Australian native police were specialised mounted military units consisting of detachments of Aboriginal troopers under the command of White officers appointed by colonial governments. These units existed in various forms in colonial Australia during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentieth centuries. From temporary base camps and barracks, Native Police were primarily used to patrol the often vast geographical areas along the colonial frontier in order to conduct indiscriminate raids and punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people. The Native Police proved to be a brutally destructive instrument in the disintegration and dispossession of Indigenous Australians. Armed with rifles, carbines and swords, they were also deployed to escort surveying groups, gold convoys and groups of pastoralists and prospectors.
Native Police unit, Rockhampton, Queensland, 1864
Eagle Point is a small town in Victoria, Australia, within the Shire of East Gippsland, by Lake King. The area encompasses the red limestone cliffs by the Mitchell River and Mitchell River silt jetties. It is a popular tourist destination.
Eagle Point, Bairnsdale (Mitchell River and Lake King), Daniel Long, between 1856 and 1883 [State Library Victoria]