What is the Shadow?
Natives recruited to do the dirty work of killing other natives created a great shadow over the morals of Australian leaders.
Members of the NMP photographed on 1 December 1864 at Rockhampton. Reproduced with permission of Queensland State Library (negative no 10686). State Library of Queensland
In 19th century Queensland, the Native Mounted Police were responsible for“dispersing” (a euphemism for systematickilling) Aboriginal people. They became a cost effective and brutal paramilitary instrument in the expansion and protection of the British colonial frontier in Australia using rifles, carbines and swords.
They escorted surveying groups, pastoralists and prospectors into frontier areas and established camps where warrants were enforced along with punitive missions following the imperial British method of "divide and conquer."
Native Police were recruited from areas distant from the frontier places in which they were deployed. 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 punitive missions.
