THE NATIVE POLICE CORPS IN ROWVILLE

The Wawoorong (1) and Bunerong (2) tribes had jointly selected Nerre Nerre Warren as the site for their Westernport protectorate head station. Robinson(3) and La Trobe (4) approved their choice, and Thomas(5) moved there in the first week of October 1840, with as many of the two tribes as he could induce to accompany him.
They shifted from Melbourne on the understanding that they would receive rations from the government, but, once settled, discovered that Thomas expected them to work for their means of subsistence. His dream, in line with the government's aim, envisaged a people gradually being led to discover for themselves the virtues of a 'civilised' life, an order, routine and discipline organised around the imperatives of stock and land production; it was akin to the life of a European peasant, ploughing, sowing, harvesting in season, rearing animals, eating the products of their labour, and on the Sabbath, learning the scriptures and attending Divine Service. The children would attend school, and there was a hospital planned for the sick, and all the people's needs would be taken care of in the village centred on the protector's residence. Above all, they would not need to go to Melbourne, the source of all evil according to Thomas.
The people co-operated up to a point in the re-ordering of their lives. Thomas was called upon to furnish a progress report after a year, and the new overseer, George Bertram, reported as well on the state of the station on his arrival in January 1842. In a little over twelve months, the people had accomplished a good deal of work: a paddock of nine to ten acres had been cleared, fenced and grubbed, and two and a half acres sown to wheat, the remainder ploughed for potatoes. Five huts had been built of split logs, with wattle bark roofs, one each for the protector, the schoolmaster and the overseer, one for the three convicted men working as labourers, and one for the tools and stores. Most of this labour had been done by the people, as one of the convicts acted as a personal attendant to Thomas, and one was more or less constantly employed working the bullocks bringing supplies up from Melbourne. Thev had accomplished much.
They refused, however, to work endlessly six days a week, month in month out, clinging rather to the old pattern of seasonal movement around their countries from one favoured location to another; and what is perhaps more important, the men did not like the work, regarding agricultural work as women's work and therefore degrading. Thomas was helpless in the face of their refusal to stay permanently at Nerre Nerre Warren and asked Robinson whether he should stay at the protectorate head station with no one home to protect, or follow the people in their migrations, which now included a season in Melbourne. The paradoxical situation had arisen that though the government had designated Nerre Nerre Warren as their home, the people refused to live at home permanently. They preferred their own vision of the good life, where home was a series of familiar places visited in an orderly annual cycle. In home, were the roots of their identity as person and as a member of a group; to home, they had sacred obligations; at home, they taught the children, and grew them up to full personhood. Home was now partly destroyed in that some parts of it were built over, fenced in, transformed by intruding animals, but the people could not be kept from their definition of home by the lure of a European home. Especially as the European home situation demanded labour for subsistence rations as well as permanent residence. At Nerre Nerre Warren, the children, the sick and the elderly were rationed, while everyone else worked for their food, except on the Sabbath when everyone was fed in return for attending Divine Service.
It was into this uneasy and unresolved struggle for the terms of existence that Robinson and Dana rode on 24 January 1842, bearing a proposal for yet another kind of living - policing as a way of life. On that day, there were only forty eight persons resident of a combined Warwoorong and Bunerong population of about two hundred. Robinson introduced Dana (6) as the military officer and outlined the plans for establishing a Corps of police: he emphasised the benefits to be gained.
Dana selected eight men, and messengers were sent out to gather in the rest of the two tribes. There was no work done over the ensuing few days, Thomas wrote, as 'all the blacks are agog to be policemen'. The selected men received rations immediately, and two of them commenced duty straight away as escort to the station overseer, who left for Melbourne to collect more convict labourers to build barracks. Everyone was inquisitive, Thomas said, to know what advantages the police were to receive, what kind of uniforms and so on.
Dana remained for the best part of a month at Nerre Nerre Warren, getting to know the people, assessing and selecting his men. He drew rations for individuals immediately they were selected, one and a half pounds of beef daily, plus one pound of flour, one and a half ounces of sugar, two ounces of tea and a quarter of an ounce of soap; he attended Divine Service with them in a body, and was much struck by their attention.
Not till La Trobe sent the uniforms up from Melbourne was any move made to formalise the enrolment of the police - it was by the things that they received that they were marked out from other men. The uniforms arrived in the third week in February, for each man a pair of blankets, a pair of trousers, one blue frock, one blue shirt, one police jacket, one police belt, and one police cap; it was a selection of European clothing very similar to that which the seven men requested and received as a reward for capturing the Van Diemen's Land Aborigines. Dana distributed the clothing on 23 February and next day solemnised the enrolment with a formal swearing in ceremony.
The men were lined up, dressed in their new uniforms, to listen to an address from Dana, Thomas interpreting his words to the men in their own languages. Though Thomas' and Dana's accounts do not mention an audience, it is difficult to imagine that the rest of the people, who had displayed such inquisitiveness about the terms of policing, were not present, especially as Thomas recorded that the formalities occupied 'some hours' and were conducted with 'much form'. Dana explained to the men his source of authority, outlined his intentions for the Corps and his expectations of them as individual members, and listed the benefits they would receive in return. He spelled out the consequences of their breaking their agreement, and cautioned them only to enter into the contract if they wished, and not to do so if they could not consent to be 'like a policeman'. They were also told that where their captain resided they must reside, unless ordered upon some duty, that one white man at least would accompany them with instructions from their captain, and that they were to obey him as though he was their captain.
The terms of policing were explained generally to the whole group assembled, then separately to each individual. After the talking, each man was individually sworn in and asked to make his mark on the muster roll, in the presence of witnesses, and here a slight hiccup occurred in the proceedings. Billibolary (7) hesitated. Thomas
quoted him as saying: ‘I am King; I no ride on horseback; I no go out of my country; young men go as you say, not me'. Whatever the cause of his hesitation, Billibolary overcame it, spoke to his men and made his mark, whereupon each man made his mark in turn.
Thomas and Dana both put on record their confident expectations that the Corps just enrolled would be a success, Thomas noting particularly that kindness to the men needed the balance of determination on the part of their leader and proper management, and Dana that the men needed proper clothing and equipment, as well as horses, and if these were supplied by the authorities, they would become a most useful body of men, equal to any task asked of them by the authorities.
Footnotes:
1. Also known as the Yarra Yarra tribe.
2. Also known as the Westernport tribe.
3. George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector of Aborigines.
4. Charles Joseph La Trobe, Superintendent of the Port Phillip District.
5. William Thomas, Assistant Protector of Aborigines.
6. Henry Dana, Commandant of the Native Police Corps.
7. Chief of the Wawoorong tribe.

THE NATIVE POLICE CORPS IN ROWVILLE - Part Two

Daily Routine
The only certain knowledge of what a day was like in the life of an Aboriginal trooper comes from the Daybook, which mentions only that parades and training were held at 11 am and 2 pm. There is no information about meals, hours of rising and so on. There exists, however, a description of the daily routine of the Victorian Mounted Police at the Richmond barracks in 1853, just after the Native Police Corps vacated it. Mrs Charles Perry, wife of the Bishop of Melbourne, living in the 1840s in one of La Trobe's cottages in Jolimont, wrote that she often saw a dozen or so native police drilling on horseback in the paddock at Richmond. It is likely that there was at the time, a standard routine for a cavalry unit, be it white or black.
The daily routine at Richmond was as follows: a trumpet call signalled the hour of rising, 5.30 am in summer, 6 am in winter (at Nerre Nerre Warren, this duty was probably performed by the European drummer boy George Brown). The horses were saddled and ridden quietly down to the Yarra a mile away to drink, and on return to the stables were cleaned and fed. This occupied the time till 8 am, when the men breakfasted. At 10 am men and horses paraded in the paddock, then drilled for two hours. After this training session there was the inevitable cleaning of horses and accoutrements, then dinner. At 2 pm there was another parade, this time of the men only, on foot, followed by two hours drill (at Nerre Nerre Warren, this afternoon session often included firing practice, and sword drill). At 4 pm the horses were taken to the river again to drink, were cleaned again, fed, and the trooper's labours for the day were concluded. There is no mention of an evening meal, but presumably the men ate again.

The Winter Months at Headquarters
In the absence of the two active divisions in the field during the winter months (1), life at headquarters seems to have been fairly relaxed. Those remaining at Nerre Nerre Warren included the senior non-commissioned officer in charge, usually the sergeant major, new recruits, the wives of police and their children, the tailor and the bullockdriver. For several years in succession, it appears that the first priority, once the divisions were away, was recreation - the sergeant major and the men went hunting. The sergeant and the men are described at various times as 'hunting bears for Mr Powlett’ (2) (10 March 1851); 'hunting kangaroo' (7 August 1846); 'shooting ducks' (14 October 1848); 'shooting pheasants' (1 May 1851). They also collected native plants in the Dandenongs for La Trobe (3), the musk plant in particular (3 September 1845, 13 August 1846, 22 August 1847, 7 October 1847).
The sergeant-major acted during winter as a director of traffic in and out of the station; in Henry Dana's (4) absence, he maintained regular communication with the divisions out in the field through two despatch riders. They must have been a familiar sight in the country areas, for in addition to the letters they carried despatches from La Trobe to his commissioners of crown land, from La Trobe to Dana in the field, from La Trobe to police magistrates in the country, and, as well, the whole of the private mail to GippsIand in the early years after the overland route was opened up. In addition, travellers to Gippsland expected and received an escort of native police until Dana finally objected. He wrote to La Trobe requesting that no trooper or troop horse be allowed to escort private individuals to and from GippsIand under any pretence whatever without an express order from La Trobe. Dana explained that he was asked constantly for such an escort, and that he had provided it in several instances, but he did not consider it to be the proper duty of the Corps, and besides, it was over a line of country where more men and horses were injured than in any other duty. La Trobe minuted his letter 'Given'. The police, however, continued to escort distinguished travellers, such as the Bishop of Melbourne, on his journey to Gippsland. All this traffic was routed through Nerre Nerre Warren, requiring constant attention to men and horses by the sergeant-major. On occasion, prisoners were escorted from the country by the police, and sick police were escorted from duty in the field down to Nerre Nerre Warren, and thence on to the colonial surgeon in Melbourne.
In between all this activity, parties of gentlemen visited the station to go hunting. The commissioner of crown land for Westernport called regularly on his rounds, sometimes borrowing a horse and leaving behind a lame or tired horse. Horses belonging to the administration and horses which were the personal property of La Trobe were spelled on the station; they had to be caught and walked down to Melbourne. La Trobe's cows were regularly sent up to Nerre Nerre Warren, and had to be walked back in due course. Between all the coming and going, the sergeant drilled the new recruits; the tailor worked his way through the production of two sets of uniforms each year for the men, a summer suit and a winter suit.
Of the wives and children of the police, it is known only that they were there; there is an occasional reference to the distribution of blankets to them, and rations, but apart from that, no evidence attesting to the terms of their living was recorded by the male keepers of the record. There is one small piece of external evidence which suggests that the women were anything but passive victims of white or black domination. Gellibrand (5) was on terms of intimacy with a number of upper class European families, including the McCraes at Arthur's Seat (behind Dromana on Port Phillip Bay). Georgiana McCrae recorded in her journal on 1 November 1848 that Gellibrand visited, and complained of not getting paid; he thought that the troopers' women might go to La Trobe to seek their men's 'white money'. (The corporals were paid monthly, at the end of the month, in coin; perhaps the October 1848 pay was late.) If this proposed action of the women was typical, then it seems that the police wives were confident and assertive in managing the interests of their families.
A reading straight through of the one-line entries of the Daybook leaves the distinct impression that the headquarters itself in Nerre Nerre Warren functioned in the administrative economy of the day as a kind of clearing house for persons, animals, and pieces of paper. It is surprising that it is so invisible to the present, that the place as well as the people have been lost sight of. In the course of their duties, La Trobe and Lonsdale (6), the commissioners of crown land for Westernport and GippsIand, the protectors and the chief protector, the magistrates and justices of the peace under whom the police operated in the field, the commandant and the orderlies of the mounted police, the commissariat commissioner, the government medical officers, later, the commissioners on the goldfields, the superintendent of Pentridge Prison, the heads of government departments when the men of the Corps replaced the British Army as La Trobe's orderlies - all these people knew the native police and dealt with their headquarters in the course of their duties.

Footnotes:
1. The Native Police Corps operated in all parts of the colony but principally in the Western District and along the Murray.
2. Frederick Powlett was the Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Westernport District.
3. Charles La Trobe was the Superintendent of the Port Phillip District and later the Governor of the Colony of Victoria.
4. Henry Dana was the Commandant of the Native Police Corps.
5. Gellibrand (native name Beruke) was one of the corporals of the Corps.
6. Captain William Lonsdale was the first administrator of the Port Phillip District. Lonsdale Streets in Melbourne and Dandenong were named in his honour.
Bryan Power

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