Aboriginal tracker

Portrait of 'John Piper', an Aboriginal tracker who accompanied Major Thomas Mitchell in his expedition across the Great Dividing Range

In the years following British settlement in Australia, aboriginal trackers or black trackers, as they became known, were enlisted by settlers to assist them in navigating their way through the Australian landscape. The trackers' hunter-gatherer lifestyle gave rise to excellent tracking skills which were advantageous to settlers in assisting them in finding food and water and locating missing persons or capturing bushrangers.

The first recorded employment of the services of Aboriginal trackers in Australia was in 1834, near Fremantle, Western Australia, when two trackers named Mogo and Mollydobbin tracked a missing five-year-old boy for over ten hours through the rough Australian bush.^[1] Another notable early event occurred in 1864 when Duff children Jane (7), Isaac (9) and Frank (4) Duff, lost for nine days in Wimmera, were found by aboriginal tracker Dick-a-Dick.^[1]^[2]

Tracking

When asked how he tracked, Mitamirri, a famous tracker of the early 20th century, said "I never bend down low, just walk slow round and round until I see more."^[3]

In 1845 Edward Stone Parker the Assistant Protector of Aborigines based at the Loddon Aboriginal Protectorate Station at Franklinford, wrote a letter to the Chief Protector reporting on the murder of a native at Joyce's Station (near Newstead). No witness could be found to the murder but the footprints of five men were tracked by the Jajowurrong to open country south of Mount Macedon (Sunbury region). The trackers there met with another man attached to the Loddon Protectorate Station who was on his return from Melbourne. He told the trackers he had met with the group they were tracking and was able to give a description of them.^[4]

The New South Wales Police Force actively engaged Aboriginal Trackers from 1850, attempting to secure Aboriginal Trackers for each of the police districts. By 1867, 52 Aboriginal Trackers were in the employ of the police at a daily rate of 2s 6d (approximately ₤3 17s 6d per month).^[5] In that year, at the height of Bushranger activity in the Goulburn Police District, three mounted Aboriginal Trackers of the New South Wales Police Force were actively involved in the capture of the Clarke brothers at Jinden near Braidwood. Aboriginal Tracker Sir Watkin Wynne (later Sergeant Major Sir Watkin Wynne), led the initial party of police from Fairfield under the command of Senior Constable Wright (later Sub-inspector Wright) to their location at Jinden. He was seriously injured during the capture and had an arm amputated. He was awarded ₤120 for his role in the capture. Two other trackers, who subsequently led other police to the scene, Trackers George Emmott (stationed at Ballalaba) and Thomas (stationed at Major's Creek), secured lesser awards of ₤7 10s. Tracker George Emmott had previously received an award of ₤30 for the arrest of Pat Connell another member of the gang.^[6]

Two members of the Queensland Native Mounted Police Force, Wannamutta and Werannabe, assisted in the capture of Ned Kelly at Glenrowan, Victoria in 1880. They had been promised ₤50 reward for Kelly's capture but descendants claimed the two were never paid.^[7]

Native Police

Members of the Queensland Native Police who assisted in the search of bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang

The Port Phillip Native Police Corps was established in Victoria in 1842 and employed aboriginal trackers to carry out duties which included searching for missing persons, carrying messages, and escorting dignitaries through unfamiliar territory. During the goldrush era, they were also used to patrol goldfields and search for escaped prisoners.^[8] They were provided with uniforms, firearms, food rations and a rather dubious salary.

In 1879 the services of a group of Queensland black police were requested to help track the Kelly gang which were on the run from the Victorian police. Their use was agreed and a party of six native troopers, with a white officer (Sub-Inspector Stanhope O'Conner) reached Benalla about March 1879.^[9]

A similar force was established in New South Wales in 1848 by Governor Charles Fitzroy and in 1859, Queensland, now a separate colony, took control of the force until 1900.

Recent and present day use

In 1941, the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit was established to patrol the North Australian coastline for Japanese landings and infiltration, and was primarily composed of Aboriginal soldiers. The 2/1st North Australia Observer Unit ("Nackaroos") performed a similar role, though Aboriginals were a minority in the unit, serving as labourers and trackers.^[10]

In the present day Australian Army, the Regional Force Surveillance Units can be seen as a spiritual descendant of the Tracker legacy.

Aboriginal trackers within the Queensland police force wore yellow epaulets to denote their role. By 2012, only one tracker remained, Lama Lama elder Barry Port. Queensland police do not expect another tracker to replace Port.^[11]

Notable Aboriginal trackers