King Plates: A history of Aboriginal Gorgets

Summary

King Plates describes and illustrates a large collection of Aboriginal gorgets, also called king or brass plates. These were presented to perceived 'chiefs', faithful servants and to the specially courageous by governors and land holders. In other words, they were given to anyone who helped in some way to ease the white settlers' progress in the new colonies.

They had already been used in North America for the same purpose.

Troy provides a comprehensive history of king plates, describes other gorgets not in the collection of the National Museum of Australia. The book serves as an encouragement to other scholars to research in this area but also to Aboriginal people seeking information about their forebears.