Euphemisms in Australian Colonial Conflict
Contributors: Dr Robyn Smith, Dr Chris Owen, Dr Jennifer Debenham, Paul Desney
Word Use
Readers are advised that word use preferred by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) people varies from place to place and person to person.
Subject to the context and whether or not it is a direct quote, the words ‘Aboriginal’, ‘First Nations’ and ‘Indigenous’ are used interchangeably in this document.
Notes
Where Aboriginal words are used in colonial records, they are subject to interpretation, reinterpretation and revision by linguists, anthropologists and a range of others. This gives rise to significant spelling variations of the same word.
Introduction
Frontier violence, abuse and exploitation were often open secrets on the Australian frontier. Colonists nonetheless feared the severity of punishment under British law if they were caught and found guilty, though this seldom happened. For example, of 438 known massacres of six or more people, only one, the Myall Creek massacre, resulted in colonists being found guilty and sentenced to death. They also feared being ostracised by the colonial community.
Here are just a few examples from Northern Australia:
Donald Swan described the Kimberley ‘bushman’s code of honour’ on shootings in punitive expeditions thus: ‘Either stand in with the mob and keep your mouth shut or refuse to stand in and also keep your mouth shut. In either case you will be respected and no more will be required of you in the matter’ (Owen, 2016, p 147).
And:
Writing to his political friend John Lewis in 1878, Northern Territory Police Inspector Paul Foelsche confided: “Of course you have seen all about our nigger hunt in the papers. There has been no end of telegraphing from the Minister about the affair and orders have been sent to the effect that in pursuing Natives for offences committed by them, no firearms are to be used except in extreme cases and in self-defence, but we’ll be able to regulate all that…” (Smith, 2024, p 48).
And:
Another illuminating example was explorer Aeneas Gunn’s observation that: ‘It is considered a breach of northern etiquette to ask a man whether or not he shot a blackfellow or not.’ This is revealing, both in the sense that it was deemed acceptable, but also that it was considered bad manners to talk about it (Owen cited in Smith, 2024, p 118).
The code of silence led to many euphemisms or ‘code words’ for immoral and illegal acts. Some of these and their most commonly understood interpretations are listed here.
| Word | Codified meaning | Example of use | Authorities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assimilation | Against the backdrop of an official position under the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 commonly known as the ‘White Australia policy’, various Aboriginal ‘protection’ and ‘welfare’ Acts were enacted. It was legislative instruments in different states that authorised child removals, forced ‘British’ education and punishment for engaging in cultural practices (eg language, ceremony, contact with kin, etc). |
Government policies to ‘breed out the colour’ of Aboriginal people over successive generations with a belief that ‘black would go white.’ Herding people off their land and onto the least fertile/arable/productive land in the region, facilitating the Stolen Generations, establishment of missions and ‘welfare’ stations, etc. |
Neville AO (1947) Australia’s Coloured Minority: Its Place in the Community, Currawong Publishing Co, Sydney. The Aborigines Act 1905 (WA) Aborigines Act Amendment Act 1936 (WA) Native Administration Act 1936 And: |
| Band | Aboriginal cultural group otherwise known as ‘mob’, clan or ‘tribe.’ | Tindale N (1974) Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits and Proper Names, University of California Press. | |
| Black velvet | The ‘colonial fetish’ for black women, typically with sexual connotations (McGrath, 1984, p 237). Not a phrase that is exclusive to Australia. It was used in the USA along with ‘brown sugar’. |
D’Arcy’s in a temper and Armstrong’s in black velvet… (NTTG, 18 June 1881, p 2). Revered author Henry Lawson was one of the first to popularise the phrase ‘black velvet’. It described the soft, smooth skin of Aboriginal women – or ‘gins’, as they were referred to then. The men who associated with Aboriginal women were known as ‘gin jockeys’. And their children were often referred to as ‘burnt corks’ (Phillips, 2016, np). |
‘NT Bulletin’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 18 June 1881. Phillips S ‘Black Velvet: redefining and celebrating Indigenous Australian women in art’ in The Conversation, 9 May 2016: Black Velvet: redefining and celebrating Indigenous Australian women in art McGrath A ‘”Black Velvet”: Aboriginal women and their relations with white men in the Northern Territory, 1910-1940’ in So Much Hard Work: Women and Prostitution in Australian History (1984) Australian National University, Canberra, pp 233-297. |
| Blackboy | Manservant, slave, stockman, policeman, police tracker. Aboriginal adult male. | A blackboy named Boz, who has been employed at the station for six or seven years, is supposed to have killed both the men; it seems certain that he killed one of them. Police and volunteers are out after the murderers but the fearful dry season and the difficulty of tracking in this weather is all in favour of the natives (NTTG, 4 March 1892, p 3). | ‘Murder of two white men by blacks’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 4 March 1892. |
| Caste | The percentage or ‘quantum’ of Aboriginal blood compared with ‘European blood.’ | The child is half-caste from Alroy Downs. There were Registers of Half Castes in addition to which pastoral stations were required to maintain a Register of Births. These were referred to as ‘Stud Books’ and children were often given the surname of the station on which they were born (eg Jack Moolbong, Ronald Alexandria, Jimmy Wavehill). |
‘Thompson’s List of Half Castes in the Northern Territory 1899-1900’ in Government Resident of the Northern Territory Inwards Correspondence 1870-1912, Northern Territory Archives Service, NTRS 790, Item 10441: Thompson’s List of “Half Castes” in the Northern Territory, 1899-1900 Aboriginal Half Caste Population Records, National Archives of Australia (Darwin Office), Series F984: |
| Combo / Komboism / concubine | Aboriginal woman, usually a sexual slave, often dressed as a stockboy to avoid authorities. See also Drover’s Boy. |
In a practice known among the white population as ‘komboism’, Aboriginal women and often girls as young as ten were taken or traded by Aboriginal men and prostituted to pearlers. The Sunday Times alleged in 1905 that girls were exchanged for ‘gin, tobacco, flour and rice’. Women are to be seen on the roads dressed up as men. "Komboism” is rife (Owen, 2016, p 377). |
Owen C (2016) ‘Every Mother’s Son is guilty’: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia, UWAP, Nedlands. Roth WE (1905) Royal Commission on the Condition of the Natives, Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by His Excellency’s Command, Perth, Government Printer, 1905, 2nd Session, No 5, p 25. |
| Demonstration of force | Overwhelming show of armed colonial domination for repressive purposes. | The latest news from New Zealand is extremely discouraging. There is, it appears, every probability of another outbreak of hostilities in that colony, unless a sudden change comes over the spirit of the malcontent Maories…Besides, the settlers on the West Coast having complained against the violence of the natives, the Government have dispatched troops of constables thither, and have otherwise begun to make a demonstration of force, in the hope, no doubt, of overawing the malcontents (SA Register, 1 July 1879, p 4). | ‘Native Affairs in New Zealand’ in South Australian Register, 1 July 1879. |
| Dispersal | The word that police and colonists used across Australia for murder thus avoiding implicating themselves in a criminal act. | The 1929 memoirs of August Lucanus, a special constable on the punitive expedition, stated only that ‘[t]here must have been at least 200 blacks, and they had not even tried to obliterate their tracks, we soon overtook them and they put up a fight…We dispersed them at last, and returned to Wyndham (Owen cited in Smith, 2024, p 53). Officials from the [Western Australian] Aborigines Protection Board wrote about ‘dispersals’ in these terms: ‘It is strange that if a tribe in India or Africa is troublesome an expedition is organised and the natives are ‘taught a lesson’. If individuals are troublesome here (for there are no tribes) he is ‘taught a lesson’, it is murder but it is called ‘dispersing the natives’ (Aborigines Protection Board, Correspondence, 21 August 1896, SROWA, Private Item 58, Cons 495 in Owen, 2016, pp 145-146).’ |
Smith R (2024) Licence to Kill: massacre men of Australia’s north, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin. Owen C (2016) ‘Every Mother’s Son is Guilty’: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, UWAP, Nedlands. |
| Drover’s Boy | Aboriginal woman, a pastoral slave also enslaved for sexual purposes. See ‘Komboism.’ | In the Camooweal pub they talked about And he told of the massacre in the west |
Dowling J (2002) The Drover’s Boy, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth: The drover’s boy - Art Gallery WA Egan T (1981) The Drover’s Boy, Ted Egan Enterprises, Alice Springs: |
| Dust-throwing | Deliberate diversion to distract people from what is really going on (such as a planned massacre) | Further consultations being necessary, Dan feared arousing suspicion, and to ensure his surprise party, and to guard against any word of the coming patrol being sent out-bush by the station “boys,” he indulged in a little dust-throwing, and there was much talking in public about going “out to the north-west for the boss to have another look round there,” and much laying of deep plans in private (Gunn, 1907, np). | Gunn Mrs A (1907) We of the Never Never, 15th Edition, MacMillan, New York, Chapter 20: |
| Gin | Aboriginal woman | Revered author Henry Lawson was one of the first to popularise the phrase ‘black velvet’. It described the soft, smooth skin of Aboriginal women – or ‘gins’, as they were referred to then. The men who associated with Aboriginal women were known as ‘gin jockeys’. And their children were often referred to as ‘burnt corks’ (Phillips, 2016, np). | Phillips S ‘Black Velvet: redefining and celebrating Indigenous Australian women in art’ in The Conversation, 9 May 2016: Black Velvet: redefining and celebrating Indigenous Australian women in art Connor L ‘The “Lubra” Type in Australian Imaginings of the Aboriginal Woman from 1836-1973’ in Gender and History, Vol 25, No 2, August 2013, pp 230-251. |
| Gin jockey | White man either cohabiting with an Aboriginal woman or a rapist of Aboriginal women. Either way, usually socially derided because of her colour rather than his violence (where applicable). Also known as ‘gin rooter’. Sometimes worn as a masculine colonial badge of honour. | Before he died in November 1984, aged 83, Xavier Herbert gave an interview in central Australia in which, during 3½ hours, he talked of the widespread practice in Australia's north and north-west of what he called "gin rooting", as well as boasting of having been, as a young man in the 1920s, "the biggest gin rooter around" (Ramsey, SMH, 2 Feb 2008, np). | Ramsey A ‘Weasel words won’t hide monstrous shame’ in Sydney Morning Herald, 2 February 2008: |
| Girl | Aboriginal woman, domestic servant, nanny. Usually but not exclusively an adult Aboriginal woman. | See ‘Combo’ above. | |
| Give a dose | Poison | Patrick Byrne, a dray driver, was an eye-witness to events at Thomas Coutts’ Kangaroo Creek Station. Inter alia, he wrote: ‘I had heard it murmured on the Farm that "the Blacks were going to have a dose"— By a dose I mean that the Blacks were to be poisoned—John Ryan told me of it…’ (see Lydon, 1996 at p 156). | Lydon J ‘“No moral doubt…”: Aboriginal evidence and the Kangaroo Creek poisoning, 1847-1849’ in Aboriginal History, 1996, Vol 20, pp 151-175. |
| Give a lesson | Overwhelming attack by colonists on Aboriginal people designed to kill and/or pacify the accused. | We think, therefore, that the late sad occurrence shows the necessity of at once repressing the murderous proclivities of the natives with a firm hand, and giving them a lesson which they will not be likely to forget (NTTG, 10 June 1882, p 2). | ‘The late Outrage by Blacks’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 10 June 1882. |
| Half caste | An Aboriginal person considered to have ‘half’ Aboriginal blood and half ‘white’ blood.’ See also Quadroon and Octaroon. |
‘Every Aboriginal Native of Australia, and every Aboriginal half-caste or child of a half-caste, such half-caste or child habitually associating and living with Aboriginals, shall be deemed to be an Aboriginal within the meaning of this Act, and at the hearing of any case the Justice or Justices adjudicating may, in the absence of other sufficient evidence, decide on his or their own view and judgment whether any person with reference to whom any proceedings shall have been taken under this Act is or is not an Aboriginal.’ Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (WA). | Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (Vic) Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (WA) See also: Half-caste, Coloured and Mission Records And: |
| Lubra | Aboriginal woman, ‘…a primary term in the lexicon of Australian racism.’ Thought to have derived from the Palawa ‘lubara’ or ‘leuberer’, meaning ‘wife’, first appearing in print in 1829 (see Connor, p 233). | …Sam Lee was full of surprises, and the lubras’ methods of house-cleaning were novel in the extreme (Gunn, 1907, np). | Connor L ‘The “Lubra” Type in Australian Imaginings of the Aboriginal Woman from 1836-1973’ in Gender and History, Vol 25, No 2, August 2013, pp 230-251. Gunn Mrs A (1907) We of the Never Never, 15th Edition, MacMillan, New York, Chapter 7: |
| Making people quiet | Pacifying Aboriginal resistance. See also ‘quiet and useful’ below. | “Making people quiet” is the vivid phrase that some present-day Elsey Aborigines use to describe the treatment of their ancestors in the early days of pastoral settlement, when Northern Territory Aborigines were generally regarded as a ‘problem’’, a menace to stock and stockmen alike (Merlan, 1978, p 71). | Merlan F “‘Making People Quiet” in the Pastoral North: Reminiscences of Elsey Station’ in Aboriginal History, Vol 2, No 1, 1978, pp 71-106. |
| Miscegenation | White male colonists having relationships with Aboriginal women. Illegal under legislation and during certain time periods. See ‘Caste’ and ‘Komboism’. | ‘Thompson’s List of Half Castes in the Northern Territory 1899-1900’ in Government Resident of the Northern Territory Inwards Correspondence 1870-1912, Northern Territory Archives Service, NTRS 790, Item 10441: Thompson’s List of “Half Castes” in the Northern Territory, 1899-1900 Aboriginal Half Caste Population Records, National Archives of Australia (Darwin Office), Series F984: Aboriginal Half Caste Population Records (NAA) Owen C (2016) ‘Every Mother’s Son is guilty’: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia, UWAP, Nedlands. Roth WE (1905) Royal Commission on the Condition of the Natives, Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by His Excellency’s Command, Perth, Government Printer, 1905, 2nd Session, No 5, p 25. |
|
| Mission | Institutions that were generally established by religious orders with limited funding from the government to ‘train’ Aboriginal people in ‘civilisation’. | A week or so ago we published a report brought in by the Rev. Jas Watson, of the Goulburn Island Aboriginal Mission, re the prevalence of what appeared to be a very bad type of fever among the natives…Dr. Jones describes the disease as a malignant type of terrain malaria, similar to that prevalent in New Guinea… (NTTG, 28 June 1917, p 13). | ‘Sickness Among Aboriginals’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 28 June 1917. See also Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies: https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/missions-stations-and-reserves |
| Myall | Derogatory name for an Aboriginal person (generally an East coast or NT reference). | One of these niggers is an old Queensland trooper, and consequently more dangerous than a hundred “myalls.” Both are well armed, having been provided with revolvers and ammunition to protect themselves against the natives when horse and bullock hunting. Knowing themselves already amenable to the law, there is no knowing where the depredations of these fellows may stop, and it is to be hoped that they will soon be arrested (NTTG, 7 July 1883, p 2). | ‘Carriers Robbed by Blacks’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 7 July 1883. |
| Native Assistant | An armed (despite it being illegal) Aboriginal Police assistant in WA. Largely identical with the Queensland Native Police, they were usually taken from prison or removed from their own country because local affiliations impeded their intended function. | Native assistants were Aboriginal men who often were recruited for their skills in bush craft, tracking, knowledge of country, tending to horses and use of firearms. Regardless of their age they were infantilised and known as ‘the boys’. Critically they acted as interpreters for the police, often gaining information from those arrested about movements of different Aboriginal groups (Owen, 2016, p 167). | Owen C (2016) ‘Every Mother’s Son is Guilty’: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, UWAP, Nedlands. |
| Nigger hunt | A rolling or serial massacre, often over a great distance and a long period of time. The biggest were when a white colonist was killed. | ‘MR. P. FOELSCHE, Inspector of Police, proceeded to the Daly River early this week to "general" the nigger hunt now going on there’ (North Australian, 26 September 1884, p 2). ‘One lesson they learnt from this chase, [punitive expedition] however, was that ‘treachery on the part of the blacks must be met with ‘strategy’ by the white. The straight out ‘nigger hunt’ would get them nowhere…’ (Durack, 1959, p 286). |
‘Things and Others’ in North Australian, 26 September 1884. Gunn Mrs A (1907) We of the Never Never, 15th Edition, MacMillan, New York, Chapters 19-20: Durack M (1959) Kings in Grass Castles, Constable and Company, London. |
| Niggers in | Cattle killing | On stations in the Never-Never the blacks are supposed to camp either in the homesteads, where no man need go hungry, or right outside the boundaries on waters beyond the cattle, travelling in or out as desired, on condition that they keep to the main travellers’ tracks—blacks among the cattle having a scattering effect on the herd, apart from the fact that “niggers in” generally means cattle-killing (Gunn, 1907, np). | Gunn Mrs A (1907) We of the Never Never, 15th Edition, MacMillan, New York, Chapter 20: |
| Octoroon | An Aboriginal person considered to have one eighth Aboriginal blood. | Quadroons and octoroons—As already indicated, the crossbreed with a preponderance of white blood should be considered separately. Their blood entitles them to be given a chance to take their place in the white community and on as favorable a footing as possible. That this may be successfully accomplished, the children should be removed from aboriginal associations at the earliest possible age and given all the advantages in education and vocational training possible to the white State children, to minimize as far as possible the handicap of their colour and friendless circumstances (Bleakley, 1928, p 29). Note: Bleakley was the Chief Protector of Aboriginals in Queensland. |
Bleakley JW (1928) Report: The Aboriginals and Half-Castes of Central Australia and North Australia, Parliament of Australia, 8 February 1929: The aboriginals and half-castes of Central Australia and North Australia : report Half-Caste, Coloured and Mission Records, National Archives of Australia: Half-caste, Coloured and Mission Records Roth WE (1905) Royal Commission on the Condition of the Natives, Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by His Excellency’s Command, Perth, Government Printer, 1905, 2nd Session, No 5, p 25. ‘Thompson’s List of Half Castes in the Northern Territory 1899-1900’ in Government Resident of the Northern Territory Inwards Correspondence 1870-1912, Northern Territory Archives Service, NTRS 790, Item 10441: Thompson’s List of “Half Castes” in the Northern Territory, 1899-1900 Aboriginal Half Caste Population Records, National Archives of Australia (Darwin Office), Series F984: |
| Outrage | An alleged or perceived crime by Aboriginal people against colonists. | In another column we publish the particulars, as far as we have been able to glean them, of a bloody massacre of Chinese teamsters, perpetrated last Sunday by a party of blacks near the Banyan (NTTG, 10 June 1882, p 2). | ‘The late Outrage by Blacks’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 10 June 1882. |
| Picnic with the natives | Serial slaughter, massacre. | ‘When he heard of the incident, the head of the Territory’s small police force, Inspector Paul Foelsche, wrote to a friend, saying that he had arranged for a police party to go to the Roper River to bring back the body and to ‘have a Picnic with the Natives.’ The parties of police and civilians operating separately along the Roper over the next six weeks several times attacked Aborigines suspected of having been involved’ (Reid, 1990, p xi). | Reid G (1990) A picnic with the natives: Aboriginal-European relations in the Northern Territory to 1910, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. |
| Pioneer | Colonial term for the first to take up Aboriginal land. | Enough bush to bury a man in! That’s all these men of the droving days have ever asked of their nation and yet without them the pioneers would have been tied hand and foot, and because of them Australia is what it is (Gunn, 1907, np). | Gunn Mrs A (1907) We of the Never Never, 15th Edition, MacMillan, New York, Chapter 4: |
| Protector | Colonists, including police and medical practitioners, who had powers under government legislation over Aboriginal people. | Other cogs over the course of history were overland telegraph officers, welfare officers, “protectors” (some of whom were police), doctors (some of whom were protectors) and magistrates. In fact, many Aboriginal people in the NT are rightfully distrustful of almost any organ of government (Smith, 2024, np). | Reid B (2022) Protection at a Price: Protection of the Aborigines in the Commonwealth's Northern Territory, 1911-1978, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin. Reid B (2020) Power and Protection: the contest between the Government Residents and the medical Protectors of the Aborigines in South Australia’s Northern Territory, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin. Smith R ‘NT election: promises for Indigenous people buckle under history’s weight’ in The Conversation, 22 August 2024: And see: Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (Vic) Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (WA) |
| Punitive expedition | Massacre of Aboriginal people. Generally there was a sliding scale of alleged offences: (1) being accused of cattle/stock killing was the lowest although no less lethal; (2) being accused of killing a colonist’s (highly valued) horse or other assets; (3) being accused of the murder of a white colonist. In cases of the latter, the entire colonial community might participate in revenge killings over several weeks or months. | Constable Collins was speared right through the body. He lived through the night, but died next morning. Twenty-three natives were shot during the fight and several were arrested. A punitive expedition of police will probably be arranged to follow the natives (Express & Telegraph, 29 September 1893, p 2). | ‘The Spearing of Constable Collins’ in Express and Telegraph (SA), 29 September 1893. |
| Quadroon | An Aboriginal person considered to have one-quarter Aboriginal blood. See Assimilation and various Registers. | Quadroons and octoroons—As already indicated, the crossbreed with a preponderance of white blood should be considered separately. Their blood entitles them to be given a chance to take their place in the white community and on as favorable a footing as possible. That this may be successfully accomplished, the children should be removed from aboriginal associations at the earliest possible age and given all the advantages in education and vocational training possible to the white State children, to minimize as far as possible the handicap of their colour and friendless circumstances (Bleakley, 1928, p 29). Note: Bleakley was the Chief Protector of Aboriginals in Queensland. |
Bleakley JW (1928) Report: The Aboriginals and Half-Castes of Central Australia and North Australia, Parliament of Australia, 8 February 1929: The aboriginals and half-castes of Central Australia and North Australia : report And see: |
| Quiet and useful | Conversion into economic asset (ie free labour or slavery, particularly on pastoral stations) | The same trouble was experienced at Owen Springs and all the places mentioned on the Finke. We petitioned the South Australian Government to allow the police officer at Alice Springs to organize a body of black trackers to assist the trooper in stopping the cattle killers. This was granted, and six of the best boys from southern stations were placed under MC Wurmbrandt who had them well drilled in a short time. It had a wholesome effect, and cattle killing came to an end. I have known the blacks in those days to spear 13 head of cattle at Simpson's Gap, and never took a steak off any of them. To my knowledge, they were never cruelly treated by the whites. It was the custom to kill cattle frequently for the natives, hoping that this would prevent them from spearing so many on the run. It had no effect, as they seemed determined to drive every settler out of the country, but in the native police — like the old saying, “Set a rogue to catch a rogue” — they found that there was no getting away from these boys, and they soon became quiet and useful (Alec Ross, Manager of Undoolya Station from 1880, in The Register, 26 September 1928, p 6). The need to develop the north was generally accepted by Australians, and the ‘Aboriginal question’ was then phrased in terms of controlling Aborigines, keeping them from the cattle and, if possible, converting them into an economic asset (Merlan, 1978, p 71). |
Ross A ‘Pastoral Pioneering in Central Australia: Blacks as Cattle Killers’ in The Register, 26 September 1928. Merlan F “‘Making People Quiet” in the Pastoral North: Reminiscences of Elsey Station’ in Aboriginal History, Vol 2, No 1, 1978, pp 71-106. |
| Reprisal | Punitive expedition | The Chief Secretary replied denying the truth of the statements contained in the letter and stated that the Government were not concerned in any acts of reprisal against the blacks in connection with the Daly River outrages (NTTG,13 June 1885, p 3). | ‘Latest Telegrams’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 13 June 1885. |
| Retaliation | Killing/murder | As many as possible of these should be secured, and treated according to martial law before the rest of the tribe present, if, having joined the main body of the tribe it is within, the ability of the police trackers to pick them out if not surrendered. If this was faithfully carried out by the leader in strict justice it would strike terror into any tribe, and would lead to no revenge or retaliation on their part because they would know why and wherefore (NTTG, 24 June 1882, p 2). | George H Bright, ‘Letter to the Editor - Black Trackers’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 24 June 1882. |
| Rough justice | A term used by colonists who took the law into their own hands and killed Aboriginal people justified by claims that there was no authority who would assist them. | We have had more than one instance of the influence of that darkness in the verdicts of Northern Territory Juries when the question of justice between black and white arises. It is not so much the degradation of the blacks I am now thinking of as the wholesale degradation of the so-called "whites." When by force we deprive these native people of the lands on which they have lived for unknown ages do we at least owe them protection against the oppression, cruelty, and nameless atrocities and abominations of what are called the "hardy pioneers of civilization." As we signally fail to protect the natives from our Criminal class, the moral law justifies them in executing rough justice on the miscreants who oppress and degrade them (Adelaide Observer, 17 June 1899, p 2). | J de la Z Sutherland ‘Northern Territory Affairs’ in Adelaide Observer, 17 June 1899. See also: Durack M (1959) Kings in Grass Castles, Constable and Company, London (p 286). |
| Savage | Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person | The administrative regimes of colonial bureaucracies extended the inscriptions of Islanders as ‘lost souls’ and ‘savages’ and deployed a new ‘commonsense’ that constituted Islanders are ‘overgrown children’, as ‘dependents’ of the state who needed protection from ‘outside influences’ (Nakata, 2007, p 11). | Nakata M (2007) Disciplining the Savages; Savaging the Disciplines, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra. |
| Selection | Colonial term for which area of land they took up | But I do say, and I think "Caution" will agree, that times have changed, and that the would-be settler should be encouraged to locate on the land, say in moderate issued farms of three or four hundred acres, by free selection, and deferred payments…(MZ, SA Advertiser, 4 January 1862, p 2). | ‘Land Laws’ in South Australian Advertiser, 4 January 1862. |
| Settlement | Colonisation | Here and there, kangaroos and other wild creatures of the bush hopped out of our way, and sitting up, looked curiously after us; again and again little groups of blacks hailed us, and scrambled after water-melon and tobacco, with shouts of delight, and, invariably, on nearing the tiny settlements along the railway, we drove before us white fleeing flocks of goats is (Gunn, 1907, np). | Gunn Mrs A (1907) We of the Never Never, 15th Edition, MacMillan, New York, Chapter 2: |
| Settler | Coloniser | By the Tambora a large number of our European population left for Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. Thirty-one adults and three children is a fearful drain on our very limited population. Many that have left have been for some years in the Territory, and might well be called our earliest settlers; but we do not take a gloomy view of the present exodus (NTTG, 3 January 1880, p 2). | ‘News and Notes’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 3 January 1880. |
| Severe lesson | Overwhelming attack by colonists on Aboriginal people designed to kill and/or pacify the accused. | This was written about a serial murderer named Jack Watson from the Gulf Country in Queensland: ‘But so far as we know never got a scratch himself, while the natives more than once received terribly severe lessons’ (Sutton, 2019, np). Since the murder of Ellis some four years ago, and the severe lesson which the natives received in consequence, we have been comparatively free from murderous attacks by savages in quest of plunder. But now it becomes a serious question whether it is safe for either Europeans or Chinese to travel over our country roads (NTTG, 10 June 1882, p 2). |
Sutton C ‘Grisly Secret of Cattlemen who kept 40 pairs of ears at trophies in outback horror house’ in News Ltd papers, 8 July 2019: ‘The late Outrage by Blacks’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 10 June 1882. |
| Skirmish | Attack / fight with Aboriginal groups | They sometimes had skirmishes with the native inhabitants of the coast; Pobassoo himself had been formerly speared in the knee, and a man had been slightly wounded since their arrival in this road; they-cautioned us much to beware of the natives (NTTG, 3 January 1885, p 2). | ‘Malay Proas on the Coast’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 3 January 1885. |
| Specials | Special Constables. White, armed colonists sworn in under police regulations to act as temporary police usually in punitive expeditions. The decision to swear in special constables lay beyond the power of the local police; it was entrusted to the local magistrate and government resident. | Appointment of Special Constable – V. THAT it shall be lawful for any such Justice, in order for the suppression of any Tumult, Riot or Affray, or on any other Emergency, for the Preservation of the public Peace and the due Execution of Justice, to appoint in Writing under his Hand any One or more special Constable or Constables for any Term not exceeding Two Calendar Months… (Section 5, Police Ordinance 1861, p 2). | Police Ordinance 1861 (25 Vict, No 15) (WA): https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/statutes.nsf/law_a2500_currencies.html See also: Owen C (2016) ‘Every Mother’s Son is Guilty’: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, UWAP, Nedlands, p 170. |
| Squatter | Colonist who took up land with legal authority | It is already proved that this is not altogether a barren land, but that on the contrary many portions of it are exceedingly fertile. Cattle live and fatten on it, and squatters are now taking advantage of its capabilities by stocking a number of runs (NTTG, 1 May 1880, p 1). | ‘Northern Territory Times’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 1 May 1880. Daly Mrs D (1887) Digging, Squatting and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London. [NB: the book was written by Harriet Douglas who married Dominic Daly] |
| Stud | Sexual slave, Drover’s Boy | ‘He had a stud and she cleared out and she ended up at Turner, and he went across and flogged her back with the whip’, he said (Lewis cited in Smith, 2024, pp 270-271). | Smith R (2024) Licence to Kill: massacre men of Australia’s north, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin. McGrath A ‘”Black Velvet”: Aboriginal women and their relations with white men in the Northern Territory, 1910-1940’ in So Much Hard Work: Women and Prostitution in Australian History (1984) Australian National University, Canberra, p 237. |
| Subdue | Defeat, kill, pacify. | The attack made by the Melville Island blacks on Cooper and Flynn's camp only proves what many of us thought all along, namely, that it was only a question of time. It was alleged a few weeks back that the blacks had forsaken Melville Island and removed bay and baggage to Bathurst Island. If that were so, it is evident that they did not give up hope of getting their native island back. More than this, the very boldness displayed by them shows that they fear the white man and his rifle very little, notwithstanding the way Cooper and Flynn have been bowling over the buffalo. Melville Islanders are hard subjects to subdue, and it has been proved repeatedly that when in their country you require to be always on the qui vive for spears (NTTG, 28 Jun 1895, p 2). | ‘Notes of the Week’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 28 June 1895. |
| Surprise party | Colonists attacks would usually take place before dawn as the local groups were sleeping and unarmed. | “I wasn’t going to say anything about it before the ‘boys,’” he said, “but it’s time someone gave a surprise party down the river;” and a “scatter-on” meaning “niggers in,” Maluka readily agreed to a surprise patrol of the river country, that being forbidden ground for blacks’ camps (Gunn, 1907, np). | Gunn Mrs A (1907) We of the Never Never, 15th Edition, MacMillan, New York, Chapter 19: |
| Take up the land | Steal / take / force people off land | So far as the pastoral land is concerned we shall grant every reasonable concession to the holders of preferential rights who are making some effort to place stock upon their land, and where insuperable difficulties intervene we shall grant an extension of time; but we are not going to have this land dummied and held from year to year by men who are simply standing between the Crown and those who would take up the land and stock it if these rights were not held. (Hear, hear.) In cases where no effort was made to stock the country the land will be forfeited as soon as possible, and put up to auction (NTTG, 21 October 1882, p 3). | ‘The Hon J. L Parsons on the Development of the NT’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 21 October 1882. |
| Town camp | A camp on the periphery of a town usually without infrastructure and/or amenities. | Need we refer to the numberless instances of spearing that have occurred in the town camps of the aboriginals for no other reason than to satisfy vengeance, their ruling passion? Hardly. We who have lived for years among scenes of native cruelty do not wonder that what seems to be a study in the camp should find an easy outlet where an occasion arises away from home, and a recognised foe is the only sufferer (North Australian, 24 December 1885, p 3). | ‘White Versus Black’ in North Australian, 24 December 1885. |
| Tracker / black tracker | Aboriginal guide invariably used but often unacknowledged by European explorers and police. | SIR,—A few lines on the Black Tracker question may not be amiss at the present time, if not trespassing too much on your valuable space. A body of six or eight natives from Queensland, in charge of a really qualified leader, would have more effect in awing the tribes about here than any other form of legislation. Their duty would be to patrol the country from one cardinal point to another, visiting the various places of settlement. Any offence committed by aborigines would result in the trackers following them up at once without losing time in results of inquests, &c., and any natives found on the tracks might justly be put down as the offenders (NTTG, 24 June 1882, p 2). | George H Bright, ‘Letter to the Editor - Black Trackers’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 24 June 1882. For a more contemporary discussion, see: Chandler E ‘A meaningful way to remember Ted Egan’ in Alice Springs News, 6 December 2025: https://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/posts/a-meaningful-way-to-remember-ted-egan |