potential for aboriginal revenge attacks against white people. It also increased the efficiency of the force as the Aboriginal troopers were vastly superior in their ability to track down dissidents in often poorly charted and difficult terrain.^[2]

The first government funded force was the Native Police Corps, established in 1837 in the Port Phillip District of the then Australian colony of New South Wales (now Victoria).^[3] From 1848 another force was organised in New South Wales, which operated mostly within the borders of the later colony of Queensland.^[4] This force, sometimes called the "Native Mounted Police Force", was the largest and longest lasting of the mainland forces, and is best known for conducting widespread extrajudicial shootings of aboriginal people under the official euphemism of "dispersal".^[5] It existed from 1848 to about 1915, when the last Native Police camps in Queensland were closed.^[6] The method of "dispersal" against Aboriginals was also employed by the Native Police of other colonies and also by groups such as pastoral station workers,^[7] the colonial British Army^[8] and the Border Police. The government of South Australia set up a short-lived Native Police force in 1852, which was re-established in 1884 and deployed into what is now the Northern Territory.^[9] The colonial Western Australian government also initiated a formal Native Police force in 1840 under the command of John Nicol Drummond.^[10] Other privately funded native police systems were also occasionally used in Australia, such as the native constabulary organised by the Australian Agricultural Company in the 1830s.^[11] Native Police forces were also officially implemented in the Papua and New Guinea territories administered by colonial Queensland and Australian governments from 1890 until the 1970s.^[12] The Australian government also organised a native police force on Nauru during its administration of the island from 1923 until 1968.^[13]

Early prototypes of native police

The general template for native police forces in Australia was the sepoy and sowar armies of the East India Company. However, the more compact forces of the British imperial frontier like the Cape Regiment in southern Africa and the Kaffir and Malay Corps in Ceylon are a closer comparison.^[14] Before the creation of the first official Native Police forces, there were some informal and privately funded examples of utilising Aboriginals as enforcers of colonial British rule in Australia.

Hawkesbury/Nepean

The frequently violent process of taking control of the land from the Aboriginals in this area was officially left to the settlers themselves,^[15] who were reinforced, at times of major conflict, with soldiers "to inflict exemplary and severe punishments".^[16] Coercing and influencing "friendly" Aboriginals into assisting with the capture or elimination of other "hostile natives" was quickly adopted as a method of improving the efficiency of these punitive missions.^[17]

In 1805, Hawkesbury chief constable Andrew Thompson exploited intra-clan rivalries by equipping two Darug men with firearms to aid in the destruction of another group of Darug. Seven or eight "hostile natives" were killed as a result and the two mercenaries were each promised a wife from the women seized during the raid.^[18] Armed Aboriginals were also used to capture runaway convicts in the region and John Macarthur sometimes appeared at public functions with a bodyguard of uniformed Dharawal and Gandangara men.^[19]

Bathurst

In 1824, at the conclusion of the Bathurst War against the Wiradjuri, Governor Brisbane sent Major James Thomas Morisset, commandant of the British forces at Bathurst, a letter congratulating him on his efforts. In this letter, Brisbane outlines his desire to give "rewards to the natives who assisted in the police" and advised Morisset that he had "directed £50 subject to detailed accounts of its expenditure" to be at his disposal.^[20]

Van Diemen's Land

Musquito was a Hawkesbury Aboriginal who was exiled first to Norfolk Island in 1805, then to Van Diemen's Land in 1813. He proved to be a valuable asset to the government there in tracking down bushrangers. He later became a renegade and was himself tracked down and shot in the groin by another Hawkesbury aboriginal named Teague. Teague was sent by Hawkesbury settler Edward Luttrell to capture Musquito on the promise of a whaleboat as payment. Teague never received the boat and Musquito was hanged in 1825.^[21]
In the 1830s, John Batman also used armed Aboriginals from the Sydney region such as Pigeon and Tommy to assist in his roving parties to capture or kill indigenous Tasmanians.^[22]

Newcastle/Port Stephens

Up until at least 1830s, Aboriginals around the Newcastle and Port Macquarie penal settlements were regularly utilised to recapture escaped convicts. Men such as Biraban and Jemmy Jackass would track down the runaways, disable them with spears, strip them and return them to the soldiers for payment of blankets and corn.^[23]

At nearby Port Stephens, the Australian Agricultural Company had obtained a million acre land acquisition. In the early 1830s, the superintendent of the company, Sir Edward Parry, established a private native constabulary to augment a small garrison of soldiers. These black constables, such as Jonathan and William, were armed with firearms and mobilised to search for and eliminate threats such as hostile groups of Aboriginals^[24] and bushrangers.^[25] Parry was later officially accused of putting bounties on the heads of certain aboriginals.^[26] By 1841, the new superintendent P.P. King still employed black constables, but their duties may have been limited to dingo culling.^[27]

Goulburn

Also in the 1830s, Major Edmund Lockyer a magistrate in the Goulburn region, employed at least one Aboriginal constable who captured murderers and gangs of armed bushrangers in the region.^[28]

Port Phillip District and surrounds (later known as Victoria)

In the late 1830s, the NSW government found it was having trouble financing the NSW Mounted Police which was a corps of mounted soldiers that since 1825 operated as the main enforcers of colonial rule in frontier areas.^[29] Officials looked at cheaper alternatives and came up with two solutions. One was the Border Police, which was a mounted force of armed convicts under the command of a commissioner, and the other was to trial a force of armed and mounted Aboriginals under the command of white officers. By 1840 the Border Police became the main replacement for the NSW Mounted Police along the frontier, while the Native Police Corps, as the Aboriginal force was known, was limited initially to one division in the Port Phillip District of the colony, around Melbourne. Requests for the establishment of a Native Police Corps were made from as early as 1837 when Captain William Lonsdale proposed legislation for its formation.^[30]

Establishment

In October 1837, Christian Ludolph Johannes de Villiers was appointed to command the first official Native Police troopers from their station at Narre Narre Warren. It was disbanded briefly in January 1838 but reorganised in April of the same year with their new headquarters in Jolimont where the MCG carpark is now situated. Due to funding problems, the force was again dissolved in 1839. These issues delayed reformation of the corps until Superintendent Charles La Trobe indicated he was willing to underwrite the costs in 1842.^[6] A significant factor in the restoration of the force was the successful capture of five Tasmanian aboriginals near Westernport in 1840 by local Aboriginals who were attached to a party of Border Police and soldiers.

Native Police of Port Phillip, 1850

Henry EP Dana was selected to command the corps in 1842. Except for a brief period where the corps was based at Merri Creek,^[6] the headquarters was at the Aboriginal Protectorate Station at Narre Narre Warren, about 25 km south east of Melbourne. The force made use of Aboriginal men from the Wurundjeri and Bunurong tribes as trackers. The corps was made up of 60 members, three quarters of whom were "natives".^[31] There were two goals in such a force: to make use of the indigenous peoples' tracking abilities, as well as to assimilate the Aboriginal troopers into white society.^[31] Both La Trobe and Aboriginal Protector William Thomas expected that the men would give up their ancestral way of life when exposed to the discipline of police work. To their disappointment troopers continued to participate in corroborees and in ritual fighting, although not in uniform.^[6]

As senior Wurundjeri elder, Billibellary's cooperation for the proposal was important for its success, and after deliberation he backed the initiative and even proposed himself for enlistment. He donned the uniform and enjoyed the status of parading through the camp, but was careful to avoid active duty as a policeman to avoid a conflict of interest between his duties as a Wurundjeri ngurungaeta.^[6]

After about a year Billibellary resigned from the Native Police Corps when he found that it was to be used to capture and kill other natives. He did his best from then on to undermine the corps and as a result many native troopers deserted and few remained longer than three or four years.^[32]

Duties

The main duty of the Native Police was to be deployed to areas around the Port Phillip region where Aboriginal resistance to British occupation was unable to be controlled by armed settlers. Once in these areas, the troopers and their officers were placed under the command of the local Commissioner for Crown Lands, who would then seek out and capture or destroy the dissident groups and individuals. In addition to Native Police, the Commissioner also had the troopers of the Border Police and NSW Mounted Police as well as armed volunteer settlers at his disposal to conduct punitive raids on Aboriginal people.^[33]

Other more minor duties of the native police included searching for missing persons, carrying messages, and escorting dignitaries through unfamiliar territory. During the goldrush era, they were also used to patrol goldfields and search for escaped prisoners.^[34] They were provided with uniforms, firearms, food rations and a rather dubious salary. However, the lure of the goldfields, poor salary and Dana's eventual death in 1852 led to the official disintegration of his Native Police Corps in January 1853.^[35]

During its existence, there were three main areas of activity of this corps: Portland Bay, Murray River, and Gippsland. Divisions of the Native Police would be deployed to these areas in the winter of each year until 1852 and spend the rest of the year mostly garrisoned at the Narre Narre Warren barracks. Winter was chosen as the period of active duty as the target aboriginals were more sedentary in the colder periods and therefore much easier to find.^[33]

Frontier clashes

Portland Bay-Western District

Native police were called upon to take part in massacres of other Aboriginal people in the Victorian Western District in 1843.^[36] Operations in this year included attacks upon the Gunditjmara and Jardwadjali at the Crawford River, Mt Eckersley, Victoria Range and at Mt Zero. Upon return to Melbourne one of the troopers boasted about an incident in which 17 Aboriginal men had been killed by the corps. From reports it seems likely the troopers were called upon by their commander, Henry EP Dana, to shoot rather than try to make arrests:

"Captain say big one stupid catch them very good shoot them, you blackfellows, no shoot them me hand cuff you and send you to jail." One of the troopers is recorded by Thomas to have said.^[37]

With reduced reports of attacks in the Western District following two years of policing, two new troopers were signed up from the Port Fairy area in 1845.^[38]

Although 1843 appears to be the year of the largest casualties from the corps in this region, operations in other years up to 1847 resulted in further mass fatalities namely at Lake Learmonth, Cape Otway, the Eumeralla area and at Captain Firebrace's Mt Vectis property.^[39]

It is important to note also that the Native Police based at Portland Bay were ordered to conduct operations across the border at Mount Gambier in South Australia in 1844. Likewise, South Australian police forces at the same time were used to investigate the rape of an aboriginal boy named Syntax near Portland. The officer involved found that the boy was shot by Native Police.^[40]

Murray Region

The Native Police deployed to this region operated over a large area that included forays across the Murray into the Tumut region right down to the Wimmera. They worked under their own officers such as Cowan, Walsh and Dana while also under the authority of Commissioners like Smythe, Bingham, Powlett and McDonald. In 1843 and 1844, Commissioner Smythe led large punitive missions with forces including Native Police along the Moira area of the Murray, down Mitta Mitta creek and along the Edward River. Other collisions also occurred near Tongala. Further down the Murray, punitive operations were also conducted near McLeod's station in 1846, Lake Bael Bael in 1846 and around Swan Hill in 1850. Swan Hill and Echuca (Maidan's Punt) became bases for Native Police operations.^[41] A Wemba Wemba man managed to kill a trooper near Swan Hill. He was later tracked down by other troopers, shot and butchered into small pieces through the use of their swords.^[42]

Gippsland

Native Police operations in Gippsland began in 1843 with the appointment of Commissioner Tyers to the region.^[43] Tyers had command of a permanent force of Border Police based at Eagle Point augmented with a seasonal deployment of native police based at Boisdale. The closeness of the Border Police and the Native Police is demonstrated by officer Windredge who was employed in both forces in Gippsland. In 1845 and 1846, Tyers led extensive punitive raids with his forces around Lake Wellington, up the Avon River and down to the Lakes region.^[33]

In late 1846 and early 1847, in a horrible example of British colonial values, a rumour began that a shipwrecked white woman had been abducted by a Gunai clan. Outraged Victorian sensibility demanded both the rescue of the supposed damsel and the wholesale punishment of the natives involved. A special Native Police mission was organised in September 1846 under HEP Dana that failed to produce the white woman. A private posse of 10 armed Aboriginals and 6 whites was then organised under de Villiers which also did not produce the woman. The rumour of the white woman was proved false, but the results for the Gunai were devastating. Tyers estimated that the two punitive groups killed at least 50 Aboriginals and wounded many more.^[33]

At the same time, more regular combined Native and Border Police operations resulted in mass killings of Gunai around Boisdale and on the MacAllister River. There was a large punitive operation in late 1846 at the mouth of the Snowy River involving the forces being split into 3 groups to surround and engage aboriginals residing in the estuary area. The Native Police Corps then continued upstream along the river.^[44] The brutality of these Gippsland police missions which killed hundreds of people is demonstrated by the Protector Thomas being able to describe how the troopers returned to Narre Narre Warren with captured Gunai girls and the severed hands of the defeated as trophies.^[45]

Western Australia

In the late 1830s, Western Australia was in a similar situation as the eastern colonies in that the regular Mounted Police force were proving expensive and increasingly ineffectual in subduing resisting Aboriginals. This culminated in 1840 with the murders of a white woman and her child in York. John Nicol Drummond, a young man who had grown up amongst Aboriginals in the areas of the Swan and Helena Valleys, was able to capture the perpetrator due to his knowledge of the local tribespeople. As a result, in August 1840 Drummond was rewarded with the title of Inspector in the newly formed Native Police. The Western Australian Native Police was smaller than those of other colonies in that usually only 2 or 3 mounted aboriginal constables were attached to the white officer. It was also different in that the officers were given monetary rewards for capturing wanted people and that they were placed under the control of the Native Protector. However, extrajudicial killings by the police upon Aborigines still occurred during the 1840s. The force also became less formalised in its command structure to the point where, in 1854, Drummond concurrently held the positions of Native Protector, magistrate and Superintendent of Police in the Champion Bay area. This situation gave Drummond complete freedom to subdue the natives around Geraldton in whatever method he deemed appropriate and a massacre of Aboriginals conducted by the police and armed stockholders at Bootenal swamp near Greenough was the result.^[46]

The official term Native Police in the colony soon gradually phased out and was replaced with terms such as native constables and native assistants, but these operated in the same way as before. In 1865, Maitland Brown's extensive punitive expedition through the La Grange and Roebuck Bay areas utilised native police to aid in the summary executions of local Aboriginals.^[47] As late as the 1920s, native constables or trackers as they by then were called, aided white officers and stockmen in massacres of Aboriginal people. A famous example of this is the Forrest River massacre.^[48]

New South Wales and Queensland

From 1839 the main frontier policing force in this colony were divisions of mounted convict soldiers known as the Border Police.^[49] However, in the late 1840s with the end of convict transportation looming, a new source of cheap and effective troopers were required to subdue resistance along the ever-extending frontier. The need was especially apparent in the north as conflict between squatters and aboriginals toward the Darling Downs area was slowing pastoral expansion.^[50] As a result, the NSW government passed legislation in 1848 to fund a new section of Native Police based upon the Port Phillip model.^[51]Frederick Walker, a station manager and court official residing in the Murrumbidgee area, was appointed as the first Commandant of this Native Police force. Walker recruited 14 native troopers from four different language groups along the Murrumbidgee, Murray, and Edwards Rivers areas. These first troopers were Jack, Henry (both Wiradjuri), Geegwaw, Jacky Jacky, Wygatta, Edward, Logan (all Wemba-Wemba), Alladin, Paddy, Larry, Willy, Walter, Tommy Hindmarsh (all Barapa Barapa), and Yorky (Yorta Yorta). Logan and Jack who were both previously employed in the Border Police, were given the rank of corporal. Although most of the subsequent operations of this force over the following 60 years occurred in what is now Queensland, Native Police were stationed in various parts of New South Wales and patrolling continued there until at least 1868. These areas included Kempsey/Macleay River, Grafton/Ballina (Clarence River), Murrumbidgee, Lower Darling/Albert and Upper Darling/Paroo regions.

Initial deployment

Frederick Walker

This force was consolidated and trained by Walker at Deniliquin before traveling to the Darling River where the first hostile engagement occurred 100 miles below Fort Bourke at a place called Moanna, resulting in at least 5 natives being killed by the troopers.^[52] In 1849 he mobilised his force north beyond the MacIntyre River to conduct missions to police the disturbed areas.^[53] Once arriving on the Macintyre River on 10 May 1849, the force aggressively pacified the local Aboriginals resulting in "some lives lost". They were then deployed to the Condamine River where the "Fitzroy Downs blacks" were routed and another group were "compelled to fly" from the area.^[54] Regular police constables from Warialda were still being ordered into these frontier areas and the indiscriminate use of force by the Native Police was demonstrated when Constable Dwyer was shot at when the pipe he was smoking was mistaken for an Aboriginal firestick.^[55]

Walker found most of the squatters and magistrates in the region thought the Native Police existed to shoot down the natives so they would not have to. Walker advocated a method of "bringing in" the aboriginals, forcing them onto pastoral stations so as they could be easily controlled. Those who stayed away were consequently regarded as potential enemies and were at high risk of being targeted in punitive missions. Walker also promoted his troopers to differentiate and elevate themselves from other Aboriginals, encouraging the use of denigrating terms such as "charcoals" to describe aboriginals not involved in the police. Walker's measure of success was the resulting increase in land values.^[56] These first actions of the Native Police reduced to great effect Aboriginal resistance against squatters in the Macintyre and Condamine regions.^[57]

Expansion to Maranoa, Burnett, Dawson and Wide Bay areas

Walker returned to Deniliquin in July 1850 to recruit 30 new troopers^[58] in order to enable an expansion into the Wide Bay–Burnett region.^[59] With these fresh reinforcements, he created four divisions of Native Police, one based at Augustus Morris' Callandoon station, one at Wide Bay–Burnett, one in the Maranoa Region, and one roving division. While Walker was away, the squatter at Goondiwindi station, Richard Purvis Marshall, assumed command of the Native Police operations. Marshall, with the native troopers and contingents of armed stockmen, conducted punitive raids at Tieryboo, Wallan, Booranga and Copranoranbilla Lagoon, shooting Aboriginals and destroying their camps. This resulted in an inquiry by the local Crown Lands Commissioner and a vaguely worded official reminder from the NSW Attorney General to only shoot in "extreme cases".^[60]

In 1851, Commandant Walker with his newly appointed officers Richard Purvis Marshall, George Fulford, Doolan and Skelton conducted wide-ranging and frequent operations resulting in many dispersals and summary killings. Dispersals of large numbers of Aborigines occurred at Dalgangal, Mary River, Toomcul, Goondiwindi and at various places along the Maranoa River. Governor Fitzroy noted in the 1851 end of year report that a great many blacks were killed, however no official action was taken to change the aggressive functioning of the Native Police.^[60]

Fraser Island

The magistrate of the newly established town of Maryborough, E.B.Uhr requested significant assistance from the Native Police to rid the area of "troublesome blacks". Nearby Fraser Island was viewed as a sanctuary for these Aboriginals (the Badtjala people) which must be breached in order to force them into submission. In February 1851, Walker rendezvoused with the divisions of Marshall and Fulford in Maryborough to formulate a plan of attack. Uhr issued them with the warrants for the arrest of 36 Aborigines and Walker understood that a large force was needed to smash any resistance. After written consultation with authorities in Sydney, Walker received advice from Attorney General Plunkett that the warrants were legal, that war-like casualties were acceptable in this case and that the enlisting of special constables (ie.armed volunteers) to assist in the mission was allowed.^[61]

It was not until late December 1851 that the force was ready to invade Fraser Island. Walker, Marshall, Doolan with their three divisions of troopers, together with local landholders the Leith Hay brothers and Mr Wilmot set out down the Mary River aboard Captain Currie's Margaret and Mary schooner. Aboriginals in a stolen dinghy were shot along the way and the boat seized. The force landed on the west coast of the island where the divisions split up to scour the region. Marshall's section shot a number of Badtjala and captured several. Bad weather hampered operations and Commandant Walker subsequently allowed his division to track down other groups of Badtjala without him. This group chased the local Aboriginals across to the east coast where they mustered them into the ocean.^[62] The force returned to Maryborough in early January 1852 and Captain Currie received a reward of £10 for his contribution.^[63]

Consolidation of the Native Police

John Murray

The year 1852 saw further recruitment and expansion of the Native Police to 8 divisions. Forty-eight new troopers were signed up mostly from the northern inland rivers of NSW. Lieutenant John Murray was appointed to the 4th Division, Lieut. Blandford to the 3rd Division and Sergeants Skelton, Pincolt and Richard A. Dempster were also appointed as officers in charge of other divisions. The Traylan barracks on the Burnett River near the now-abandoned site of Ceratodus, north of present-day Eidsvold, was established while the other major barracks, besides Callandoon, was at Wondai Gumbal near Yuleba. Sgt. Dempster was responsible for several large scale dispersals in 1852. The first was at Wallumbilla where an ex-trooper named Priam and a number of others were shot dead. Dempster then traveled to Ogilvie's Wachoo station near St. George and shot a large number of Aboriginals with the aid of a man named Johnson who was the superintendent of the property. Johnson also shot dead a white storeperson in a "friendly fire" incident during this dispersal. Dempster, having fallen sick, then allowed Johnson to take charge of his division and lead it to Yamboukal (modern-day Surat) where a lot of Mandandanji working peacefully on this pastoral station were subsequently killed.^[64] As a result of this, Dempster was suspended for 3 months. It appears that neither Johnson nor Dempster faced any legal repercussions.^[65] Sgt. Skelton also led a number of dispersals across the Dawson River area and down to Ukabulla (also near Surat) where Mandandanji leader Bussamarai was killed.^[66] Collisions also occurred between John Murray's troopers and Kabi Kabi at Widgee and with Walker's forces and the Bigambul south of Callandoon. Native Police were also employed tracking down Chinese coolie labourers who had run away from the stations of powerful squatter capitalists such as Gordon Sandeman.

Deployment to Port Curtis

In 1853 several new Sub-Lieutenants were appointed including John O'Connell Bligh, Edric Norfolk Vaux Morisset, Frederick Keen, Samuel Crummer, Francis Nicoll and Frederick Walker's brother Robert G. Walker. Dispersals and shootings continued throughout the settled districts including along the Balonne, Dawson, Burnett and Maranoa Rivers. These war-like missions were discussed openly and condoned in the contemporary Australian press. For instance, the Sydney Morning Herald described the operations of Lieutenants Marshall and John Murray along the Burnett River as "taking and shooting host of murderers, never stopping, never tiring..a perfect light dragoon, best skirmishers of any troops in the world..loading and firing with the precision of an old soldier".^[67]

As a result of these paramilitary interventions, the British pastoral invasion of the country was enabled to continue. New barracks were built at Rannes, Walla and at Swanson's Yabba station at the top of Yabba Falls. Squatters Holt and Hay pursued an overland path to the taking up of lands toward Port Curtis. Two men accompanying them were killed by Aboriginals and as a consequence, the 1st Division of Native Police under Commandant Walker was sent into the area to "have a month's sharp shooting".^[68] Additionally, Lieutenant John Murray and the 3rd Division with the troopers of Sgt. Doolan were deployed by ship to Gladstone to ensure a strong garrison at the fledgling settlement there. The surveyor sent to mark out Gladstone, Francis MacCabe, felt so unsafe that he established the camp in an area close to the coast, two miles away from any freshwater.^[69] The troopers served as an armed escorts for the drays of squatters Daniel Connor and the Leith Hay brothers coming in and out of the Port Curtis region. Aboriginal fatalities occurred and 2nd Lieut. R.G.Walker led at least one large dispersal during these operations.

Murrumbidgee

As Walker's force originated in this area, native troopers from outside this region were utilised to punish Aboriginal resistance in the Murrumbidgee. For instance, in 1852, after the murder of an American worker at Deniliquin, Sergeant O'Halloran from Moulamein imported both native and white troopers from Victoria to shoot Aboriginals as a collective punishment. His force drove a camp of people, most of them older women and children, across the Edward River, fatally wounding 2 women and a child.^[70]

By 1853, 12 troopers of Native Police were officially stationed in the Murrumbidgee District under the command of the local Commissioner for Crown Lands.^[71] The need for native troopers in this region was soon deemed superfluous and the government dissolved this detachment in 1857.^[72] However, the Murrumbidgee was still utilised as a recruitment area for troopers to fight in Queensland with Lieut. John Murray returning to the area as late as 1865 to enlist local Aboriginal men.^[73] In 1864, Murray visited the region bringing with him the remaining four living troopers from Walker's first recruitment in 1848. After 15 years service, one of them was lucky enough to be reunited with his father in Echuca.^[74]

Grafton/Ballina

Edric Norfolk Vaux Morisset

In 1853, Walker reluctantly deployed the 5th Section of the Native Police under 2nd Lieut. Edric Norfolk Vaux Morisset to the Clarence River region. He thought this was a "retrograde step" as he viewed the Aboriginal problem is this area as minor.^[75] But under pressure from powerful squatters in the area like William Forster he relented even though the section did not have enough horses. Morisset and his 12 troopers were stationed on the Orara River at Braunstone^[76] 10 miles south of Grafton and were involved in two major dispersals not long after. Morisset was given warrants for the arrest of some Aboriginals who worked as shearers at Newton Boyd and after arriving in the area on a borrowed horse, ordered his troops to open fire. Several wanted men were shot and some captured, although other reports claim many Aboriginals were killed. This resulted in a government inquiry but no real changes being made.^[77] The other significant punitive raid occurred in East Ballina, where the troopers conducted an early morning raid on Aboriginals sleeping on the slopes near Black Head. This resulted in at least 40 deaths and many wounded. Again complaints were made to the government about the massacre but again no changes resulted.^[78] Edric Morisset later became Commandant of the Native Police based in Brisbane and was replaced on the Clarence by 2nd Lieut. John O'Connell Bligh. A few years later when a Clarence River squatter was asked if he thought any Aboriginal criminals were still at large, he simply replied "No, I think they are dead."^[79] The Native Police were officially withdrawn from the area in 1859 but punitive missions still occurred under more regular police forces. Sub-Inspector Galbraith was dismissed in 1863 for the shooting death of a native girl while out "routing the blacks" near Grafton.^[80]

Kempsey/Macleay River

Native Police trooper

In 1854, Sub Lieut. Dempster who was initially stationed as a sergeant at Grafton with Morisset was ordered to travel to the Macleay River with six troopers and set up a Native Police station near Kempsey.^[81] Squatters in the area had recently placed official requests for a section to be garrisoned on the Macleay.^[82] The Native Police camp was located at the old Border Police barracks at Belgrave Flat near Belgrave Falls just west of Kempsey.^[83] There is a record of a punitive expedition involving native police troopers in the mid 1850s after an Aboriginal attack on Wabro Homestead.^[84] In 1859, 2nd Lieut. Richard Bedford Poulden (sometimes written as Poulding) was deployed to Belgrave Flat with his troopers from the Upper Dawson area in Queensland. Poulden was previously an Ensign in 56th Foot who fought in the Crimean War, and was the great-grandson of the Earl of Devon.^[85] In addition to performing patrolling duties, he also came for the purpose of recruiting more troopers.^[86] In 1859 he conducted a raid on Aboriginals living at Christmas Creek near Frederickton.^[87] He captured a Dunghutti man called Doughboy but others such as Blue-Shirt managed to elude him. In 1860, Poulden was soon called out again to "punish the blacks" who had laid siege to Mrs McMaugh at Nulla Nulla Creek. Poulden and his six troopers tracked them up Five Day Creek to the ranges where several were killed after a gunfight. The local resisting Aboriginals had access to firearms by this stage. A child was taken after the skirmish and given to local Towal Creek squatter John Warne.^[88] This child was a girl about the age of twelve and she was later taken to Sydney. The native police involved in such raids used to strip naked and had to wear red headbands to distinguish them from the "wild blacks", so as to prevent shooting each other by mistake.^[89]

Not long after this, at the request of prominent station manager John Vaughan McMaugh, the Belgrave Flat Native Police barracks was moved to Nulla Nulla station near Bellbrook.^[90] After some cedar cutters were killed nearby in an ambush, stockmen and native police troopers went out after the perceived perpetrators. Again another battle ensued and in the end there were a great number of dead and wounded Dunghutti. The creek where this occurred was named Waterloo Creek (halfway between Dyke River and Georges Creek) as a result of the carnage. Four prisoners were taken.^[91]

In 1863, Senior Constable Nugent took control of the Native Police at Nulla Nulla. In September 1864, he and his troopers were involved in a punitive mission that ranged from Georges Creek, Lagoon Creek and then up Five Day Creek to Moy Buck Mountain where a dispersal occurred.^[92] Later in 1864, there is a record of Blue Shirt being captured and handcuffed to the stirrup of a horse belonging to a Native Police trooper. The horse subsequently kicked him in the head, killing him.^[91] Names of some of the troopers posted to the Macleay region include Carlo, Quilt, Paddy and Dundally.

Nulla Nulla barracks appears to have closed in 1865 when Henry Sauer bought the property and turned it into a dairy farm. In 1885, 36.4 hectares of the property was gazetted ironically as an Aboriginal Reserve.^[93] In 1902 the skeletons of a woman and child with shot holes in their skulls were found on Taylors Arm Mountain in the Macleay region. It was reported as a double murder mystery.^[94] Local Aboriginal Left-Handed Billy solved the case by stating that there was a Native Police camp at Nulla Nulla and these two people were some of its victims. Billy offered to take the authorities and show them the other places where people were shot.^[95]

Lower Darling and Albert Districts

These districts appear to have overlapped in their geographical jurisdictions, but they were treated for the most part as separate areas. The Lower Darling extended from the confluence of the Murrumbidgee with the Murray, up to the Darling and north to Fort Bourke. The Albert region was the area west of the Darling River. In late 1853, Stephen Cole, the Commissioner for Crown Lands for the Lower Darling district had organised six troopers for his Native Police based in Euston.^[96] This force was involved in arresting European sly-grog sellers.^[97] At the same time, Commissioner for Crown Lands for the Albert District, G.M. Perry, had organised another six Native Police troopers based at Moorana, an administrative town that used to exist just west of Wentworth.^[98]

By the late 1850s the jurisdiction of the native troopers had transferred from the Crown Lands department to the Native Police proper, with E.M. Lockyer^[99] and A. T. Perry^[100] being appointed 2nd Lieutenants for the Lower Darling and Albert districts respectively. Perry and his troopers, while investigating the death of a white man at Baker's station, threatened and intimidated four aboriginals residing on the property into making confessions. One was shot dead on the spot, while the other three were taken to Balranald.^[101] These three managed to escape but were found at Euston where two more were shot dead. Their hands were cut off and presented as proof of their demise.^[102]
Perry also dispersed a large congregation of Aboriginals assembled at the Murray-Darling junction.^[103] When investigating another murder of a white man near Menindie, Perry had a Barkindji man tied to a tree and shot dead as an example in "keeping the blacks quiet".^[104] It appears that the Native Police units were dissolved in the Lower Darling and Albert Districts by the early 1860s.

Upper Darling and Paroo

Lieutenant Perry occasionally sent several native troopers into the Upper Darling areas to accompany official expeditions into the area.^[105] A police station was established at Tintinalogy between Menindee and Wilcannia.^[106]

As late as 1868, Native Police based at Thargomindah in Queensland conducted patrols down the Paroo River as far as Fort Bourke in New South Wales. Sub-Inspector W.R.O. Hill described one of these patrols. After a dispersal, the troopers had abducted the four-year-old son of an aboriginal man who "had been deservedly shot". The boy spat in the eye of a trooper named Vick who killed the boy by smashing his head into a tree. Although Hill flogged the trooper as punishment, the death squad operations of the Native Police remain clear.^[107]

Dismissal of Frederick Walker

The size of the Native Police expanded further in 1854 to 10 Divisions and as a consequence their violent methods were becoming increasingly noticeable. Supporters of the force had to defend charges of "wanton cruelty" perpetrated by the force by justifying the need of "cutting a lane to the culprit through the bodies of his defenders".^[108] Further official complaints to the government in Sydney of massacres of peaceful "station blacks" by the Native Police were brushed off in parliament by the Attorney-General as unfounded or exaggerated.^[109] Embarrassing information like these reports and further complaints from squatters who felt they didn't get enough protection from the force, as well as certain financial irregularities, pushed the NSW Government into organising an inquiry into the Native Police. Commandant Walker was suspended from duty in September and the inquiry, to be held in Brisbane, was set for December. The inquiry was closed to the public and the report was kept secret for two years and even then only fragments of information were released. It revealed that Walker arrived at the inquiry completely drunk and surrounded by nine of his black troopers. The troopers were denied entry, and after an attempt to continue with proceedings, the inebriation of Walker forced an adjournment to the inquiry which was later quickly and conveniently abandoned altogether. An attempt by 2nd Lieut. Irving to confront Walker, resulted in the ex-Commandant drawing a sword against him.^[110] Eventually, Walker wandered off and was subsequently dismissed from the Native Police. He was later apprehended at Bromelton, charged with the embezzlement of ₤100 and sent to Sydney.^[111]

Period of decline, Expansion to the Fitzroy River area

After the dismissal of Frederick Walker, the force entered a period of poor funding and uncertainty. Many troopers either deserted or were discharged. Richard Purvis Marshall was promoted to Commandant but was soon discharged from the position after complaining of the trooper reductions. With the force in a weakened state, aboriginal resistance became more bold. In September 1855, in retaliation against two previous dispersals and for the stealing of women, Gangulu warriors attacked the Native Police barracks at Rannes, killing three troopers of R.G.Walker's division. Mt. Larcom station was also attacked around this time, resulting in the deaths of five station-hands. Multiple punitive missions were conducted by John Murray and R. G. Walker's sections after these attacks, including one which went north of the Fitzroy River. Charles Archer of Gracemere provided assistance with this dispersal by attaching his own private native troopers to the corps. This augmented party killed 14 aboriginals.^[112] In revenge, these aboriginals then attacked Elliot's new pastoral run at Nine Mile on the Fitzroy River, killing one person and wounding three including Elliot.

Charles Archer had arrived in Gracemere in August 1855 with an escort of 35 people including four Native Police troopers and four "Burnett boys". Once arrived, he obtained the protective services of a local Fitzroy River clan led by "King Harold" which Archer utilised to "restrain the outside blacks".^[113] In July 1856, Richard E. Palmer travelled to the Fitzroy River from Gladstone, escorted by sub-Lieutenant W.D.T. Powell and his troopers, to set up the first store at Rockhampton. Powell went first to this area and constructed a Native Police barracks. This was the first habitable dwelling erected by the British in Rockhampton. It was on the south side of the river at the end of Albert Street.^[114]

With increased attacks around this time and reports of discharged troopers conducting armed robberies around the region,^[115] squatters began to call for an immediate re-strengthening of the Native Police.^[116] A select committee inquiry into improving the Native Police was implemented and in late 1856 the control of the Native Police was transferred from the Inspector General of Police in Sydney to John Clements Wickham who was the Government Resident in Brisbane. New officers such as Moorhead, Thomas Ross, Walter David Taylor Powell, Francis Allman, Evan Williams, Frederick Carr and Charles Phibbs were appointed. In May 1857, the vacant position of Commandant was filled by E.N.V. Morisset and the headquarters of the Native Police was shifted from Traylan to Cooper's Plains just west of Maryborough. However, even with this reorganisation, strong indigenous resistance continued.

Attacks at Miriam Vale, Eurombah and Hornet Bank

After an aboriginal ambush at Miriam Vale near Gladstone, it was determined that Curtis Island (like Fraser Island previously) was a safehaven for natives that should be breached. 2nd Lieutenant R. G. Walker organised a seaborne punitive expedition that included several troopers, 2nd Lieut. W. D. T. Powell and local squatters J. Landsborough and Ranken. The mission was a failure and despite shooting two aboriginals in a canoe, Curtis Island was deemed dangerously populated.^[112]

On the Dawson River at Eurombah station 2nd Lieut. Ross with local squatter Boulton carried out several punitive missions killing at least 10 Aboriginals. Trooper desertions continued to be a problem in this area and containment of aboriginal resistance was problematic. A large attack on Eurombah station resulted in the deaths of six station workers. Officers Ross, Powell and E.N.V. Morisset led subsequent deadly punitive raids. Ross was suspended due to neglect of duty for allowing the Eurombah attack to occur.^[112]

Native Police dispersal

Not long after, on 27 October 1857, a combined Aboriginal offensive on neighbouring Hornet Bank station resulted in the death of eleven settlers. This was, at the time, the largest loss of British life in conflict on the Australian frontier and with the concurrent Indian Mutiny threatening the basis of British global colonisation, the military response was predictably merciless. Officer W. D. T. Powell was the first Native Police officer to arrive and immediately tracked down and killed at least eight Aboriginals. Multiple punitive missions conducted in the subsequent months under Powell, Carr and Moorhead killed at least 70 aboriginals. These shootings were blantantly indiscriminate with W. D. T. Powell reporting shooting down three unarmed Aboriginal women while they were running away.^[112]

In addition to the official government Native Police response, there were at least three other private militias formed in the Dawson River area to conduct wholesale killings of Aboriginals. The first was the private native police formed by ex-commandant Frederick Walker. This group consisted of ten ex-Native Police troopers which conducted missions as far south as Surat.^[117] The second was the so-called "Browne's" death squad that consisted of a posse of twelve local squatters which killed around 90 aboriginals.^[5] The last was the group associated with William Fraser, who had most of his family killed in the Hornet Bank massacre. This group killed around 40 Aboriginals, some of which were buried beside a lagoon on Juandah creek.^[118]

After Hornet Bank

The events at Hornet Bank marked a significant change to the official purpose of the Native Police. The official narrative beforehand was that frontier killings or dispersals were necessary to maintain a peace between white and black. The force under Commandants Walker and Marshall, while undoubtedly involved in many summary mass killings, pursued the method of encouraging squatters to allow aboriginals to be retained on the property. However, after Hornet Bank, the views of powerful squatter politicians such as William Forster, Gordon Sandeman and Charles Cowper became official Native Police policy. This involved encouraging squatters in frontier regions to "keep the blacks out" and consequently the Native Police became an indisputable vehicle of deliberate ethnic cleansing.

Another government inquiry in Sydney was ordered in July 1858 which concluded with the recommendation that "there is no alternative but to carry matters through with a strong hand and punish with necessary severity all future outrages".^[119] New officers were appointed including Frederick Wheeler and George Poultney Malcolm Murray and in August, Commandant Edric Morisset organised a large combined force of 17 troopers under Phibbs, Carr and G.P.M. Murray with a month's rations to scour the Upper Dawson area. The explorer A. C. Gregory accompanied this force and partook in their actions. Officers Bligh and Moorhead at the same time patrolled the stations adjoining the scrubs in the region.^[112] Gwambegwine and Kinnoul near Taroom became barracks for the Native Police.

The transition of the Native Police to an all out death squad caused the more moderate elements within the force to protest. 2nd Lieutenant Francis Nicoll resigned in 1858 stating that he would not become a butcher of women and children, while ex-Commandant Walker wrote several letters to the Attorney General admonishing the murders of innocent aboriginals including that of Tommy Hippi, Tahiti and the massacre of aboriginals at a Juandah courthouse after they were found not guilty of crime.^[120]

Formation of the colony of Queensland

Queensland separated from New South Wales and became a self-governing British colony in December 1859. E.N.V. Morisset, in addition to retaining his role as Commandant of the Native Police, also became the Inspector General of Police in the new colony. The Native Police had even less checks and balances than it did previously in this new administration. Morisset appointed new officers such as A.M.G. Patrick, A.F. Matveieff, J.T. Baker as well as his own brother Rudolph S. Morisset.

The Native Police Force that operated in Queensland was the longest operating force of its kind in colonial Australian history. It was arguably also the most controversial. Its mode of operation cannot by any standard be classified as "law enforcement". From the period 1859 onward to the 1890s there are no signs that this force was engaged in anything but general punitive expeditions, commonly performed as deadly daybreak attacks on Aboriginal camps. All signs are that the force generally took no prisoners at the frontier and in the few cases on record when this did happen these prisoners were on record as having been shot during attempts to escape.^[121]

John O'Connell Bligh

With Aboriginals in frontier regions now facing government endorsed violent forcible removal from their lands as the almost sole interaction with the invading Britishers, there were, as a result, a number of large skirmishes in the years following Hornet Bank. In 1860 along the Maranoa river, a two-hour stand up battle between Lieut. Carr's Native Police and the "Dawson blacks" under Baulie resulted in Carr being wounded and Baulie and fifteen other Yiman being shot dead.^[122] In evidence given at the 1861 Select Committee report on the Native Police, Lieut. Carr gives many other examples of shootings of aborginals in the area.^[123] Likewise, in the still unconquered Pine Rivers region just north of Brisbane, Lieut. Williams' patrol was attacked by around 300 Ningi Ningi warriors. Many of them were shot but of the eight troopers with Williams, one was killed and two were seriously wounded.^[124]

There was also an increase in the intensity of more usual dispersals or massacres. Seven "station blacks" were shot dead at Conyar by Native Police,^[125] Lieut. Wheeler shot several innocent Aboriginals at Dugandan,^[126] Lieut. John Murray conducted a massacre in the Wide Bay area^[127] and officers Bligh and Rudolph Morisset indiscriminately shot "station blacks" on properties around the Conondale Range.^[128] In a separate incident, John O'Connell Bligh also chased and shot dead some Aboriginals along the main street of Maryborough and into the river in broad daylight. Bligh received a special ceremony and a commemorative sword from the citizens of that town for his exploits.^[129] While many settlers actively endorsed the actions of the Native Police and some were inclined to "know little of and care less" of the dispersals,^[130] there was enough concern amongst sections of the populace to force another inquiry into the Native Police. This inquiry, while extremely informative on the callous and genocidal views of most of the politicians of the period,^[131] was a whitewash which aimed to protect both the system and the officers.^[132]

The Cullin-la-ringo massacre and its aftermath

The violence of the early 1860s culminated in the Cullin-la-ringo massacre which occurred on 17 October 1861. Aboriginals from the Nogoa River area, near modern-day Emerald, attacked Horatio Wills' newly formed pastoral station, resulting in the deaths of nineteen white settlers. One of the survivors, cricketer and Australian rules football founder Tom Wills, blamed the incident on Jesse Gregson, a local property manager who had previous to the attack went out and conducted a punitive mission with the aid of a detachment of Native Police under the command of A.M.G. Patrick against Aboriginals in the area. In his own diaries, Gregson reveals that he accidentally shot Patrick in the leg during this preliminary dispersal. Gregson and other squatters were involved in the initial punitive raids after the massacre, with Lieutenant Cave being the first Native Police officer on the scene not long after. He was soon joined by officers G.P.M. Murray, Morehead and the Commandant John O'Connell Bligh, and together they conducted a number of shooting patrols. The Queensland Governor estimated that up to 300 Aboriginals were indiscriminately killed in these retaliative operations.^[133]

Inspectors John Marlow, G.P.M. Murray and Walter Compigne with Trooper Billy

Elsewhere in the colony, Lieutenant Wheeler conducted a number of bloody dispersals around the Pine River and Sandgate areas, including the massacre of eight innocent Aboriginals at Caboolture,^[134] which resulted in the submission of the Ningi-Ningi people to British occupation. Lieutenant John Marlow meanwhile, led several large massacres of Aboriginals in the Maranoa Region.^[135] Also around this time, the ex-Commandant of the Native Police, Frederick Walker, led an expedition from Rockhampton to the Gulf of Carpentaria, utilising some of his former troopers to kill at least 30 aboriginals along the way.^[136] In April 1861, George Elphinstone Dalrymple, the lands commissioner for the Leichhardt district, utilised two detachments of Native Police to force British settlement upon the Aboriginals in the Port Dension area. Lieutenant Powell later conducting operations in that region which cleared the native peoples off the land.^[137] The aggressive nature of the British colonisation at this time resulted in an expansion of the Native Police. The Queensland government budget for the force in 1862 was a massive ₤14,541 which allowed for 17 officers, 11 NCOs, 7 cadets and 134 troopers. In comparison, the government allocated only ₤500 for expenses on Aboriginal welfare and ₤2600 for hospitals in the colony.^[138]

1864 restructure of the police

David Thompson Seymour

In 1864, all sections of police enforcement in Queensland underwent a major restructuring. Administration of the police, including that of the paramilitary Native Police, became centralised in Brisbane under the command of the Queensland Police Commissioner. The role of Commandant of the Native Police was abolished and the title of Lieutenant was replaced with Inspector. Although these changes to the Native Police appeared to give the force a more civilian role, in reality it remained a brutal instrument of enforcing British control in the colony. The new Commissioner, David Thompson Seymour, took up the position after resigning from the role of commanding officer of the British Army detachment in Queensland. Seymour recognised the importance of the Native Police in the British invasion of Aboriginal lands, and was focused on improving and expanding its capabilities.^[139] Seymour remained in the commanding role of the Native Police for thirty years, a period in which around 20,000 Aboriginals were killed by this force.^[140]

The mid 1860s was a period of great expansion of the British into the coastal and inland areas of north-eastern Australia. All these areas were of course inhabited by local Indigenous communities and the restructured, re-enhanced Native Police had a major role in the ruthless elimination of Aboriginal custodianship of the land. For example, in April 1864 the first British surveying group to assess the future site of Townsville left Bowen with the armed protection of eight troopers under the command of Inspector John Marlow and sub-Inspector E.B.Kennedy. This unit of Native Police conducted around four dispersals on this journey resulting in the deaths of at least 24 Aboriginal men. An unknown number of women and children were killed but it is recorded that 15 females were abducted by the troopers and taken back to the Don River barracks as "wives".^[141] Inspector Marlow, who had replaced Inspector Powell at Bowen in 1863,^[142] continued his work of "clearing the blacks" off the land after returning from this foundation expedition to Townsville.^[143] Earlier on in that year, Marlow had also provided a Native Police escort for the voyage of George Elphinstone Dalrymple to establish the town of Cardwell. Marlow's troopers here also "dispersed" and "rather cut up" some local Aboriginals.^[144]

The killing of Inspector Cecil Hill and subsequent massacres

Dispersal of Aboriginals

In May 1865, after leading a shooting raid upon a camp of Aboriginals at Pearl Creek near the modern day town of Duaringa, Inspector Cecil Hill was assassinated in a surprise revenge attack. Hill was the first Native Police officer in Australia to be killed in the Australian frontier wars. Chief Inspector G.P.M. Murray sent sub-Inspector Oscar Pescher and his troopers to conduct a series of reprisal raids in the district. Pescher's detachment was later reinforced by officers Blakeney and Bailey and their 12 troopers, the combined forces effecting a large massacre in the Expedition Range.^[145]

Around the same time, at the frontiers of the colony, other sections of Native Police administered many similar acts of ethnic cleansing. For instance, sub-Inspector Thomas Coward's unit killed eight Aboriginals at Belyando,^[146] while sub-Inspector Reginald Uhr with the aid of his troopers and local pastoralists killed a large number around Natal Downs.^[147] Officer Rogers massacred another group at Glenmore,^[148] sub-Inspector Aubin doing likewise near Morinish^[149] and at Yaamba.^[150] Further north, sub-Inspector Robert Arthur Johnstone was leading killings of Aboriginal groups around Mackay^[151] and Nebo,^[152] while officers John Murray and Charles Blakeney headed sweeping destructive raids on the local people north of Cardwell.^[153][154] Inspector John Marlow, aided by the detachments of sub-Inspectors Tom Isley and Ferdinand Tompson, also continued his punitive missions around the Bowen and Proserpine areas.^[155] While in the Gulf Country of the colony, officer Wentworth D'Arcy Uhr and his troopers massacred around 60-100 native people in series of raids around Burketown.^[156] Near Hughenden sub-Inspector Frederick Murray also conducted several large "dispersals".^[157]

Cecil Hill's brother, W.R.O. Hill, was also a Native Police officer and in 1867 he and his troopers slaughtered about ten Aboriginals near the Warrego River^[158] In the same year, Native Police under the command Inspector Frederick Wheeler together with a number of armed pastoralists, perpetrated a very large massacre of native people at Goulbulba Hills near Emerald.^[159]

Further expansion in the 1870s

A section of Native Police in 1870

As the British pastoralists invaded further into the north and the west of the colony, so too did Commissioner David Thompson Seymour expand the operations of the Native Police. Not only were the numbers of troopers and officers increased but their weaponry also became more modernised. Long range, large bore Snider rifles gradually replaced the carbines and double-barreled rifles previously used. Thereby, from the early 1870s, what was already a lethal vehicle of colonisation became an even more formidable unit of extermination, especially when considering the fact that their targets were Aboriginal family groups often armed only with spears, waddies and boomerangs.^[140]

• Far North Queensland

In 1872, in the far north of the colony sub-Inspectors Robert Arthur Johnstone and Richard Crompton undertook a prolonged sweeping raid of Hinchinbrook Island and the surrounding islets.^[160]

Robert Arthur Johnstone

In that same year, Johnstone conducted further massacres along the coast north of Cardwell during reprisal raids for the killing of the captain of the shipwrecked Maria vessel.^[161] Johnstone also led large killings of Aboriginals near the Valley of Lagoons Station,^[162] along the Herbert River,^[163] at Dunk Island and near Kurrimine Beach. Johnstone and his troopers also committed numerous massacres at various places along the coast following the killing of whites at Green Island^[164] and during the 1873 North Queensland exploratory expedition led by George Elphinstone Dalrymple.^[165] In the Cumberland Islands, sub-Inspector George Nowlan led his troopers in a severe reprisal against the Ngaro people living on Whitsunday Island.^[166] The Ngaro who survived fled in canoes to the mainland near Mackay only to be further pursued by Sgt Graham and his troopers.^[167]

Further north at Somerset on the tip of the Cape York Peninsula, officer Frank Jardine, who had previously murdered many Aboriginals as a drover, led his troopers in massacres against the mainland Yadhaykenu people and the Kaurareg people of the Torres Strait.^[168] In 1875, sub-Inspector H.M. Chester even managed to lead his troops in a number of pillaging raids of native villages along the Fly River as part of Luigi D'Albertis' journey to the uncolonised southern New Guinea region.^[169]

At this time the northern goldfields at Palmer River, Cape River, Hodgkinson River and the Normanby River opened up, causing a massive influx of prospectors and miners into areas previously free of invasion. Native Police camps were quickly established in these areas to punish unreservedly any Aboriginal resistance. Sub-Inspectors Alexander Douglas-Douglas, Aulaire Morisset, George Townsend, Lionel Tower, Tom Coward and Stanhope O'Connor amongst others, conducted regular "dispersals" throughout the 1870s at these sites. In an 1876 first-hand description of one of these Native Police dispersals, Palmer River prospector Arthur Ashwin writes:

"Just as daylight was breaking we heard volley after volley of rifles. Jack said the black trackers had got on to a mob of wild blacks. We went over the next day and found the niggers camp, they must have been a hundred strong. There were two large fires still alight where the trackers had burnt the dead bodies. We were very lucky the trackers were ahead of us and cleaned this bit of country of the blacks"^[170]

Given this took place at the Mitchell River and newspapers reported that Alexander Douglas-Douglas "had a long run after the blacks" there, it is likely that he and his troopers perpetrated this massacre.^[171] A journalist in Cooktown recalled how Douglas' troopers would make notches on the stocks of their rifles for every person they killed in the "nigger raids". One had 25 notches of which nine were added in a week.^[172] In an example of another massacre, Stanhope O'Connor and his troopers killed about 30 Aboriginals to the north of Cooktown at Cape Bedford.^[173] Very soon after committing this mass-killing, O'Connor and his unit were sent to Victoria to help in the capture of Ned Kelly, the famous bushranger.^[174] In the late 1870s, around the Mossman River region, sub-Inspector Robert Little was regularly dispersing groups of native inhabitants.^[175]

• West and Southwest Queensland

The Etheridge goldfields in the vicinity of Georgetown also were discovered around this time and as in the north-east of the colony, Native Police barracks were soon constructed. In 1871, sub-Inspector Denis McCarthy and his unit shot dead seventeen local Aboriginals near Gilberton.^[176] North of Boulia, sub-Inspector Eglinton shot a large number of Aboriginals following the killing of four drovers.^[177] At Bladensburg near Winton at least 100 local tribespeople were shot down by the detachment of sub-Inspector Moran.^[178] In 1876, Sub-Inspectors William Armit and Lyndon Poingdestre also shot a large number of Aboriginals displaying "determined resistance" at Creen Creek.^[179]

Alexander Douglas-Douglas

In the southwest of the colony many additional massacres of Aboriginal people in the 1870s occurred at the hands of the Native Police. After the killings of pastoralists such as Welford, Maloney and Dowling, Native Police based at places like Tambo and Thargomindah went on numerous punitive expeditions, often assisted by armed squatters, resulting in mass-killings. For example, sub-Inspector Armstrong killed many in the Cheviot Range,^[180] sub-Inspector Gilmour did likewise near the future towns of Betoota^[181] and Birdsville.^[182] Sub-Inspectors Gough and Kaye led a lengthy mission of dispersals from Bluff Station near Birdsville north to Glengyle Station.^[183] Other officers such as Cheeke, Dunne and Stafford led further missions throughout this decade.^[184]

In 1876, two officers in the force were charged with murder after public displays of exceptional violence against insubordinate Aboriginal men. Sub-Inspector John Carroll stationed at Aramac, shot one of his troopers dead and flogged another to his death after an alleged attempted poisoning incident. He was also charged for chaining up an Aboriginal woman by her legs continuously for a month. Carroll was dismissed from the force but all charges were thrown out.^[185] Inspector Frederick Wheeler was charged after a prolonged and brutal flogging of an Aboriginal man to death at the Belyando barracks. Wheeler was to be sent to trial but fled overseas while on bail.^[186] Public incidents like these forced the government into a commission of enquiry in regards to ameliorating the condition of Aboriginals. After some initial research, the commission requested a grant of ₤1600 from parliament to implement reserves for the Indigenous population. Parliament quickly denied these funds and in 1878 the commission was wound up.^[187]

Intense conflict 1880-1884

Skirmish with Native Police at Creen Creek

Despite not being willing to fund a small Aboriginal welfare program, the Queensland government did find the extra thousands of pounds required to expand the Native Police to its height of strength in the early 1880s. By 1882 Commissioner Seymour had 184 officers and troopers in this force at his disposal.^[188] With this increase of manpower more violence ensued.

The year 1881 in particular had several notable incidents of intense conflict. In February, sub-Inspector George Dyas was speared and clubbed to death by Aboriginals near the isolated town of Croydon.^[189] Sub-Inspector James Lamond led Native Police reprisals against Aboriginals in the area even though there was some suspicion that Dyas was killed by a white man. Dyas was unpopular in the force as he was the main witness and organiser of the murder case against fellow officer Frederick Wheeler.^[190] In October, sub-Inspector Harold Kaye, his troopers and local pastoralists were on a punitive mission in the same area (Kaye had previously been stationed near Birdsville and had conducted a number of severe massacres in this area with other officers such as sub-Inspector Gough).^[191] The group had tracked their quarry to the mining town of Woolgar where there happened to be around 700 other Aboriginal people congregrated in order to lessen the chance of being indiscriminately shot. Kaye attempted to round up a significant portion of this group and take them outside of the town with the probable aim of shooting them. He ordered sub-Inspector William Nichols to get more troopers who were posted nearby and in the period Nichols was away, Kaye was speared through the heart and killed in a desperate defensive action by one of the Aboriginals.^[192] Many Indigenous people were killed following this incident with Nichols making a series of patrols through the region.^[193] Some fled the shootings by going to another town in Gilberton and pleading with the normal police there to protect them.^[194]

Later that same year Mary Watson, the wife of a beche-de-mer fisherman at Lizard Island was attacked by local Aboriginals. A Chinese workman named Ah Leong was killed and Mary, her baby and another workman named Ah Sam escaped in an large iron boiling pot which was quickly improvised into a makeshift raft. It was assumed that the three were later killed by Aboriginals from the McIvor River to the north of Cooktown.^[195] Sub-Inspector Hervey Fitzgerald led a series of reprisal raids in which "tenfold vengeance has been exacted".^[196] It was later discovered that Mrs Watson, her baby and Ah Sam had drifted onto a nearby island and died of thirst.^[197]

In January 1883, near the mining township of Cloncurry, intense resistance by the local Kalkadoon people resulted in the death of another Native Police officer. Sub-Inspector Marcus Beresford was beaten to death and several of his troopers wounded after they had attacked a group of Kalkadoon.^[198] Several punitive missions of white settlers and Native Police were organised, but in the following year the Kalkadoon were still able to kill the well-known pastoralist James Powell at Calton Hills. In response, sub-Inspector Frederic Urquhart, his troopers together with armed settlers tracked down a group of around 150 Kalkadoon and massacred them.^[199] This "dispersal" came to be known as the conflict of Battle Mountain. Urquhart and his troopers stayed in the area on continuous patrol killing more Aboriginals for a further nine weeks.^[200]

The Irvinebank massacre

The Irvinebank massacre of October 1884 is widely regarded as the turning point of the Native Police from which a gradual reduction in the force began. Sub-Inspector William Nichols, who was involved in the earlier Woolgar killings, was stationed with his troopers at the Nigger Creek barracks. He led a patrol to Irvinebank which resulted in two Aboriginal males being captured and shot dead, followed by the slaughter of an old man, two women and child.^[201] After expressions of disgust by some members of the public and the media, the more moderate government of Samuel Griffith pursued murder charges against Nichols and his troopers. While the seven troopers were kept in prison on remand for some time, the charges against Nichols were quickly thrown out due to a supposed lack of evidence.^[202] Nichols was dismissed from the force, and some detachments of Native Police were disbanded and replaced with normal police units. The frontier paramilitary operations of the Native Police, however, still continued relatively unabated for the rest of the 1880s with the force receiving more modern weaponry in the form of Martini-Henry rifles in 1884.

Frederic Urquhart

Examples of the further conflict include sub-Inspector James Lamond, based at the Carl Creek barracks near the Lawn Hill run of Frank Hann, shooting "over a 100 blacks" from 1883 to 1885 on that pastoral lease alone. Frank Hann, his property manager Jack Watson and Frank Shadforth on the neighbouring Lilydale station also shot large numbers of Aboriginals in this region themselves.^[203] Hann himself was wounded in a violent encounter on Lawn Hill station with the Aboriginal outlaw, Joe Flick. In this shoot-out, Flick killed Native Police sub-Inspector Alfred Wavell before dying of wounds himself.^[204] In the southwest, the killings by Native Police also continued with punitive missions occurring across the border into South Australia.^[205] Near the Batavia River in the extreme far north, sub-Inspector Frederic Urquhart dispersed a large number of Aboriginals following the killing of pastoralist Edmund Watson,^[206] with Urquhart being speared in the leg during this operation.^[207] In the rainforest areas of far north eastern coast, the dispersals also continued. Naturalist Robert Grant observed a number of massacres by the Native Police during his scientific expedition to the Atherton Tableland region in the late 1880s. He obtained two Aboriginal children after one of these massacres, one of which was a boy who he took back to New South Wales and raised in Scottish tradition. This boy became Douglas Grant, the notable Aboriginal who fought for the British Empire in World War I.^[208]

Changing of policy from 1890

By 1890, atrocities by the Native Police were coming under increased scrutiny from members of the public and the media. A.J. Vogan's novel 'Black Police', published in that year, was closely based on incidents that Vogan said he saw or investigated in 1888–1889. The book included stories of massacres committed by the Queensland Native Police in close cooperation with settlers antagonistic to the presence of Aboriginal people on or near their runs.^[209] Continued newspaper focus on incidents, an increasingly influential social criticism, and the shifting of the colonial frontier into the Northern Territory and British New Guinea eventually had some effect on changing the Queensland government's policy of "dispersal".

William Parry-Okeden

In 1889, two police officials in the Herberton area, Charles Hansen and Andrew Zillman, experimented with allocating rations to displaced Aboriginals instead of shooting them. They found that the trial was a success with an almost complete reduction in the spearing of cattle and settler casualties. Leading officials of the Queensland government, in particular the Colonial Secretary Horace Tozer, opted to expand the funding of the rationing experiment. As a result, the Native Police budget was dramatically reduced with only 45 troopers and a handful of officers being employed in 1895. 1895 also saw David Thompson Seymour, the long serving Queensland Police Commissioner who commanded the exterminating operations of the Native Police for thirty years, replaced with the more moderate William Parry-Okeden. Also in that year, Tozer commissioned Archibald Meston to conduct a thorough research report into the condition of Aboriginals in the colony. Meston recommended the often discussed proposal of segregating Aboriginals from white society and forcibly detaining them on isolated reserves. This report was largely accepted by the government and led to the passing of the Aboriginal Protection Act of 1897. For most Aboriginals in the colony of Queensland, this meant that they faced a reduced likelihood of being shot but also had almost all aspects of their lives controlled by the government. Even though Meston recommended the immediate disbanding of the Native Police, this aspect was rejected with Native Police units continuing to operate out of a number of barracks on the Cape York Peninsula and in the Gulf Country.^[210]

Operations from 1890 to 1905

Native Police with constables Bateman and Whiteford at Musgrave barracks around 1898

Despite many Native Police troopers in this period being decommissioned or redeployed as unarmed trackers working with normal police squads and, in addition, a considerable number of barracks being turned into so-called "feeding stations" for the local remnant Aboriginal population,^[211] intense dispersal operations still continued in the Cape York and Gulf districts.

In 1893, a very large group consisting of 20 Native Police troopers led by sub-Inspector Charles Savage, together with armed settlers and other police were sent on a punitive mission against Aboriginals living around the Ducie River in the far north. Aboriginals in this area had experienced decades of conflict with the British and had recently managed to defeat a Native Police unit in battle, killing five troopers.^[212] On occasions, more moderate methods were employed with Aboriginals being captured and taken prisoner instead of being massacred for the killing of settlers.^[213] However, mass poisonings of Aboriginals in the region instead of "disperal" or capture also occurred as a retributive technique. In particular, after the killing of Donald MacKenzie at Lakefield station in 1896, the Native Police failed to inflict any punishment as they found many of the local tribe dead from arsenic poisoning.^[214]

Drawing by Aboriginal boy Oscar of a Native Police dispersal

Toward the border with the Northern Territory in the Gulf Country, the last operational barracks in this region was at Turn Off Lagoon near to where the modern-day community of Doomadgee is now located. The Native Police detachment based at Turn Off Lagoon conducted many of their punitive expeditions across the border in the Northern Territory. For instance, in 1896 after the killing of Cresswell Downs manager, Thomas Perry, this unit shot a large number of Aboriginals in that region. Indiscriminate dispersals also followed the spearing of Harry Shadforth at Wollogorang Station in 1897. Constables Richard Alford and Timothy Lyne were in charge of these troopers at this time. An Aboriginal boy named Oscar who was kidnapped from the Cooktown area by Native Police and brought to work at Rocklands station near Camooweal, made some unique recordings of the operations of the Native Police based at Turn Off Lagoon. From 1895 to 1899, Oscar produced a number of drawings depicting Native Police troopers shooting tribal Aboriginals either as they were running away or as they were tied to trees.^[215]

Native Police detachment at Turn Off Lagoon barracks 1898

From around the turn of the 20th century, operations of dispersal coming out from the Turn Off Lagoon barracks became actively discouraged by the chiefs of police and the barracks itself shut in 1908. However, massacres conducted by Native Police continued into the 1900s in the Cape York Peninsula region. For instance, while travelling near the Wenlock River, Reverend Gilbert White and anthropologist Walter Roth were shown the remains of four local Aboriginal men shot dead by Native Police in a surprise attack.^[216] Reports reached Commissioner William Parry-Okeden and a large investigation ensued. The officer in charge, constable John Hoole was acquitted of any wrongdoing but was transferred and soon after forced into retirement.^[217]

Although this appears to be the last documented massacre by Native Police based in Queensland, some other dispersals may still have occurred. By 1909, the only functional Native Police barracks remaining was at Coen but this was manned by only several veteran troopers. This barracks finally closed in 1929.^[218] Native police still officially had a role in Queensland until at least the 1960s with unarmed troopers being assigned to maintain control in Aboriginal isolation and detention facilities such as the Palm Island facility. Eddie Mabo gave a description of these native police on his visit to Palm Island in 1957.^[219]

South Australia

Commissioner Alexander Tolmer formed the South Australian Native Police Force in 1852 at the specific direction of the South Australian Government. Later that year a newspaper reported, "A dozen powerful natives, chiefly of the Moorundee tribe [from Blanchetown, South Australia district on the River Murray], have been selected to be sent to the Port Lincoln district to act as Mounted Police."^[220] The little corps, under the command of Mounted Police Corporal John Cusack (1809–1887), sailed for Port Lincoln on the government schooner Yatala on 29 December 1852, for service on Eyre Peninsula. It was confidently expected they would be usefully employed in protection of the settlers in that district.^[221]

The Native Police were soon extended, the strength in 1856 being:- Murray District (half each at Moorundee and Wellington): 2 inspectors, 2 corporals, 13 constables, 16 horses ; Venus Bay: 1 sergeant, 1 corporal, 7 constables, 8 horses.

The six officers and non-commissioned officers were all European, while the twenty constables were all Aboriginal, all being issued with standard police arms and uniforms. Both Aboriginal and European offenders were brought to justice by these men, but on Eyre Peninsula the Aboriginals were largely ineffectual as they were in unfamiliar territory, while on the Murray the entire force went walkabout and did not return.^[222]

In 1857 it was abolished as a distinct corps, although a few Aboriginal constables continued to be employed from time to time at certain remote police stations. Also, Aboriginal trackers were employed as needed, but were not sworn police constables. In 1884 a native police scheme was revived by the South Australia Police in Central Australia (see Northern Territory, below), but this time it was based on the more notorious Queensland and New South Wales models.

Northern Territory

In 1884, the South Australian Police Commissioner, William John Peterswald established a Native Police Force. Six Aboriginal men were recruited in November 1884. Aged between 17 and 26 years of age, they came from Alice Springs, Charlotte Waters, Undoolya and Macumba.
The Native Police became notorious for their violent activities, especially under the command of Constable William Willshire. In 1891, two Aboriginal men were 'shot whilst attempting to escape'. The deaths were noticed and the South Australian Register called for an Enquiry to establish whether or not police had been justified in killing the two Aboriginal men.

Eventually, F. J. Gillen, Telegraph Stationmaster and Justice of the Peace at Alice Springs, received instructions from the Government to investigate the matter and report to the Attorney-General. Gillen found Willshire responsible for ordering the killings. At the conclusion of Gillen's investigation, Willshire was suspended, arrested and charged with murder. He became the first Northern Territory police officer charged with this offence. He was subsequently acquitted.^[223]

See also

• History of Victoria


• History of Queensland


• Victorian gold rush


• White Woman of Gippsland


• First Nations Police (Ontario)


• United States Indian Police

Notes

References

On the Native Police Corps of Victoria (1842–1853)

• Fels, Marie Hansen: GOOD MEN AND TRUE: THE ABORIGINAL POLICE OF THE PORT PHIL-LIP DISTRICT 1837–1853, Melbourne 1988, 308 pages.

On the Native Police in South Australia (Northern Territory) (1884–1891)

• Amanda Nettelbeck & Robert Foster: IN THE NAME OF THE LAW: William Willshire and the policing of the Australian Frontier, Kent Town SA 2007, 227 pages, illustrated
  ISBN 978-1-86254-748-3
  

On Queensland's Native Police Force (1848–1897):

• Bottoms, Timothy: Conspiracy of Silence, Allan & Unwin Sydney 2013, 258 pages, ill.


• Evans, Raymond in Evans, Saunders, & Cronin: RACE RELATIONS IN COLONIAL QUEENSLAND: A HISTORY OF EXCLUSION, EXPLOITATION AND EXTERMINATION, third edition Brisbane 1993 (first edition publ. Sydney, 1975), 456 pages, ill.


• Evans, Raymond: ACROSS THE QUEENSLAND FRONTIER In Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, eds Bain Attwood and S.G. Foster. National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2003, pp. 63–75 ‘Frontier Conflict’ Dec. 2001 14 pages.


• Evans, Raymond: THE COUNTRY HAS ANOTHER PAST: QUEENSLAND AND THE HISTORY WARS, chapter in ‘Passionate Histories: Myth, memory and Indigenous Australia’ Aboriginal History Monograph 21, September 2010. Edited by Frances Peters-Little, Ann Curthoys and John Docker.


• Feilberg, Carl: THE WAY WE CIVILISE (pamphlet, see external links below)


• Ørsted-Jensen, Robert: FRONTIER HISTORY REVISITED – QUEENSLAND AND THE 'HISTORY WAR', Brisbane.
  ISBN 9781466386822
  


• Richards, Jonathan: THE SECRET WAR. A TRUE HISTORY OF QUEENSLAND'S NATIVE POLICE, St Lucia Queensland 2008, 308 pages


• Skinner, Leslie Edward: POLICE OF THE PASTORAL FRONTIER – NATIVE POLICE, 1849–1859, Brisbane, St Lucia, 1975, 455 pages.


• Vogan, Arthur James: THE BLACK POLICE: A STORY OF MODERN AUSTRALIA, London, Hutchinson & Co., 1890, 392 pages.


• Wright, Judith Arundell: THE CRY FOR THE DEAD, Melbourne 1981, 303 pages.

Fictional depiction

• Howarth, Paul: ONLY KILLERS AND THIEVES,London,2008,
  ISBN 978-1-91159-003-3
  

External links

• Defending Victoria – Aboriginal People in the Victorian Colonial Forces


• 
  Tracking the Native Police, an online exhibition of images and transcripts of documents at Public Record Office Victoria.


• 
  The Way We Civilise A series of articles and letters Reprinted from the ‘Queenslander’ (Brisbane, December 1880)