‘You'll get nothing out of it'? The Inquest, Police and Aboriginal Deaths in Colonial Queensland

Finnane, Mark; Richards, Jonathan

doi:10.1080/10314610408596273

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…That at least 148 camps had to be maintained at various locations for a period of more than half a century provides clear evidence of the persistent and determined resistance of Aboriginal people to the theft of their land. Violence, oppression, conflict and retaliation operated in the gap between the advance of settlement and the creation of an effective structure of state administration (Finnane and Richards 2004), creating a unique space in which the NMP operated to quell Aboriginal resistance. None of the material evidence explored to date through our research speaks directly to this violence, the vast majority of which (though not all) took place beyond the physical borders of the NMP's living quarters.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The archaeology of the ‘Secret War’: The material evidence of conflict on the Queensland frontier, 1849–1901

Barker

Wallis

Burke

et al. 2020

QAR

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Although the historical record relating to nineteenth century frontier conflict between Aboriginal groups and Europeans in Queensland has been clearly documented, there have been limited associated archaeological studies. As part of the Archaeology of the Queensland Native Mounted Police (NMP) project, this paper canvasses the physical imprint of frontier conflict across Queensland between 1849 and the early 1900s, focusing specifically on the activities and camp sites of the NMP, the paramilitary government-sanctioned force tasked with policing Aboriginal people to protect settler livelihoods. At least 148 NMP camps of varying duration once existed, and historical and archaeological investigations of these demonstrate some consistent patterning amongst them, as well as idiosyncrasies depending on individual locations and circumstances. All camps were positioned with primary regard to the availability of water and forage. Owing to their intended temporary nature and the frugality of the government, the surviving structural footprints of camps are generally limited. Buildings were typically timber slab and bark constructions with few permanent foundations and surviving architectural features are therefore rare, limited to elements such as ant bed flooring, remnant house or yard posts, stone lines demarcating pathways, and stone fireplaces. Architectural forms of spatial confinement, such as lockups or palisades, were absent from the camps themselves. The most distinctive features of NMP camps, and what allows them to be distinguished from the myriad pastoral sites of similar ages, are their artefact assemblages, especially the combined presence of gilt uniform buttons with the Victoria Regina insignia, knapped bottle glass, and certain ammunition-related objects.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The archaeology of the ‘Secret War’: The material evidence of conflict on the Queensland frontier, 1849–1901

Barker

Wallis

Burke

et al. 2020

QAR

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“…Source: Inquests, Queensland State Archives. The data differs slightly from (Finnane and Richards 2004) in respect of attribution of police killings, as that study also took account of trial data as well as inquest records.…”

Section: Graphmentioning

confidence: 96%

Aboriginal Violence and State Response: Histories, Policies and Legacies in Queensland 1860–1940

Finnane

Richards

2010

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology

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During the long era of 'protection' (enacted in 1897, flourishing in the inter-war years and with effects continuing to this day) policy towards Australian Indigenous people suspected of inter-personal violence was ambiguous in its objectives and its means. Formally Indigenous peoples in Australia were British subjects entitled to the full protection of the law. As a consequence violence between Indigenous people was made visible through the conduct of inquests, police inquiries and in many cases subsequent arrest and charge with a criminal offence. Disposal of those charged or even suspected of crimes reflects tension between the universalising presumptions of the criminal law and the particularising effects of welfare regimes that ruled the lives of Indigenous people. Drawing on archives of inquests, courts and prisons in the Queensland jurisdiction before 1940, this article examines the policies and decisionmaking that characterised a state which remained determinedly colonial in its practises and ambitions. In conclusion, we consider briefly the question of how distinctive or how representative was Queensland practice as a state response to Indigenous violence during these decades of colonial subordination.

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“…In their study of inquests held into Aboriginal deaths in colonial Queensland, for instance, Mark Finanne and Jonathan Richards argue that the lack of prosecutions to follow coronial inquests into Aboriginal deaths is an indication of the degree to which legal processes applied to a frontier environment were continually ''mediated by the realities of distance, denial, cover-up and subversion of justice''. 18 Our study of the colonial judicial system in South Australia up to the 1860s also finds that even when administrators and courts made every effort to investigate violence against Aboriginal people on the colony's pastoral frontiers, these efforts were unraveled by a set of recurring problems: the distance between districts of settlement and centres of law; a culture of settler solidarity which included representatives of the law; provisos to the Aborigines Evidence Act which enabled juries to continue to discount Aboriginal testimony; and inherent ambiguities within the law itself about settlers' rights to protect their lives and property, which saw cases against Europeans that did go to trial acquitted. 19 Indeed it was in the very nature of the Australian frontier, Tom Griffiths has suggested, ''to undermine the rule of law and the legal method''.…”

Section: Journal Of Australian Studies 127mentioning

confidence: 97%

“As fine a body of men”: how the Canadian Mountie brought law and order to the memory of the Australian frontier

Nettelbeck

Foster

2012

Journal of Australian Studies

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‘You'll get nothing out of it'? The Inquest, Police and Aboriginal Deaths in Colonial Queensland

Cited by 14 publications

References 5 publications

The archaeology of the ‘Secret War’: The material evidence of conflict on the Queensland frontier, 1849–1901

The archaeology of the ‘Secret War’: The material evidence of conflict on the Queensland frontier, 1849–1901

Aboriginal Violence and State Response: Histories, Policies and Legacies in Queensland 1860–1940

“As fine a body of men”: how the Canadian Mountie brought law and order to the memory of the Australian frontier

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