Issue Details: First known date: 1997... 1997 Prosecutors or Protectors? Police and Aborigines in Pre-Separation Queensland
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'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.' (Extract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Queensland Review vol. 4 no. 1 April 1997 Z1094607 1997 periodical issue 'Topicality has its drawbacks. In the last issue of the Journal of Australian Studies (UQP), the editor acknowledged that history - acting through the editor of the Courier-Mail - would seem to have overtaken an essay by one of the contributors about Helen Darville. In a somewhat similar way history, in the figure of Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Kev Lingard, has intervened on the situation so powerfully evoked by Ros Kidd in a paper delivered at our annual conference last December and published in the present issue of the Review. A week ago at the time of writing this editorial the Queensland Government acknowledged the justice of the Palm Island Aboriginal community'S compensation claim for many years of less than award wages, apologised to the claimants for the under-payments, and handed over some $50,000 in compensation cheques. Given the historical circumstances it was a fairly modest gesture, but it is to be hoped it will not be the last; and in the current post-Wik climate of opinion it was a welcome and - to many people - unexpected move.' (Editorial)  1997 pg. 63-70
Last amended 31 Jul 2019 14:18:51
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