Robert Arthur Johnstone (1843 – 16 January 1905) was an officer in the Native Police paramilitary force which operated in the British colony of Queensland. He was stationed at various locations in central and northern Queensland between 1867 and 1880 conducting regular punitive expeditions against clans of Indigenous Australians who resisted colonisation. He also participated in several surveying expeditions in Far North Queensland, including those under the leadership of George Elphinstone Dalrymple.
After resigning from the Native Police in 1880, he became a police magistrate in various locations around Queensland before retiring from government service in 1891. In his years of duty for the Native Police, Johnstone led many punitive expeditions and "dispersals" consistent with government policy, resulting in thousands of Aboriginal people being killed or displaced from their traditional lands.
A number of geographical and zoological entities are named after Johnstone, such as the Johnstone River and the freshwater crocodile.
Early life and family history
Robert Arthur Johnstone was born in Richmond, Tasmania in 1843 to parents John Johnstone (alias Johnston Need) and Annie Elizabeth Easton.Johnstone, page V His paternal grandfather was Lieutenant-General Samuel Need. Lieutenant-General Need married an Indian woman, most likely the daughter of Saadat Ali Khan II, and had several children with her, one of whom was Robert Johnstone's father. After the death of his wife, Samuel Need returned with his children to Britain and remarried. Due to their Indian heritage, his sons were disinherited by Need. One of the sons, Johnston Need, changed his name to John Johnstone, married Annie Easton, and moved to Tasmania in 1835 where Robert was born. It is notable that a number of other Native Police officers, such as Lieutenant John Murray have similar family backgrounds involving Indian grandmothers.
In 1850, at the age of seven, Robert Arthur Johnstone was sent to England to be educated at Norwich Grammar School. His father, in the meantime, had remarried and changed residence across Bass Strait to Tower Hill near Warrnambool in the British colony of Victoria. After his schooling, Robert re-joined with his father and siblings at this location in around 1860. During this time Robert claimed that he came in frequent contact with the remnants of the local Aboriginal population (probably the Koroit gundidj clan of the Gunditjmara) and with those residing on the Wannon River. In 1865, at the age of 22, Robert decided to move to Queensland to pursue a career in pastoral land management along the colonial frontier.
Property manager in Mackay region After an apparently brief period of managing a pastoral property in the Apis Creek area northwest of Rockhampton, Johnstone became property manager of the Greenmount run 10 km west of Mackay in North Queensland. Here he became acquainted with the operations and personnel of the local detachment of Native Police based at Fort Cooper. This government funded paramilitary force had been in existence in various forms throughout Colonial Australia since 1837 and consisted of white officers in command of mounted and armed Aboriginal troopers. The duty of the Native Police was to conduct punitive raids on Aboriginal communities that interfered in colonial expansion. Johnstone became a cadet in this force and was appointed Acting sub-Inspector to the Native Police in 1867. In this year he also married Maria Ann Gibson at Lansdowne near Mackay. Gibson was the daughter of a Royal Navy captain.
Native Police operations around Mackay Johnstone was based at the Fort Cooper barracks, now known as Nebo, in the ranges to the west of Mackay. One of his first duties was patrolling the north side of the Pioneer River in April 1867, where he encountered several Aboriginal camps, one of which contained more than 200 people. These camps "were dealt with in the usual and only effectual mode for restraining their savage propensities", which meant indiscriminate shooting of the occupants by Johnstone and his troopers to clear them from the area. The brutal operations of the Native Police were well known throughout the colony and beyond, where troopers would usually "make a night attack on the slumbering tribe and generally slay a large number". A large group of Aboriginal men, women and children were pursued by a Native Police force led by Sub-Inspector Johnstone, in April 1867. The group was camping on Balnagowan pastoral lease where cattle had been speared in February 1867. They sought refuge in caves at the top of a mountain, but were forced to jump off a cliff on Mount Mandarana of several hundred feet, rather than be face the carbines of the Native Police Force. The area is still known as Black Gin's Leap. Later in the same year, after some Yuibera men had speared five head of cattle at Koumala, Johnstone chased members of the clan to some islands offshore and when they tried to return to the mainland "such a lesson was administered" to keep them from "committing outrages in that locality".
In 1868 a large group of Aboriginals killed 7 cattle at Greenmount with Johnstone and his troopers "administering a lesson to the blackskins...who richly merit a severe one". Also in 1868, Johnstone "meted out...the customary chastisement" to Aboriginals who were frightening shepherds and livestock at the Cardowan run on the Connors River. Johnstone himself describes in his memoirs other punitive expeditions he led while stationed at Nebo, including that of "punishing blacks" for the killing of a shepherd at May Downs. When he returned from this mission, he found a group of Aboriginals camped near his barracks. He chased them off and then later tracked them into the ranges where he shot a number of the "would-be murderers". He also reported how after punishing a group of Aboriginals at Collaroy station on the Connors River, his troopers, while returning to Nebo, were shot at by panic stricken workers at the Tierawoomba station. When taking cover from this unexpected attack, Johnstone found a large Aboriginal weapon-making site in a ravine between Tierawoomba and Blue Mountain.Johnstone, 1984, page number not cited
In early 1869, a pastoral squatter by the name of James Collins was killed by Yuibera near Fort Cooper at North Creek. Johnstone and his troopers mustered two local family groups of Aboriginals living in the area and coerced confessions from a number of them by holding family members hostage and tying others to the stirrup irons of their horses and forcing them to run along with the horses. Retributions against those identified were conducted with local squatter Sylvester "West" Fraser from Grosvenor Downs. Fraser was a survivor of the 1857 Hornet Bank massacre and his brother was the notorious William Fraser who killed many Aboriginals both as a private citizen and as a Native Police officer in the years after the events at Hornet Bank. Although having armed settlers partake in the punitive expeditions of the Native Police was against official orders, Johnstone allowed West Fraser to participate on the "promise of secrecy and obedience". In fact, it was relatively common for armed civilians to ride with the Native Police on these missions either as volunteers or as special constables. Albert Wright of Avon Downs wrote in his diary that "about 60 blacks were shot at Grosvenor Downs" as part of the armed excursions following the killing of James Collins. These punitive operations have now become known as the Nebo killings of early 1869. In March of the same year, Johnstone was again out with his troops endeavouring to punish "the blacks" after the killing of a Chinese shepherd at Mt Heilcalong station near Lake Elphinstone.
Property manager at Bellenden Plains Johnstone resigned from the Native Police in 1869. While in the Mackay region, Johnstone had evidently become acquainted with John Ewen Davidson, a sugar planter who had formed plantations in several parts of Queensland. One of these was the Bellenden Plains property north of Cardwell. The Bellenden Plains was an open area of around 600 acres amongst the rainforest on the Murray River of Queensland downstream from the Murray Falls. John Ewen Davidson, however, still remained a co-owner of the property with fellow blackbirder and sugar planter John Raymond Trevelian. In 1869, they appointed Johnstone as property manager to continue the Bellenden Plains project.
Johnstone moved to Bellenden Plains with his wife and newborn child. He had numerous violent encounters with the local Dyirbal and Girramay people while re-establishing the property. He went on several punitive missions with his "own black-boy" and also with the local Native Police led by John Murray. The Kanakas who worked on the cane farm also participated in violent raids against the Aboriginals as part of their duties. Johnstone describes one incident early in his stay where "the blacks" used their wooden shields as a movable barricade and the cover of smoke from deliberately lit fires in a counter-attack on the property's homestead. Johnstone shot at them continuously from the verandah with multiple firearms pre-loaded by his wife. He "followed up" the Aboriginals as far as Tam O'Shanter Point with John Murray to punish them. After this experience, he sent his family to reside in Cardwell, while he stayed on at Bellenden Plains with the farmworkers. Johnstone "had a lively time of it" on the property until it was sold in 1871 to F.J.W. Beardmore.
Reappointed to the Native Police
Johnstone was reappointed to Acting sub-Inspector in the Native Police in 1871. He was posted at various locations throughout coastal Far North Queensland until his resignation from the force in 1881. Some of the barracks in which he was stationed include Cardwell, Valley of Lagoons Station, Herbert Vale and Fort Herbert near Ingham. During this decade of service, Johnstone was involved in numerous patrols, expeditions and massacres. Descriptions of the most notable are outlined chronologically below.
Gould Island killings (January 1872)
In January 1872, dugong fishermen Henry Smith and Charles Clements were killed by Aboriginals on Gould Island. Accompanied by a number of local Cardwell squatters including Philip Frederic Sellheim, Johnstone and his troopers scoured the island and nearby Hinchinbrook Island, finding a fishing net and two boxes.
Punitive expeditions after the wreck of the Maria (March 1872)