Prosecutors or Protectors?
Police and Aborigines in Pre-Separation Queensland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S132181660000132XKeywords:
Police in Australia, Aborigines, violence, 1830s and 40sAbstract
If any characteristic has distinguished the police in Australia from their original models in England or Ireland, it has been their continually changing role in the government of Aborigines.
In the 1830s and 40s, in the absence of any real law enforcement body, uncontained conflict between settlers and Aborigines in what was to become southern Queensland resulted in a spiral of violence that was at times gratuitous. Some whites killed blacks out-of-hand. For their part, Aborigines retaliated when and how they could. One settler, for example, told how in a little over two years fifteen of his shepherds had been murdered and whole herds of his animals had been butchered simply for the fat their kidneys contained.
References
Finnane, M. 1994, Police and Government: Histories of Policing in Australia; Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 111.
Roberts, S. 1975, The Squatting Age in Australia, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 88.
Skinner, L. 1977, ‘The Days of the Squatting Acts District of Darling Downs and Moreton Bay’, Queensland Heritage, No.3, Government Printer, Brisbane, 325.
A shilling was 1/20th of a pound sterling and was considerably more than a rural worker earned.
Simpson to Colonial Secretary (Col Sec) 44/8104, John Oxley Library, Micro film (MF) A2/14.
O'Sullivan, . 1972, Mounted Police of NSW, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 74.
There were 240 pence in a pound sterling.
See for example N. Loos 1982, Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-European Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861–1897, ANU Press, Canberra, 26.
Walker, Frederick, first Commandant of the Northern Native Police, told the Colonial Secretary (hereafter Col Sec) that no force on earth could keep Aborigines who did not wish to remain there, in the Queen's service, neither did he believe anyone should attempt to do so. See also Queensland Votes and Proceedings, 1875, and Queenslander, 7 October 1876.
See Pike, D. (ed) 1996, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 6, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 338–9.
See Moreton Bay Courier, 17 April 1847. I can find no case where this happened as a result of ill treatment of Aborigines, but the potential existed and caused considerable anguish in pastoralist circles.
This was reported in the Moreton Bay Courier on 29 June 1850, almost a year after it happened.
Walker to Col Sec 1 March 1852, cited in Moreton Bay Courier, 17 July 1852.
‘Keeping them out’ was the term used to describe the practice of denying Aboriginal people access to pastoral leases. There is considerable argument as to whether or not this practice was legal, but many settlers believed that letting blacks on to leases during the early years of settlement was tantamount to committing suicide.
Walker to Col Sec, 1 March 1852.
Walker to Col Sec, 1 March 1852.
Report of the Select Committee into Native Police and the Condition of Aborigines Generally, Queensland Votes and Proceedings 1861, 17.
Walker to Col Sec, 14 June 1853 MF, A2/26, Col. John Oxley Library.
Sec 15 June 1850, MF. A2/52, Col. John Oxley Library.
Walker to Col Sec, 8 August 1853, MF. A2I28 Col. John Oxley Library.
Col Sec, 13 December 1853, MF, A2/23, Col. John Oxley Library.
Minutes of the Executive Council in 1855 show that Sir William Denison wanted to prosecute Walker.
Walker has been criticised by many authors. See for example, G. Reid, A Nest Of Hornets, 185; N. Loos, Invasion and Resistance, 20; H. Holthouse, Up Rode the Squatter: The savage beginnings of Queensland's West, (Adelaide, 1970), 129; and F. Robinson & B. York, The Black Resistance, (Maryborough, 1977), 116.
