AustLit

'This book provides the serious historical researcher with some important clues pertaining to several incidences in the affairs of the government-appointed Queensland Native Police that reveal a politically expedient cover-up. In May 1861 a Select Committee on the Native Police Force was appointed to enquire into the Force and the conditions of the Aborigines generally. In his book Up Rode the Troopers, BilI Rosser compares the Minutes of Evidence taken from these proceedings with an oral history account of a descendant of the tribal group, known locally as the Telemon Mob, which suffered from the callous brutality of the Native Police Force under the command of Lieutenant Frederick Wheeler. In this literary investigation into the cold-blooded murder of three Telemon elders, Rosser lifts the rug and exposes the dirty and dark deeds that have been conveniently swept under the carpet of colonial squattocracy. Rosser succeeds in revealing that the enquiry into the affairs of the Native Police was an exercise in political expedience and served to rationalise the systematic exploitation of Australian Aborigines in the newly formed State of Queensland, and to pave the way for the oppressive Queensland Aborigines' Protection Acts.'  (Introduction)

'Emeritus Professor Ronald M Berndt's passing leaves a great gap in Australian, and indeed world, anthropology. His outstanding contribution to knowledge of Australian Aboriginal societies was made in dose collaboration with his wife, Dr Catherine, who will continue their work.' (Introduction)

'Rolly Gtibert would have been an outstanding individual in any culture. Rolly was born into the Kurtjar tribe in the Gilbert River area of southwestern Cape York Peninsula sometime after the turn of the century. Although a 1984 newspaper account gave his age as 72, local DAIA records had estimated his year of birth as between 1901 and 1906, and this seems reasonable since he had some recollection of World War I days. He considered his birthplace to be Manakorr, near the mouth of the Gilbert, whether or not he was actually born there. Having pelican (mpunyngkuath) as one of his 'dreamings' he was named Mpunywithal, after someone related as father's father.'  (Introduction)