‘Blackbirding’ is the well documented practice where armed men on mounted patrols would scour the countryside and kidnap Aboriginal people, neck chain them, remove them from their country then sell them to pearlers working around the pearling towns from Roebuck Bay to Broome and around the Lacepede Islands off the Kimberley coast. They would then be forced to dive for pearlshell.Occurring from the 1880s through the 1890s this is a brazen example of slavery.Some men such as Sydney Hadley, Charles Clifford, Frenchy D’Antoine became notorious for the practice. Then there are these two – Henry ‘Harry’ Hunter and Thomas Mountain. Hunter was an infamously brutal man who murdered Aboriginal people and kept a harem of Bardi Jawi women (fathering children to at least 12 separate women). His shocking indifference to murdering a boy is shown here.Thomas Mountain ‘Big Mountain’ publicly advertised he could ‘procure and put niggers aboard at £5 a head for anybody or shoot them for the government for half a crown a piece.’Police such as Lance Corporal Payne conscientiously and actively tried to arrest and prosecute these men but found ‘It is almost impossible to get any white evidence in these cases. The feeling being so strong against the police for taking any steps against the pearlers in favour of the natives. And if any justices sit with the government resident it is impossible to get a conviction as all the honorary justices are very deeply interested in the pearling and native question.’
