Robert Arthur Johnstone

rdf:langString Robert Arthur Johnstone

rdf:langString Robert Arthur Johnstone (1843 – 16 January 1905) was an officer in the Native Police paramilitary force which operated in the British imperial 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, providing well-armed protection for the expeditionary memers. As a result of being at the frontier of British colonial expansion in this region of Australia, a number of geographical and zoological entities are named after him, such as the Johnstone River and the freshwater crocodile. After resigning from the Native Police in 1880, Johnstone was a police magistrate in various locations around Queensland before he retired from government service in 1891. In his years of duty for the Native Police, Johnstone led many investigations, punitive expeditions and "dispersals". Whilst the activities of the Native Police were consistent with both Government policy and popular expectation, thousands of Aboriginal people were killed or displaced from their traditional lands by the Native Police.