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Saturday 20 October 2012

Sepia Saturday 148; Native Mounted Police;


Native Police Rockhampton, Queensland, 1864

The Native Police Forces were established in Port Phillip in 1842 in New South Wales and 1859 in Queensland. The force was built up of young Aboriginal men who were sent to kill Aboriginal people of different language groups. This was a vital contribution to the defeat of the Aboriginal resistance.

Australian native police like units, consisting of Aboriginal troopers under the command usually of a single white officer, existed in several Australian colonies during the nineteenth century. Yet there were really only two forces formerly budgeted, organized and deployed at the frontier by the government for long term use. The first was the Native Police Corps established in 1837 in the Port Phillip District of the then Australian colony of New South Wales (now Victoria) and the second was deployed in the northern districts of New South Wales, the later colony of Queensland in 1848. However, the latter force, known predominantly simply as the "Native Police Force" (sometimes called the "Native Mounted Police Force") of Queensland, was by far the largest, most notorious and longest lasting of them all. It existed from 1848 to at least 1897.  Other native police like systems were also occasionally used both in New South Wales and in the colonies of South Australia, Western Australia and in Northern Territory (then part of the colony of South Australia), but with the exception (it seems) of a small unit briefly existing in South Australia, they were informally organized often private initiatives, not formerly established and deployed as a government financed frontier force.



Please go and look what others are up to...here Sepia Saturday 148;








20 comments:

  1. Wow, Titania, I had no idea that Aboriginal men were utilized to kill their own! Well, I guess I need to learn more Australian history. They don't teach much of it here, in Canada, apart from the whole convict- thing and even that is sketchy at best.

    Thanks for sharing this and enlightening me!

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  2. Oops; my comment came up twice - deleting one removed both. Sorry about that.

    This is interesting to me since I wrote about Thomas Scotney under the convict theme recently and he would have been in Tasmania at this time. I wonder what resistance the Aborigines could have put up that warranted such a fate.
    Great photo - they look a fearsome bunch.

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    1. Bob, Yes I read about T.Scotney, interesting! It must have been terrible times!

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  3. What an amazing photo, and quite an interesting story to go with it. Thank you!

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  4. Thanks for the history lesson. It's sad to think the native police were used to kill their own people. I also read the link you included and it was interesting.

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    1. Queen Bee; thank you for your interest, yes it was a sad time in Australia's history.

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  5. Wow! Very interesting history lesson. It's very sad to think of the Aboriginal men being used to kill their own people.

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  6. This made me think of the Jewish Council in The Netherlands during WW2. They were used by the Germans to select their own people to be sent off to the concentration camps. Obviously there is more to this story but that is how people saw it.
    Interesting post Queen Bee, thank you.

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    1. Peter; all over the world are these dark spots. Thank you for visiting.

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  7. This is a very interesting and I bet, rare, photo! I enjoyed learning the history behind it too.

    Kathy M.

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  8. Interesting history. I don't think we had any native police forces here in the U.S.

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  9. Well I've learned something new too. Thank you for this interetsing post and picture.

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  10. Oh my - how horrible for the native police force to know they were hired to kill their own.

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  11. A fascinating photo. There were similar units of native police throughout the British Empire, usually exploiting the tribal rivalries and ethnic hostilities. We are paying the price in today's world conflicts.

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  12. I am doing an assignment on the Native Police and am wondering, where did you get the image from? Like what is the licensing for the image copyright?

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  13. I am doing an assignment on the Native Police and am wondering, where did you get the image from? Like what is the licensing for the image copyright?

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