WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT OF THE KIMBERLEY
Broome: a pearling place
Pearl shell is of great cultural significance to Aboriginal people from the Kimberley.
For thousands of years, Aboriginal people have harvested the shell from accessible
reefs along the coast for food, decoration, cultural activities and trade. Long before
Europeans arrived, pearl shell was exchanged through social and economic networks
stretching from the Kimberley across the continent to Queensland and South
Australia. Kimberley pearl shell is the most widely distributed item of trade in
Aboriginal Australia. During the advent of European settlement, Kimberley
Aboriginal people traded pearl shell with settlers and pearlers for rations and goods
(Akerman et al. 2010).
In the Kimberley, European pearling preceded and supplemented the pastoral
activities of European settlers. Early pastoralists had to bring herds over long
distances to unknown lands, and struggled to grow and maintain them, often in
difficult conditions. They faced the challenge of transporting meat to distant markets
with little supporting infrastructure. In contrast, pearl shells could be readily shipped
and sold: they provided a very good return for their weight and bulk; they had a ready
international market; and they did not have to be introduced to the region the way
sheep and cattle did. Although pearling was dangerous and sometimes deadly work,
pearl shells were an abundant resource found along a significant portion of the west
Kimberley coast. Pearl shell generated much of the wealth that led, in 1880, to the
establishment of Broome, and the spread of services in Australia's north-west,
including communications, public services and small business (Sickert 2003).
The first European report of pearl shell on the west coast of Australia was by William
Dampier in 1699, who noted its occurrence at Shark Bay, south of the Kimberley.
From 1850, European pearlers began to collect small Pinctata sugillata shells in that
area. When the world's largest pearl oyster shell was discovered in Roebuck Bay in
1861, it caused an international sensation. People flocked from many nations, hoping
to make their fortune. The larger Pinctata maxima shells were soon found to be
widespread, and pearling began at Nickol Bay (near Karratha) in 1867, spreading
north from there (Moore 1994). By 1870, European pearling was becoming well
established on the Kimberley coast.
Pearlers initially came to the Kimberley coast from Cossack, about 750 kilometres to
the south, and later began to arrive from Thursday Island in Queensland, with some
luggers from as far afield as Singapore. In the early years of pearling, before the
establishment of Broome, Cossack was used as a base for the provision of
communications and stores, pearling licenses and other necessities, and much of the
fleet regularly made the journey from there to the Kimberley (Edwards 1991).
As the pearling industry expanded, conflict arose over the pearlers' demands for fresh
water and Aboriginal women (Sickert 2003). Young Aboriginal men from the coast
were lured aboard schooners and taken to islands that were used as illegal depots,
where they were locked into serving a season contract in return for rations. The
kidnapping of Aboriginal people who were forced to work for pearlers occurred along
the coast and also targeted Aboriginal people inland, including in the Fitzroy Valley
and the Pilbara (Sickert 2003).
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