On Red Earth Walking: The Pilbara Aboriginal Strike, Western Australia 1946–1949

by Anne Scrimgeour

In 1946 Aboriginal people walked off pastoral stations in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, withdrawing their labour from the economically-important wool industry to demand improvements in wages and conditions. Their strike lasted three years. On Red Earth Walking is the first comprehensive account of this significant, unique, and understudied episode of Australian history.Using extensive and previously unsourced archival evidence, Anne Scrimgeour interrogates earlier historical accounts of the strike, delving beneath the strike’s mythology to uncover the rich complexity of its history. The use of Aboriginal oral history places Aboriginal actors at the centre of these events, foregrounding their agency and their experiences. Scrimgeour provides a lucid examination of the system of colonial control that existed in the Pilbara prior to the strike, and a fascinating and detailed account of how these mechanisms were gradually broken down by three years of striker activism. Amid Cold-war fears of communist subversion in the north, the prominence of communists among southern supporters and the involvement of a non-Aboriginal activist, Don McLeod, complicated settler responses to the strike. This history raises provocative ideas around racial tensions in a pastoral settler economy and examines political concerns that influenced settler responses to the strike to create a nuanced and engaging account of this pivotal event in Australian Indigenous and labour histories.

Genres: Nonfiction, Indigenous, History

540 pages, Paperback

Published March 2, 2020

Reviews

[Lachlan Magrath · Rating 5 out of 5]

'On Red Earth Walking' by Anne Scrimgeour is about the Pilbarra Strike of 1946-1949, which was the first ever industrial action taken by Indigenous Australian workers. It's definitely worth a read, because it is not only able to describe the depths of Indigenous oppression under pastoralist employers, the police and the department of native affairs in Western Australia, but also Indigenous workers' successful resistance made possible through a combination of their objective economic power to go on strike and cut off the pastoralists' profits and socialist politics of solidarity and militancy through the intervention of the Communist activist Don McLeod.

The influence of workers' self-activity and struggle against the bosses on the change of attitudes and confidence in Indigenous workers is on full display.

Firstly, they realise that, in contrast to being told by the pastoralists that working for rations in virtual slavery-like conditions is a kind act of charity by them, the pastoralists are completely dependent for their profits on their labour. For example:
"In contrast to the pre-strike claim [by the pastoralists] that 'one white man was worth 10 blacks', Johnson stated that 'we can get white employees but their efficiency is only about 10%'."

Secondly, workers grow the confidence to challenge the racist apartheid conditions prevailing in Port-Hedland. The Race-Time Demonstrations of July-August 1946 see Indigenous strikers defy the authorities by expressly disobeying the police. For the first time, they move their encampment from four miles outside the town to two miles outside the town.
"The decision to shift camp en masse in this way was a highly significant event in the development of the strike movement. John Wilson found in 1960 that the story of the shift to the Two Mile camp had taken on the flavour of stories of mythical heroes. Marrngu discovered that the power exercised over them by the police and officers of the Native Affairs Department was not absolute and that these officers were in fact quite powerless to do anything in the face of concerted group action... The police found their usual authority over Aboriginal people undermined by a stubborn refusal to be intimidated. Stern warning and threats of arrest could achieve nothing. When they tried to speak to everyone as a group, a few spokesmen responded for the rest, insisting that they had a right to remain where they were. When they tried to speak to individuals or small groups, others would close in around them, preventing them from doing so. Bluster and threats met a solid wall of resistance."
Shortly after this, the strikers respond to the news of McLeod's arrest by demonstrating through the centre of Port Hedland (Indigenous people were not usually allowed to go into the town at all unless they worked there).
"When McLeod was arrested, the marrngu delegation returned to the Two Mile with the news. The strikers believed that McLeod was being unfairly victimised, and, unaware that he was not longer being held, decided to demonstrate opposition to his arrest and demand his release. In a show of strength, men 'lined up like soldiers', four abreast, and marched through the streets of Port Headland to the police station...The townspeople were disconcerted by this demonstration. It represented a further transgression of spatial constraints that underpinned settler control and Aboriginal marginalisation. 'The white women in town were getting alarmed and kept ringing the police to find out what was happening', Benja Sherlock wrote. 'The natives are not supposed to be in town, they should be out in the reserve.'"

Lastly, the strikes' victory in 1949 is assured by the solidarity action of the Seamans' Union to ban all shipments of wool from strikebreaking stations in the Pilbara. Indigenous workers going on strike began to break down the racist attitudes of white Australian unionists. In the end, the strike won for Indigenous workers wages on par with white workers, the end to child removals in the region (although continuing throughout the rest of Australia) and the establishment of Indigenous communities independent from the pastoralists.

I recommend giving this a read - essential to understanding the history of the struggle for Indigenous liberation in Australia.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not a quick or easy book to read, but it was certainly worth the effort. Some of the content is horrific, especially considering how recently the events occurred. I had heard before that some Aboriginal people mistrust and even fear police and government institutions. I think I would share their sentiment if I or my near relatives had suffered some of the injustices described!

I give the author credit for her even-handedness, even while describing some deplorable attitudes and behaviours towards our Indigenous people.

Although the events of this book are in one sense history, they are also part of a story whose impact is still being suffered to this day. My country has a long, long way to go to achieve healing and parity between its Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. I believe in truth-telling as an important step in that process. This book is part of that.

Finally, the second appendix is worth reading in its own right for the tragic consequences of PTSD.