North-West

North-West'The people' disappear from vision when we examine the records of the north-west of the colony of New South Wales (Map 3.1), despite that centre of democratic thought, Rocky River Diggings. 1 The purview of the courts in the north-west involved the activities of gentlemen, the economy of the public house policed by aggressive constables and paternalistic relationships.Aboriginal people played a considerable role in a region where there was a system of informal surveillance that tracked each person across the landscape.Aggression against First Nations people appeared in cases, but through the prism of sentiment.Because we enter the society differently through these records and they are created differently by the magistrates and clerks, law works in what is a new way for us. The diary of a clerk of the courtThe clerk of the bench at Wee Waa, George Mitchell Harper, wrote his 1850-51 diary in a settlement that provided a stop along one of the colony's major travel arteries.2 People passed through to and from Tamworth, Maitland, Murrurundi, Walgett station, Pilica, Liverpool Plains, Brigalo Creek, Narrabri, Cooyaberri and New England.The diary allows some access to the geography and lifestyle of the north-west of the colony.