Border Police of New South Wales

In 1836, Governor Richard Bourke passed the "Squatting Act" to allow pastoralists or "squatters", as they were colloquially known, to run their sheep and cattle on New South Wales Crown Lands beyond the limits of white settlement for a small fee.

In an early morning raid, an Aboriginal campsite near the riverbank was attacked by his Border Police resulting in many casualties, the bodies of some apparently floating downriver past "The Settlement", now known as South Grafton.

[27] Thomas Mitchell travelled through this region about 12 months after the raids describing that "All I could learn about the rest of the tribe was, that the men were almost all dead, and that their wives were chiefly servants at stock stations along the Macquarie.

In a similar circumstance to Commissioner MacDonald from the New England district, Oakes and his contingent of Border Police were often summoned to patrol frontier areas in the northern parts of the colony.

[35] Upon setting out to return south, Oakes and his troopers "severely punished" Aboriginal people at Corindi after a station-hand was murdered at the newly formed Glenugie pastoral run.

[39] In the more southern parts of his district around the Macleay River, Oakes and his Border Police were also able to stop the murders by the Aboriginal people "by an armed display – by striking terror into their minds".

[49] Cosby established his headquarters at Binalong and in addition to supporting efforts by settlers to colonise the region, his troopers were also involved in skirmishes with several bushranger gangs such as that of Scotchie and Whitton.

[50] Henry Cosby died in 1841 and was replaced as Commissioner of Crowns Lands by Edgar Beckham who continued in the role until 1869 when he was suspended from duties for failing to collect pastoral licence fees.

This district, proclaimed in 1840, initially was bounded to the south by Mount Macedon, to the west by the Bendigo region, to the north by the Murray River and to the east by the Yarra Ranges and Western Port.

Powlett received a new batch of around 12 convict troopers from Sydney for his Border Police,[65] and was soon dispatched to the Mount Macedon[66] and Campaspe River[67] areas in pursuit of recalcitrant groups of Aboriginal people.

Together with military personnel from the New South Wales Mounted Police and the 28th Regiment of the British Army, Powlett's unit took around 300 Aboriginal men, women and children prisoner on suspicion of causing disturbances hundreds of kilometres away near to the Ovens River.

[70] In October 1841, reports reached Powlett that a group of Aboriginal Tasmanians who had been brought over to the Australian mainland by George Augustus Robinson, had attacked a coal-mining overseer and killed two whalers near Cape Paterson.

[71] Powlett and his Border Police failed to intercept the group, who attained firearms and proceeded in the following weeks to attack British settlers around Dandenong, Cape Schanck and Arthur's Seat wounding two more white men.

[75] Powlett and several of his Border Police troopers gave evidence against the Tasmanians at this trial[76] and the two male prisoners were sentenced to death while the females were ordered to return to their place of exile in Flinders Island.

[83][84] Well-known pastoralist Edward Micklethwaite Curr recounts the usual operation of Powlett being to appear before "the blacks at a gallop, sabre in hand, surrounded by his troopers industriously loading and discharging their carbines.

The Aboriginal people would drive off and kill livestock, burn crops and fatally injure shepherds, while the settlers would organise armed groups to conduct raids against native encampments.

In September 1842, Charles La Trobe ordered Fyans and his troopers together with a contingent of Native Police back to the region to "take the most decided measures to put a check to these disorders".

In addition to using Border Police as militia against Aboriginal groups, Fyans was also able to form paramilitary brigades from the Barabool tribe of the Wathaurong people who lived in the Geelong area.

[100] This force located a family group of Ganubanud on the banks of the Aire River where in a dawn raid, they shot and bludgeoned to death ten people, including men, women and children.

[107] In 1845, Massie and his contingent of Border Police with the assistance of local armed colonists such as John McMaugh, tracked down a group of Aboriginal people believed to be responsible for killing two shepherds and their wives at Kunderang.

He was previously assistant commissioner for the Liverpool Plains district and was considered suited to the profession after capturing and killing members of the Scotchie bushranging gang while working as a sheep station manager near Crookwell.

[113] By 1848, the Border Police had largely been disbanded in the Clarence District, but Fry still had at least one trooper working for him while investigating the mass poisoning deaths of 23 Aboriginal people at Kangaroo Creek in 1847.

Yugara people led by Moppy and Multuggerah had pushed back against settler encroachment into the Lockyer Valley by raiding squatting properties, killing shepherds, robbing drays and blocking the main road connecting Moreton Bay with the Darling Downs.

In response to these requests, the colonial government assembled a large expeditionary force, which included Simpson and his troopers, the Border Police from the Darling Downs district under Christopher Rolleston as well as soldiers from the 99th Regiment of Foot and armed settlers.

[118][119][120] Aboriginal resistance continued in the area and Simpson's troopers were also kept busy arresting bushrangers[121] and investigating assaults and non-payment of wages of Indian coolie labourers working in the district.

[123][124] In September, Aboriginal people attacked a pastoralist and in self defence he shot dead the ringleader who was assumed of being involved in the Uhr killing,[125] and in November the Border Police imprisoned another two as suspected accessories.

Hodgson and Leslie in return were sure that Rolleston and his troopers would "teach these sable gentleman that their recent outrages will not escape unpunished",[132] and they were soon involved the large punitive expedition against Aboriginal people in the Battle of One Tree Hill.

Tyers eventually established his main Border Police barracks at Eagle Point and was frequently called upon to lead punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people in the district.

[140][81] A squatter recalled one particular incident where troopers of the Border Police captured and chained an Aboriginal man who was a member of a tribe that has stolen a large number of sheep and a carbine from a shepherd.

[141] In 1847, an Aboriginal man by the name of "Gentleman Jemmy" arrested by Smythe's troopers officially voiced that his "original rights" to the land overrode any legislation imposed by the colonial authorities.