From an article in theconversation.com:
The Native Mounted Police operated in Queensland for 80 years, starting in 1849. It consisted of small groups of between six and 15 Aboriginal troopers under the command of white officers. The troopers were typically recruited from areas far from where they were sent to serve.
For seven years, we have been reconstructing the activities of the Native Mounted Police in order to help Queenslanders begin to understand this history.
In our research, we combed through archaeological work on Native Mounted Police camps and artefacts, examined historical documents (newspapers, colonial government documents, private diaries, hospital records and maps) from public archives and libraries, and conducted oral histories with a range of people, including descendants of Native Mounted Police officers and troopers, and descendants of massacre survivors.
We have organised all of our findings – nearly 20,000 documents in total – in an online database to shed light on the lives of the 450 officers and over 1,000 Aboriginal troopers who made up the Native Mounted Police, and the violence they administered.
Some people question why Aboriginal boys and men would enlist in a force whose job was to hunt down and kill other Aboriginal people. As we discuss at length in a research article, the reasons are varied and many. Some were directly or indirectly coerced through threats of violence or reduced prison sentences, but many seemingly “volunteered”. Many recruits may have had few, if any, other viable options – in essence, they were faced with a “choiceless choice”.
Like other native policing forces used by the British in Africa and India, the Queensland Native Mounted Police also deliberately exploited the fact that Indigenous people from one part of the country often regarded those from another as strangers, if not enemies.
You can read the full story at: https://tinyurl.com/3t8z32f5.