Native Police of Victoria

The Native Police in Early Colonial Victoria: Policing, Conflict, and Control

The Native Police Corps was one of Victoria’s earliest policing institutions during frontier expansion in the 1830s–1840s. Formed by the colonial government, it recruited Indigenous men—often from outside their own Country—to enforce settler law, track bushrangers, and suppress resistance by other Indigenous groups. Celebrated by officials for effectiveness, the Corps was deeply entangled in dispossession. This article outlines its origins, operations on Wadawurrung Country (Geelong district) and across other Kulin Nations, examines the 1841–42 six-week pursuit of Truganini’s party around Western Port, and situates the Corps within imperial patterns of “native” auxiliaries.

Origins of the Native Police

Established in 1837 under Superintendent Charles La Trobe, the Victorian Corps was shaped by earlier experiments in New South Wales. Captain Henry Dana became Commandant in 1842, professionalising training, drill, and mounted patrols (Broome, 2005; Connor, 2002). Recruits were drawn from Kulin Nations—Woiwurrung, Taungurung, Bunurong—and from farther afield, a deliberate “outsider policing” model intended to reduce local loyalties (Clark & Heydon, 1998).

Functions and Operations

The Corps:

• patrolled frontiers and escorted magistrates;

• tracked resistance parties and bushrangers across difficult terrain;

• joined or led punitive expeditions after clashes on stations;

• served as a colonial showpiece in reviews and parades (Clark, 1995; Broome, 2005).

Mounted mobility and tracking skill made the unit especially valuable where settlers struggled to read Country.

Wadawurrung Country (Geelong District) and Captain Foster Fyans

Geelong, heart of Wadawurrung Country, was among the earliest expansion zones outside Melbourne. Captain Foster Fyans—ex-military, appointed police magistrate in 1837—exercised sweeping authority. He relied on Indigenous guides and, at times, Native Police troopers to traverse volcanic plains, Moorabool–Barwon river corridors, and the You Yangs (Cahir, 2012; Clark, 1990).

• Cooperation and coercion: Some Wadawurrung men acted as envoys or guides; others resisted Fyans’ patrols.

• Punitive raids: Fyans recorded operations against Wadawurrung camps accused of spearing stock; mounted police and Native Police were deployed around the Barwon and the You Yangs in the late 1830s (Clark, 1995).

• Complex loyalties: Indigenous troopers operating on or near Wadawurrung estates created painful divides—kin enlisted into a force that also targeted local families.

Other Kulin Nations: Patterns of Deployment

• Woiwurrung/Wurundjeri (Yarra–Plenty–Dandenong ranges): Troopers escorted magistrates and tracked parties after conflicts on the Merri Creek and upper Yarra; their presence underpinned early evictions from riparian camps (Clark, 1995; Broome, 2005).

• Bunurong (Western Port/Bass Coast): The Corps operated around Cape Paterson and Anderson Inlet, combining shoreline patrols with inland tracking through dense tea-tree and sand country (Clark & Heydon, 1998).

• Dja Dja Wurrung (Loddon/Campaspe) & Taungurung (Goulburn): Assistant Protectors documented joint settler–trooper reprisals across river flats; after 1851, goldfields policing intensified along escort routes and diggings (Clark, 1995; Cahir, 2012).

These deployments normalised the police–pastoral nexus: troopers secured runs, escorted stock, and enforced removals that cleared Country for sheep.

The Six-Week Pursuit of Truganini’s Party, 1841–42 (Western Port & Bass Coast)

In late 1841, five Palawa people from lutruwita/Tasmania—Tunnerminnerwait (Pe-ter), Maulboyheenner (Timmy), Truganini, Planobeena (Fanny) and Pyterruner (Pigeon)—left Melbourne and undertook a campaign of resistance on Bunurong Country. They moved between Western Port, the Dandenongs and the Bass Coast, seizing arms and confronting whalers; two whalers were killed during the turmoil (Broome, 2005; Boyce, 2011).

A six-week manhunt followed, led by Commandant Henry Dana with Native Police troopers and settler auxiliaries, criss-crossing dunes, swamps and forest. The group’s intimate coastal knowledge repeatedly outpaced the pursuit until they were finally captured near Nerre Nerre Warren (upper Dandenong/Plenty region) in early 1842 (Clark & Heydon, 1998; Broome, 2005).

• Aftermath: Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were tried and executed in Melbourne (Jan 1842); Truganini, Planobeena and Pyterruner were returned to Flinders Island.

• Significance: The episode illustrates the Corps’ role in counter-insurgency on Kulin Country and the moral complexity of Indigenous troopers pursuing other Indigenous peoples under settler command.

The Paradox of Indigenous Service

For many recruits, enlistment offered rations, pay, horses, firearms, and status. Yet it placed them in conflict with kin, neighbours, and cultural obligations—a deliberate divide-and-control tactic of colonial rule (McGrath, 1995). On Wadawurrung and Bunurong estates, this meant riding with Fyans or Dana while enforcing evictions or reprisals against related Nations.

Australia-Wide and Imperial Context

Victoria’s Corps echoed a wider British imperial pattern of “native” auxiliaries:

• Australian colonies: From the 1820s, New South Wales used Native Police; Queensland’s later force became notorious for lethality into the late nineteenth century (Richards, 2008).

• Empire: The Company/Crown used sepoys in India; askaris and auxiliaries in Africa; and kūpapa Māori fought alongside British units during the New Zealand Wars (Belich, 1986).

The strategy governed cheaply by weaponising local knowledge while undermining Indigenous authority structures.

Decline and Transition

Desertions, conflicts with cultural law, and changing priorities after the 1851 gold rush weakened the Corps. By 1853, colonial policing consolidated under the settler-controlled Victoria Police, though Native Police detachments persisted for a time on the margins (Broome, 2005; Clark & Heydon, 1998).

Legacies and Historical Debates

To colonial officials, the Corps symbolised efficient policing and “assimilation.” To Indigenous communities, it embodies the contradictions and wounds of survival within colonial systems—kin enforcing the very laws that dispossessed them. Read alongside operations on Wadawurrung, Wurundjeri, Bunurong, Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung Country, and the 1841–42 pursuit of Truganini’s party, the Corps is best understood as part of the Crown’s global apparatus of imperial policing (Richards, 2008; Belich, 1986).

Conclusion

The Native Police Corps was central to consolidating British authority in Victoria. On Wadawurrung Country, Captain Foster Fyans drew on Indigenous troopers as both allies and instruments of suppression; across the Kulin Nations, the Corps secured pastoral frontiers and pursued resistance, epitomised by the six-week Western Port manhunt. Recognising these complexities—service, coercion, survival, and harm—is essential to truth-telling and reconciliation in Victoria and beyond.

Reference List

Belich, J. (1986) The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. Auckland: Auckland University Press.
Boyce, J. (2011) 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia. Melbourne: Black Inc.
Broome, R. (2005) Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Cahir, F. (2012) Black Gold: Aboriginal People on the Goldfields of Victoria, 1850–1870. Canberra: ANU E Press.
Clark, I. D. (1990) Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900. Clayton: Monash Publications in Geography.
Clark, I. D. (1995) Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria 1803–1859. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Clark, I. D. & Heydon, T. (1998) The Confluence of the Native Police and the Gold Rushes, 1837–1853. Ballarat: Ballarat Heritage Services.
Connor, J. (2002) The Australian Frontier Wars, 1788–1838. Sydney: UNSW Press.
McGrath, A. (1995) ‘Contested ground: Aborigines under the British Crown,’ in Attwood, B. (ed.) In the Age of Mabo. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, pp. 44–59.
Richards, J. (2008) The Secret War: A True History of Queensland’s Native Police. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.

Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (22 October 2025)

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