Recruited for Colonial Order: Transimperial Perspectives on Police Recruitment in British and German New Guinea (1884–99)

Abstract

This article seeks to understand how police recruitments worked in two Pacific Ocean colonies, namely British and German New Guinea. Set at the end of the nineteenth century, it examines how both police forces were organised, and who were its first recruits. By taking a comparative look at the two colonies, the article tries to distance itself from narratives which have stressed a specific British or German experience of colonial rule in Papua New Guinea. Instead, it argues that both colonial administrations revolved around similar methods and tactics to enrol Pacific Islanders as colonial policemen.