The Queensland Native Mounted Police operated for over 50 years, from 1849 until 1904. It was organised along paramilitary lines, consisting of detachments of Aboriginal troopers led by white officers. It operated across the whole of Queensland and was explicitly constituted to protect the lives, livelihoods and property of settlers and to prevent (and punish) any Aboriginal aggression or resistance.
The Archaeology of the Queensland Native Mounted Police is a multi-institutional Australian Research Council-funded project, it investigates the range of historical archaeological evidence for Native Mounted Police (NMP) life, frontier conflict including their activities, living and working conditions, the domestic and hierarchical arrangements in camps, and the oral histories held by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people about troopers, officers, the camps and conflict.
Mapping surface artefacts at Boulia NMP camp
By investigating the material evidence for the range of responses to the presence and activities of the NMP, the project explored the relationship between the NMP and local Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal people. It charted this across key areas of Qld in order to examine the evolution of the NMP system and the unfolding of the frontiers it created. Additionally, the project compared and contrasted material culture and memory to explore a range of questions about how we understand frontier conflict, the process of colonialism and its effects, settler society’s relationships with Aboriginal peoples both then and now, and how such complexities may provide opportunities to reflect on our colonial history.
Excavation squares in the interior of a stone structure – Boulia NMP camp
As a result, 148 NMP camps were identified across Queensland. The archaeological excavation of seven of them lead to a successful PhD project and 12 academic publications, as well as an extensive publicly accessible research data base https://frontierconflict.org/. This database derived from this 4 year-long investigation and is the only publicly available historical and archaeological dataset of the lives and activities of the NMP in Queensland. The excavations conducted for this project were the first archaeological investigations of any Native Police force operating anywhere in Australia and have confirmed the extent and scope of NMP operations and the widespread and persistent Aboriginal resistance to European incursions from the mid 19th century onward.
Compacted ant bed floor, interior of officers quarters Boralga NMP camp, Laura. Located using Ground Penetrating Radar.
This research was a multi institutional Australian Research Council funded project involving the following:
Associate Professor Heather Burke, Flinders University
Professor Bryce Barker, University of Southern Queensland
Dr Lynley Wallis, University of Notre Dame Australia
Emeritus Professor Iain Davidson, University of New England
Dr Noelene Cole, James Cook University
Ms Liz Hatte, Northern Archaeology Consultancies
Mr Col McLennon, Jangga Prescribed Body Corporate and Jangga Operations
Professor Larry Zimmerman, Indiana Purdue University
This post was written by guest contributor Prof Bryce Barker, an archaeologist from the University of Southern Queensland. The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane.
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“FROM the VAULT – The Archaeology of the Queensland Native Mounted Police ” by the Queensland Police Service is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 2.5 Australia Licence. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/legalcode