Her Majesty’s Queensland Native Police, by Aboriginal artist Pooaraar (Bevan Hayward), 1992

In 1848 the colony of New South Wales set up a Native Police force, made up of Aboriginal troopers under European officers. The Native Police worked mainly in what is now southern Queensland, to suppress Aboriginal resistance to European settlement. They used extremely violent methods, and at times it seems was trying to completely destroy Aboriginal groups.

Aboriginal artist Pooaraar (Bevan Hayward), completed a series of unframed pen and wash drawings, of which this is one, for a friend, Geoff Page, a non-Aboriginal poet. The drawings were potential illustrations for a proposed volume of poetry entitled 'The Great Forgetting'. The volume was published jointly by Aboriginal Studies Press and the National Museum of Australia in 1996.