Portrait of John Piper, an Aboriginal tracker who accompanied Major Thomas Mitchell in his expedition across the Great Dividing Range, c.1836
Aboriginal trackers were enlisted by Europeans in the years following British colonisation of Australia, to assist them in exploring the Australian landscape. The excellent tracking skills of these Aboriginal Australians were advantageous to settlers in finding food and water and locating missing persons, capturing bushrangers and dispersing other groups of Indigenous peoples.
The first recorded deployment of Aboriginal trackers by Europeans in Australia was in 1791 when Watkin Tench utilised Eora men Colbee and Balloderry to find a way to the Hawkesbury River.[1] In 1795, an Aboriginal guide led Henry Hacking to the Cowpastures area where the lost First Fleet cattle were found.[2] In 1802, Dharawal men Gogy, Budbury and Le Tonsure with Gandangara men Wooglemai and Bungin assisted Ensign Francis Barrallier in his explorations into the Blue Mountains.[3] There are many other examples of explorers, squatters, military/paramilitary groups, naval missions, and police utilising Aboriginal assistance in tracking down wanted persons. For instance, in 1834, near Fremantle, Western Australia, two trackers named Mogo and Mollydobbin tracked a missing five-year-old boy for more than ten hours through rough Australian bush.[4] Another notable event occurred in 1864 when Duff children Jane (7), Isaac (9) and Frank (4) Duff, lost for nine days in Wimmera, were found by Aboriginal tracker Dick-a-Dick.[4][5]
^Tench, Watkin (1793). A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson. London.
^Turbet, Peter (2011). The First Frontier. Rosenburg.
^Barrallier, Francis. Journal.
^ ab"Aboriginal trackers". Department of Culture and Recreation (Government of Australia). Archived from the original on 27 August 2008. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
^"Lost in bush for nine days". The Advertiser. Adelaide, South Australia: National Library of Australia. 21 January 1932. p. 8. Retrieved 4 March 2011.
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