Objects of Power: Australian Aboriginal Breastplates and Scottish Pastoralists

Aboriginal breastplates also known as brass plates, king plates, queen plates and Aboriginal gorgets were given by European colonisers to Aboriginal people in Australia from c.1815. As a tool of colonisation they were frequently given out by Scottish pastoralists in Queensland and New South Wales in the mid to late 1800s to assist the smooth settlement of land. Through three object case studies this paper will examine the history of these contentious objects, considering how they were used by Scottish pastoralists to colonise Aboriginal land in the 1800s and the afterlives of these objects.

Readers are advised this article contains content relating to violent colonial practices and deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which some may find distressing.