Jim Crow
Profile:
Earliest/Latest Known date
1852 - 1867
Area of Origin
Barwon, Balonne, Namoi, Condamine or Macintyre Rivers (unknown which one).
Reason for Departure
Discharged after period of service expired in 1857 but re-engaged by Morisset in the same year.
“At the time the name “Jim Crow” was still a derogatory term derived from the US slave system, and we have no information on who he was, why he joined or who gave him this name.”
Postings:
1853: Wide Bay and Burnett
1855: Rannes
1855: Sandgate (aka Cabbage Tree Creek)
1861: Malchi Hill, Gracemere
1866: Rockhamption (Murray’s Lagoon)
Biography:
The trooper known as "Jim Crow" entered the NMP in 1852 as part of Frederick Walker's third big recruitment drive. He was Trooper Number 81, and would have come from the Barwon, Balonne, Namoi, Condamine or Macintyre River. At the time the name "Jim Crow" was still a derogatory term derived from the US slave system, and we have no information on who he was, why he joined or who gave him this name. Having served across central and southern Queensland for five years, he and twelve other troopers left the NMP because their initial period of service had expired, but "Jim Crow" and several others subsequently returned, claiming that they had been unduly pressured by some of the other troopers. He was reenlisted and was still in the Force in the late 1860s, serving at Rockhampton. His portrait shows a young man and was taken sometime in the 1860s.