WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

colonies to import indentured labour from Asia and the south Pacific, to work in
specific industries such as the sugar industry or pearling for which there were not
enough European labourers (Bach 1955). By the second half of the nineteenth
century, indentured labourers were predominantly sent to northern Australia – there
was a strong medical belief in the nineteenth century that white men were ill-suited
for work in the tropics. Nonetheless, concerns were raised by people outside these
industries that the conditions in which indentured labourers were 'recruited' and kept
were akin to slavery, which had been illegal in England since 1772 and had been
banned by law throughout the British Empire in 1833 (Willard 1923). Concerns
focused particularly on allegations of kidnapping and abuse of Pacific Islanders
(referred to as Kanakas). There were also fears that indentured labourers, for instance
from China or India, would drive down white labourers' wages, discouraging British
migration, and that they would introduce an alien culture and dilute Australia's 'racial
purity' (Willard 1923; Curthoys 2003).
Aboriginal and other non-European labour played a pivotal role in the pearling
industry. Aboriginal men and women worked as divers from the early days of pearling
in the Kimberley, before diving apparatus was introduced. Without any protective
equipment or oxygen, they descended to depths of up to ten metres to collect pearl
shell. Aboriginal divers were credited with outstanding underwater sight, diving
ability and local knowledge:
* * * *
'The powers of natives in diving, especially the females, are spoken of as something
wonderful. They go down to depths of seven fathoms and remain below a time that
astonishes their white employers' (McCarthy 1994 citing Perth Gazette and WA
Times 1868).
* * * *
In 1883, the Native Commission Report stated that Aboriginal labour was a key factor
in the pearling industry (Ryan 1993).
Historian John Bailey argues that the era of skin diving was 'to prove one of the most
brutal and bloody businesses in Australia's history' (Bailey 2001). Report of abuses in
the early days of pearling led to legislation in 1871 and 1875 regulating native labour
and prohibiting the use of women as divers (Bach 1955; Edwards 1983; Burton 2000).
This encouraged the increasing employment of indentured Malays (Indonesians or
Malaysians), who in 1876 made up around 800 of 1,200 divers. The legislation was
inadequately policed, however, and provided little real protection for Aboriginal
people (Bach 1955; Edwards 1983; Akerman and Stanton 1994). Blackbirding still
occurred in the Kimberley into the 1890s. Aboriginal women continued to work in
pearling, collecting significant amounts of pearl shell as 'beachcombers'. Pearlers also
used Aboriginal women and girls for sexual relations, with or without their consent
(Sickert 2003; Kwaymullina 2001). Children as young as ten were 'employed' by
European pearlers, with girls working in pearlers' homes and boys on the luggers.
Like many industries employing Aboriginal people, payment was made in the
provision of rations including clothing, foodstuffs and tobacco, not wages (Sickert
2003).
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