Aboriginal people from Western Australia were kidnapped from their communities to work as slaves, according to a research paper published by the University of Western Australia (UWA) in March.
Key points:
- UWA research points to colonial slavery on Barrow Island
- Indigenous people were kidnapped from their communities and forced to work for no pay
Pearling masters also brought in "Malay" divers from the East Nusa Tenggara in Indonesia
Professor Alistair Paterson and his UWA colleagues documented the presence of Aboriginal people dumped on Barrow Island by pearlers, effectively incarcerating them to a harsh and limited existence in between unpaid indentured diving on the pearling luggers.
"They certainly would have found it very difficult to leave," Professor Paterson said.
"In this industry Aboriginal people encountered for the first time whites and Asians, and forms of human bondage comparable with slavery."
The research showed that Aboriginal people from the Murchison north to the Fitzroy rivers and beyond, on to most coastal Kimberley communities, were kidnapped from their communities to work as slaves.
Government magistrate at the time, Colonel Angelo, is quoted saying: "I find here in full force a disguised but unquestionable system of slavery carried out under the protection of the British flag."
Pearlers operated from Cossack near the Dampier Archipelago in the Pilbara to Roebuck Bay in Broome from the 1860s onwards.
Co-researcher Professor Peter Veth said pearl diving teams were often part of pastoral concessions in the north west.
"People were used on vessels, whether they were sea people or not — made to work very long days," Dr Veth said.
"It appears [from early accounts] that Aboriginal people were on-sold and left on the islands, referred to as 'barracoons', [a temporary place of confinement for slaves or convicts] in the off-season.
"We effectively had an indentured labour form of slavery still persisting in the north west of Australia which was unregulated."
Mr Veth said there was a robust commodification of people as labour without their consent.
These groups had very high mortality rates and were used as the "engine houses of the pearling industry", the biggest export industry of the time.
Pearling masters travelled extensively to find slaves
While the British outlawed slavery in 1833 and the Dutch abolished slavery in 1860, the Dutch East Indies shipping company still brought workers to Australia for agrarian slavery as late as 1880.
Colonial pearling masters such as Captain Francis Caddell and the Broadhurst family were heavily involved in captivity and coercion, even though it was neither permitted nor condoned by governments since the abolition of slavery by the British across their colonies.
Finding it difficult to get enough Indigenous divers, they brought in "Malay" divers from the East Nusa Tenggara in Indonesia.
Caddell took 27 men from Sawu Island in Indonesia to Barrow Island in 1874, prompting the Dutch 'Resident of Timor' at the time to issue orders to prevent Caddell from taking more men.
The research points to police records describing the abandonment of Asian and Aboriginal workers on islands such as Barrow Island, and their underpayment, incarceration, mistreatment, and the death of workers.
We can't 'pretend that it wasn't part of history'
Bandicoot Bay on Barrow Island was a focus for the study.
Glass spearheads known as 'Kimberley points', manufactured in the Kimberley, and other artefacts were found there in the campsites people used on Barrow Island, forming documented evidence of Kimberley Indigenous people being left on the island.
Dr Paterson said Aboriginal people had good survival strategies to stay alive after being incarcerated on this remote offshore island, using water and local animal, marine and plant foods.
Dr Veth said when awkwardly dark truths are discovered, it is important to go back to the primary evidence where the moral landscape was tested.
"The question of unpaid labour is a real one, albeit complex for families and industries," Dr Veth said.
"But the first stage is not to pretend that it wasn't part of history."
Aboriginal people free-dived for pearls or were punished
It is well-known among the Indigenous people of north-west WA that their ancestors were forced into hard labour by their white masters.
Ngarluma woman, Sylvia Lockyer, said her ancestors, who worked in the pastoral and pearling industries, were very proud Aboriginal men and women who only received rations and no pay, which eventually resulted in stolen wages claims.
Her ancestors free-dived for pearl shell, a prized commodity for the pre-industrial fashion industry, while constrained by ropes to stop them escaping.
"They chose the Aboriginal men and women to dive for their pearls and they were given a quota of how many shells to find," Ms Lockyer said.
"If they did not bring any shells up to the surface, they were donged on the head with a great big stick."
