Recruitment of troopers One of the infamous euphemisms researchers encounter when reviewing primary sources relating to the activities of the NMP is “dispersal”, which has been shown to refer to the shooting and killing of groups of Aboriginal people.9 We suggest here that another probable euphemism is the term “recruitment”. This innocuous phrase suggests an orderly process of enlisting willing employees, but deeper investigation suggests that the process was almost certainly not as innocent, straightforward or homogeneous as the term implies. Although likely to be incomplete, a survey of known recruitment events in the nineteenth century (see Table 1) reveals a range of locations from where men were recruited. The emphasis in these data on NSW/Victoria, Wide Bay and southern Queensland recruits partially reflects the early interest from contemporary newspapers in the workings of the NMP and the location of the “frontier” through the 1850s and 1860s. In total, this amounts to a minimum of 352 men. There are no known descriptions of what took place during any of these recruiting drives and no known accounts from Aboriginal men of how they were recruited. A careful reading between the lines of historical records, however, suggests several possible methods, including coercion, kidnapping, inducement and even highly qualified “voluntary” enlistment.
