A Comprehensive Online Database about the Native Mounted Police and Frontier Conflict in Queensland

Abstract

In recent years the publication of online maps documenting frontier conflict between Indigenous peoples and interlopers in Australia has generated great public interest. These new resources are vital memorials to frontier conflict; however, we note they are still relatively “flat” resources, much more akin to visualized spreadsheets with a spatial element. Another new resource, the Frontier Conflict and the Native Mounted Police Database is a comprehensive relational database that comprehensively presents all elements of frontier conflict across the state of Queensland. It collates transcribed primary documents, georectified historical mapping data, and oral histories with archaeological site and artefact level data, and links these multi-tiered sets of information to the known structure, spread, and personnel of the paramilitary government agency, the Native Mounted Police. Rather than a single map being the main outcome, the Frontier Conflict and the Native Mounted Police Database uses the range of primary data to generate a comprehensive series of interactive maps, including layers relating to key historical data sets, as well as making the mass of primary and secondary data upon which the maps are based accessible to the user. In this Reflection, we describe the extent and limitations of the Frontier Conflict and the Native Mounted Police Database, and compare it with other online datasets. In collating frontier conflict relating to Queensland in a single, freely available online resource, we invite the public to actively engage in “truth-telling,” by assessing historical evidence for themselves, developing their critical thinking skills, and drawing their own conclusions about the nature and extent of frontier conflict.