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Police Violence and the Limits of Law on a Late Colonial Frontier: The “Borroloola Case” in 1930s Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2010

Mark Finnane  and
Fiona Paisley
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Extract

The dependence of colonization on police was a core feature both of settler colonies and of colonial dependencies, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the post–World War I decline of the British Empire. During this long century the functions and structures of colonial police were many and varied. We now know a good deal of their history and of their contribution to Empire. Much remains to be told of the slow processes of policing reform and especially of the politics of key events that shaped—and impeded—emerging models of accountability. In that process we see the influence of key episodes in which singular events are escalated into major political conflicts, of national and international dimension. In this article we examine one such event, the death in 1933 of an Aboriginal woman in the Gulf Country of Australia's Northern Territory, and the subsequent prosecution of a policeman over her death. Such a rare event as prosecution of police for violence against indigenous people demands contextual explanation as well as estimation of the limits on legal accountability for such actions.

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Articles
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Law and History Review , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 141 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2010

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References

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12. The essential introduction, dealing with Borroloola's brief flourishing and early decline, is Roberts, Frontier Justice. For the Aboriginal history of the area see Baker, Richard M., Land Is Life: From Bush to Town: The Story of the Yanyuwa People (St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 1999)Google Scholar.

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23. NTRS 2086, Borroloola Police Journal, 1932–1934, Nov 8, 1932, and Jan 19, 1933, reporting a reply from HQ, without detail, NTAS.

24. They achieve their fictional representation as a moment in the moral decline of a central character in Xavier Herbert's Capricornia, when Mark Shillingworth fails to keep news of his half-caste child from his white wife in Darwin: Herbert, Xavier, Capricornia: A Novel (Hawthorn, Vic.: O'Neil, 1971 [1938])Google Scholar; see also McGrath, “Born in the Cattle.”

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26. NTRS 2086, Borroloola Police Journal, 1932–1934, Feb 8, 1933, NTAS.

27. Cahill's nine-page letter to Morley, June 23, 1933, APNR drew upon information conveyed to him by Aboriginal witnesses, Cahill to Morley, June 23, 1933, National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA), A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423, http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/imagine.asp?B=45548&I=1&SE=1 (accessed January 8, 2009); and see newspaper clippings of Stott's trial contained in the Borroloola file, recording extracts from Aboriginal evidence in court.

28. Borroloola Police Journal, NTRS 2086 1932–1934, February 28 and Mar 2, 1933, NTAS.

29. Weddell (Darwin) to Department of Interior (Canberra), March 14, 1933, NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423.

30. Carrodus (Interior) to Administrator (Darwin), June 28, 1933 (fol 56); Brown (Interior) to AGs Dept June 13, 1933, (fol 48), NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423.

31. NTRS 2086, Borroloola Police Journal, 1932–1934, July 11, 1933 (fol 265).

32. Cook and Asche Report, September 19,1933, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423 (fol. 101).

33. Brown (Interior, Darwin) to Interior (Canberra), September 25, 1933, and related correspondence, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423. On the matter of inquests and their part in policing, see also Finnane and Richards, “The Inquest, Police and Aboriginal Deaths.”

34. H. J. Foster to Morley, Apr 24, 1934, NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423.

35. “Death of Borroloola Lubra,” Northern Standard, April 25, 1933, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1934/5423.

36. Telegram, R. H. Weddell, to Interior, March 14, 1933, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1934/5423.

37. In the following months, Cahill was subpoenaed for his letters and telegrams with the APNR, his mail was tampered with, and he faced a libel action by Stott. See Cahill to Helen Baillie, January 20, 1934, Cahill to Morley, April 29, 1934, and Horace Foster to Morley, April 24, 1934, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1934/5423.

38. “N. T. Constable Charged: Assault on Native Alleged,” Melbourne Herald, October 30, 1933, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423.

39. Jessie Litchfield, “Recent Murder Trials at Darwin,” TO-DAY, October 1934, 14, 15, and 30.

40. “Death of Booroloola [sic] Lubra: Inquiry Asked for: Startling Allegations: Treatment of Abos,” Letter to the Editor, Northern Standard (Darwin), April 25, 1933, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423.

41. A. P. Elkin, “Anthropology and the Future of the Australian Aborigines,” Oceania 5 (1) (1934): 1–18. See also McGregor, Russell, “Wards, Words and Citizens: A. P. Elkin and Paul Hasluck on Assimilation,” Oceania 69 (1999): 243–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gray, Geoffrey, A Cautious Silence: The Politics of Australian Anthropology (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Finnane, Mark, “The Tides of Customary Law,” ANZLH E-Journal (2007)Google Scholarhttp://www.anzlhsejournal.auckland.ac.nz/pdfs_2006/Keynote_1_Finnane.pdf, 6–8.

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46. As stated by Morley, for the APNR, to J. A. Perkins, the Minister for the Interior, “as a member of the League of Nations we are morally bound to frame and work some policy designed to raise our Aboriginal race, and to solve by a well-considered policy the problem of cultural and racial clash,” Morley to Perkins, February 2, 1934, NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423.

47. Knowles to Interior, April 3, 1933; Administrator (Darwin) to Interior, Mar 15, 1933, NAA A1; J. A. Perkins (Minister for Interior) to Morley, June 2, 1933, NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423.

48. Telegram from Administrator, Darwin, March 15, 1933—Weddell hoped that such a court might determine matters such as the appeal over the convictions at Borroloola where “it is possible they were afraid of police constable,” NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423.

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51. M. M. Bennett to Sir John Harris, ASAPS, October 20, 1935. Mss Brit Emp s22, G377 Australian Aborigines 1934–36 re Native Courts.

52. Melbourne Herald, November 13, 1933, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423.

53. “Alleged Assault of Aboriginal: Conduct of Inquiry: Judge's Criticism,” unsourced newspaper clipping, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423.

54. “Supreme Court,” Northern Standard, April 24, 1934, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423.

55. John Harris to Edith Jones, August 31, 1934, G376 Australian Aborigines, ASAPS papers MSS Brit Emp s22.

56. Canberra Times, April 25, 1934, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423.

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58. Elder, Peter, “Wells, Thomas Alexander (1888–1954),” Australian Dictionary of Biography (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002), 16:521Google Scholarhttp://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130002b.htm?hilite=abbott%3Bcharles (accessed January 8, 2009); Markus, Governing Savages; Egan, Justice All Their Own; army service record at NAA B2455/1 “WELLS THOMAS ALEXANDER,” http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/imagine.asp?B=8380708&I=1&SE=1 (accessed January 8, 2009).

59. Northern Territory, Ordinance no. 2 1933 (May 24, 1933).

60. Wells to Interior, November 25, 1933, and November 27, 1933, NAA A1 (A1/15), 1933/5423.

61. Cahill to Morley, n.d., copy provided by Morley to Perkins, Minister for Interior, February 5, 1934, NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423 (fol 215–217).

62. Cook to Weddell, November 14,1933, NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423.

63. The sentence was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment: NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/8560.

64. Egan, Justice All Their Own.

65. Telegram received Department of Interior, April 24, 1934, NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423 (fols 253–257).

66. Carrodus to Interior, April 28, 1934, NAA A1 (A1/15) 1933/5423.

67. See, especially, Markus, Governing Savages; Paisley, Fiona, “Race Hysteria: Darwin 1938,” in Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History, ed. Ballantyne, T. and Burton, A. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press 2005): 234–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In 1939, Wells was personally rebuked by then attorney-general (and soon prime minister) Robert Menzies for comments on public policy, administration, and the law made during the course of a sentencing determination: see the file “Flogging of natives,” NAA A432 1938/578.

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73. Morley (or possibly Elkin) to Rev. J. Jones, December 14, 1937, APNR Papers. S.55, Series 1, University of Sydney Archives.