Australian native police

Australian native police units, consisting of Aboriginal troopers under the command usually of a single white officer, existed in several Australian colonies during the nineteenth century. Yet there were really only three forces formally budgeted, organised and deployed at the frontier by the government. The first was the Native Police Corps, established in 1837 in the Port Phillip District of the then Australian colony of New South Wales (now Victoria). The second was from 1848 deployed in the northern districts of New South Wales, nearly exclusively within the borders of the later colony of Queensland, and the last was set up by the government of South Australia in 1884, and deployed in what is now the Northern Territory. The Queensland force, in contemporary government records entitled the "Native Police Force" (although sometimes called the "Native Mounted Police Force"), was by far the largest, most notorious and longest lasting of them all. It is most well known for having raided aboriginal settlements and massacred their men, women and children. It existed from 1848 to 1905, when the last Native Police camps were closed. Other native police systems were also occasionally used both in New South Wales and in Western Australia, but they were informally organised often private initiatives, and seemingly not established and deployed as a government financed frontier force.

Requests for the establishment of a Native Police Corps in the Port Phillip District, then in the Australian colony of New South Wales and now part of Victoria, were made from as early as 1837 when Captain William Lonsdale wrote to Governor Richard Bourke. Issues of funding and supply delayed formation of the corps until Superintendent Charles La Trobe indicated he was willing to underwrite the costs in 1842.

Henry EP Dana was selected to command the corps, which would be a mounted command consisting of aboriginal troopers and European officers. The command was initially established at the Aboriginal Protectorate Station at Narre Narre Warren, about 25 km south east of Melbourne, but Dana moved the headquarters in March 1842 to the banks of the Merri Creek.

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