Chris Owen 'Darkest West Australia' | Writer
Chris Owen 'Darkest West Australia'
Address: Perth 6000 Perth, WA, Australia
Website: uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/every-mothers-son-is-guilty-policing-the-kimberley-frontier-of-western-australia-1882-1905
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25.01.2022 Here's an edited interview I did with Perth ABC radio 720 with Nadia Mitsopoulos and Russell Woolf this morning regarding the contentious issue of monuments/statues/parks/districts/roads etc named after explorers known for committing atrocities. For example the founding governor of Perth (Swan River Colony) James Stirling (roads, districts, parks, suburbs named after him) along with other celebrated colonists John Septimus Roe (multiple roads named after him) and Thomas Peel... (whole district named after him) basically brutally murdered a large number of Noongar people at the Pinjarra Massacre in October 1834 yet are celebrated to this day. Should they be? https://www.abc.net.au//p/breakfast/renaming-push/12335954
23.01.2022 'CHAINED LIKE ANIMALS Not a Rare Practice.’ April 1958. This article from the ‘Sydney Tribune’ 9 April 1958 is the proof of the ‘widespread practice’ of chaining of Aboriginal prisoners. As usual it is the Kimberley district, this time the remote East Kimberley town of Halls Creek on Kitja and Jaru country. Halls Creek was a former mining town notorious for massacres of Aboriginal people from the 1880s 1930s. Later it became the administrative centre for pastoral stations... in the area. The report the writer is referring to is from 25 March 1958 in the Sydney Tribune. 12 prisoners were chained together to a post on the veranda of the Halls Creek Police station probably because the prison was full. They were likely arrested for ‘cattle killing’ or simply disturbing cattle on their own country. Described as ‘barbaric’, Halls Creek residents saw them chained like that for over a month. During the day they were probably on a chain gang building roads or infrastructure - slavery? But why were chains still being used in 1958? Expediency. Chaining being the cheapest option rather than hiring more police or building decent facilities. Chains weren’t even police issue - police would buy them from a blacksmith out of their own pocket. In 1905 in the infamous Roth Royal Commission a senior government official admitted chaining was an informal practice of the last thirty years in the Kimberley. In 1958 not much had changed. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspap/article/236324092/25622248 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspap/article/236326760/25622229
21.01.2022 'The Ten Point guide to Australian Aboriginal history.' In an interview (31 May 2020) with a protester in Los Angeles Channel Nine's Australian correspondent said 'people in Australia don’t have the understanding of the history of police killings and things here.' This is how it happened:...Continue reading
21.01.2022 *Cultural Warning: Racist language.* 1953 - Kalgoorlie, again. I don’t really know what to say about this (not unusual) headline though it speaks for itself about race relations. Mid 1953 The mining town of Kalgoorlie, yet again. The much maligned Wongai people were probably called this from the 1880s to, well, today. ... Kalgoorlie remains simmering away with racism to this day with Wongai people defensive and people wonder why? And check out the article next to it - Eastern Goldfields Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Full article https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/28540274
17.01.2022 'How We Civilize' - Roebourne Slavery. (Again.) We have seen how North West and Kimberley police captured and necked chained Aboriginal men for any alleged crime usually for some (often fabricated) offence relating to sheep or cattle or often leaving their 'indentured service' - that is legally bound as a free labor source to a white 'Master.' Some women from the same groups were ankle chained, walked alongside the men, and forced to testify against their own family. They... had to walk incredible distances often without food or water up to 400 km (50 km a day) out of their country to a town prison. How did they do this? This Roebourne account describes the terrible reality. The distance from Ashburton to Roebourne is over 200 km. One prisoner of 50 chained men, possibly a Yindjibarndi man, becomes ‘raving mad from thirst’ so the police unshackled him, shot him in the head, that is murdered him, and buried him. Then on they went. Once imprisoned the men were a labor force who worked in appalling conditions. ‘How we Civilize or White on Black,’ The Daily News, 10 May 1889, p. 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/77372579/7821261
15.01.2022 Roebourne legacies... This horrific account is from 1886 in the remote northwest WA Pilbara town of Roebourne which was the administrative centre for the expanding pastoral and pearling industries. Administrative in as much as it had police, a courthouse and a prison where Aboriginal people were pulled from their country and incarcerated usually for some (often made-up) offence against cattle or sheep. It was a witness report, among multitudes of similar allegations, from... David Carley (who along with Reverend John Gribble) tried to publicise what was happening in northern WA as European colonisation expanded. These allegations (slavery, murder, rape, abuse) were published in 'Dark Deeds in a Sunny Land, or, Blacks and whites in north-west Australia' (p.48 entire book online link in comments) to great furor. Gribble was mocked, abused, assaulted and driven from WA for daring to state what was really happening to Aboriginal people. Despite the horrific injury the prisoner, possibly a Yindjibarndi man remained neck chained, was tried and duly found guilty of some questionable offence then shipped south to Rottnest Prison dying on the way. Beyond the horror this account answers so many questions: what did police do with wounded 'suspects'? Left them where they were to die or, if they could walk, this. Notice the complete indifference to Aboriginal suffering. There was a Resident Medical Officer in Roebourne though he was never called. Even innocent Aboriginal witnesses to alleged crimes were kept in Roebourne prison until they testified with many dying. Roebourne today remains with this scarifying legacy with deaths in custody continuing - it’s not difficult to see why.
13.01.2022 ‘Belle’ of Kalgoorlie 1900 More stories of survival. This stunning photograph is part of the State Library of Western Australia’s Storylines project. It is a woman named ‘Belle’ in the mining town of Kalgoorlie in 1900. We have seen the virulent racism around Kalgoorlie at this time and beyond with the Wongai violently pushed out of their own country, those that resisted, imprisoned or killed. But look how she proudly holds herself. And survived. ... Storylines is a project to explore, identify and return often unseen Aboriginal heritage material from the Library's collections. The project team work with community members to identify people, places and stories in the photographs and other materials. Check out this collection (J.J. Dwyer) and hundreds of others. They are amazing. https://storylines.slwa.wa.gov.au/archive-store/view/6/11267
09.01.2022 Slavery in 1949. Today our Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated ‘Australia when it was founded as a settlement, as New South Wales, was on the basis that there be no slavery.’ Let us leave aside ‘blackbirding’ - the code name for slavery of Aboriginal people (and Kanakas or South Sea Islanders) in the Queensland sugar fields in the 1860s that lasted for decades. There's quite a lot written about it (in books) and it brings up hundreds of entries in a two second Google search.... See Raymond Evans work for a start. And let us leave aside in the North West/Kimberley districts of Western Australia through 1870-1900 Aboriginal people were blackbirded: kidnapped and neck chained and brought to the coast forced on boats and exploited diving for Pearl shell. This was well documented by government officials and concerned locals described it as slavery. They would be starved, bashed and often murdered for not collecting enough pearl shell. (See my post 19 Oct 2018 link below.) Then here the pastoral station manager of the Pilbara located Corunna Downs. 'Mr Bligh' openly admitted exploiting Aboriginal labour was slavery. He stated though it was 'a mild form of slavery, and declared that pastoralists could not carry on [make money/profit] without this slave labor.' And the neck chains were 'only light ones.' Aboriginal people built the WA pastoral industry with their free slaved labour. And what year was this? November 1949. Neck chains were used until 1958. Stan Middleton was the Western Australian Commissioner of Native Affairs. See https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=291859218086417&id=153928098546197 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspap/article/209392024/22669189
09.01.2022 More Truth Telling Black lives matter This drawing was done was done by cartoonist Simon Kneebone. https://simonkneebone.com/2020/07/07/statement/ It is in a new review of ‘Every Mother’s son is Guilty’ in the Alternative Law Journal on Kimberley policing by Professor Kate Auty.... https://journals.sagepub.com/d/pdf/10.1177/1037969X20940099 Auty says 'Black Lives Matter marches across the world recently have brought into stark relief the plight, anger and demands of people of colour when exposed to justices systems which continue to disproportionately arrest them, punish and imprison them and ultimately kill them.' The cartoon speaks of Australian history and the nation in general. We are glad to celebrate the ‘pioneering spirit’, ‘exploring and overcoming the harsh country’, ‘taming the land’ and establishing this ‘lucky nation.’ But we are almost blind to how exactly this really occurred and affected Aboriginal people who were basically yet another (albeit unspoken) thing to ‘overcome.’ As the cartoon suggests this history would/should all be lost. Indeed, apart from the relative handful of photographic evidence and references in books to Aboriginal people in chains most people do not even know this barbaric practice was common practice Australia wide and used until the late 1950s in Western Australia. Maybe it is time to recognise this?
07.01.2022 '10 years old - Hard Labour' Reviewed recently in Australia was the minimum age of criminal responsibility. Here, under law, small children of 10 years old can be charged with criminal offences and sent to prison. (Criminal responsibility is 14 years old in most other countries.) This law vastly proportionally affects Aboriginal children. Despite being 5% of the population Aboriginal kids make up well over half of the nearly 1000 children currently locked up. Furthermore 70% ...of 10-13 years old’s are Aboriginal. This is not a recent policy. In Western Australia over 100 years ago (and earlier) Aboriginal children in the Kimberley as young as ten were imprisoned with ‘hard labour.’ That is, neck chained and building roads/buildings/jetties during the day. See this extract from Walter Roth’s 1905 Royal Commission where multiple children - a ten year old boy named Lungurin and others received ridiculously excessive sentences. But Elders were sent to prison also. Umberudgy, who was so old and weak he couldn’t even walk was imprisoned dying 18 days later on the floor of the tin shed prison. [Leaving aside that there is no way a 10 year old boy or an invalid man of 70 or so could ‘carry away’ killed cattle.] Again, it was just to get the traditional owners away from the stock and off their country, one way or another. Being Aboriginal was criminality in itself. This is the history of this country. On Monday 27 July 2020 the Australian Federal Council of Attorney Generals voted to defer any possible changes to the minimum age of 10. Source: https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au//Report+of+the+Royal+Comm p.103. DMO District Medical Officer. WER Walter Edmund Roth
06.01.2022 'A Progressive Settlement' for ‘White Australians.' The 'White Australia Policy' (technically the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act) sought to prevent 'prohibited immigrants' (code for non-European, non-white immigration) to Australia. It reflected contemporary virulent racism (across the white European world) and was targeted at 'Alien Coloured Immigration', that is, largely Asian people and Pacific Islanders. They could not only be prevented from coming to Australia but exis...ting residents could be deported. But how did it work in the WA Context? Here in 1909 you see the new suburban Perth housing suburb of Gosnells 'Estate'. It is marketed in boldly racist terms much like South African apartheid - a 'progressive settlement' for 'White Australians.' Jovially, the company selling the land promises dire consequences if the land were sold to an 'undesirable' or 'almond eye Chinaman.' Or course Aboriginal people, the traditional owners of their own country, were not even considered human enough to even be mentioned. The Immigration Act was not fully repealed until 1958. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/57613963/4528714
02.01.2022 TRUTH TELLING TIME *Distressing Language and Content Warning* [Apologies for the newspaper heading but the term was widely used in Newspapers until the 1950s.] This distressing April 1927 article by anonymous ‘Northerner’ follows the allegations regarding alleged killings of Aboriginal people in the June 1926 Kimberley Forrest River Massacre. But the writer reveals he was sent to the Kimberley by a ‘Perth paper’ some 25 years earlier following the horrific finding of the ...Continue reading
01.01.2022 Distressing content warning. 'WHEN ANYONE MADE TROUBLE...' Aboriginal oral history accounts in northern WA tell of Aboriginal people being killed by station masters or white stockmen [Kartiya] for resisting, for access to Aboriginal women but also for the smallest indiscretion.... In the Kimberley district 'being cheeky' or talking back was enough to get a flogging or worse - a minor issue could mean their death. And this was not just in the late 1880s. Oral history accounts of the 1920s (recorded by Mary Ann Jebb in 1995) tell of a notoriously cruel stockman named Jack Carey of Gibb River Station who shot and burnt large numbers of men, women and even children. Carey shot dead Elder women who were fishing at a waterhole, shot dead a group of men because they dropped a box of chickens, shot a young girl for no reason, and shot three stockmen dead (Kapiningarri, Gunbungarri and Ngorru men) because they had left the goat yard gate open. These were not isolated events. in the 1920s Ginger Nganawilla of Noonkanbah station said (recorded by Steve Hawke in 1978) 'When anyone made trouble at the station they would lock him up, give him a hiding there inside [the station house], and kill him after.' (As a boy Ginger had witnessed the brutal assault of his father on Quanbun Station where he was tied to a tree and maimed with rocks.) Contrary to what many think some Police did investigate some claims of the murder of Aboriginal people and evidence of bones was often enough to start an investigation. (See the forensic scientific evidence produced in the 1926 Forrest River Massacre.) So what did the murdering frontiersmen do? Go to great lengths to hide the event. Bones could not be buried as bones could be dug up and bones were evidence. Often they would incinerate the bodies and crush all the bones (in a practice over several days) to unidentifiable ash. But other times they would be more perverse in hiding bones as this account, supported in other oral history accounts, by Ginger Nganawilla shows. These accounts are fully credible but not in the story of this nation. Sources in comments.
