Christopher Pemberton Hodgson

In his 1846 publication, Reminiscences of Australia with Hints on the Squatters' Life, Hodgson describes the conflict involved in the taking of land ownership from Aboriginal Australians.

The land of grassy plains they marked out was in the possession of the Barunggam people and Hodgson recorded in some detail his "constant skirmishes with the natives" to wrest control of the area.

[6] Hodgson writes that in retaliation to the 35 white men who were killed by Aboriginals in the Darling Downs district in the four years he was there, "so many hundreds of these poor creatures have been sacrificed" in return.

Hodgson describes his head station house as being decorated with "swords, guns and..all around are displayed spears, boomerangs..dillies and calabashes, the spoil of a hard fought battle or a surprised camp of natives.

When searching for Aboriginals they deemed in need of punishment, Hodgson and his party of vigilantes would go to high ground and discover the location of the natives from the rising smoke of their evening campfires.

In other punitive missions, Hodgson would "generally employ our [black] boys from distant tribes to act as trackers" to locate defiant Aboriginals.

Hodgson even describes how the Aboriginals would try to recover "the corpses of those who had fallen victims to the white man's gun in defiance of a sentry on the lookout to give notice of such a visit."

Hodgson relates, "when at war with the white man, the [native women] were always pushed forward and sent to reconnoitre; the men knowing that we have a sincere respect for the sex."