The Blackfella’s Eureka

The Blackfella’s Eureka had much the same spirit but was a far more important achievement.

During World War II – which for Australians started in September 1939 – many Aboriginal station-workers worked alongside whitefellas doing wartime type things like building roads, moving supplies and so on. For the first time, there was an awareness by station Aboriginals they could be treated decently, or as equals, and that away from station properties, whitefellas were actually paid regularly and reliably in cash.

Just how a white prospector named Don Mcleod came to be involved in the Blackfella’s Eureka depends on whose version of the story you trust, but the important parts of the story are not in dispute:

Don McLeod, who worked in the Pilbara region, agreed to help Aboriginals act to improve their situation on one condition: They needed to prove to him first that they could organise everybody to work together. Given the size of the area, the distances and differences between Aboriginals, this was a fairly large challenge.

In 1942, three Aboriginal law men escorted Don – for whom it was illegal to talk to more than 2 Aboriginals at a time – to a place called Skull Springs. For more than 6 weeks Aboriginals from around the state; including 23 language groups and 16 interpreters, spoke about their situation and what they might do. McLeod’s involvement seems to have taken the form of providing answers to questions. For example, when asked why Aboriginals could be caught by police and returned to a station if they left without permission, McLeod was horrified to discover how repressive the legislation relating to Aboriginal welfare actually was. 

In 1946, 6,500 sq miles of the Plibara was sheep country

It was agreed that no action would be taken until the end of the war, with the 1^st of May 1946 eventually chosen as the date of the walk off. 

One of the criticisms levelled at the action was that the whole business had been manipulated by white communists. 
McLeod had at some stage been a member of the Communist Party, and it was the Western Australian Communist Party newspaper, The Worker’s Star, which had provided publicity while the WA commercial press had censored reports of the strike, either by saying nothing or being dismissive and negative when it did have something to say. Choosing Mayday – the international day for celebrating communism – confirmed, for many people, the idea that the whole business was a communist plot.

Not only did Eastern newspapers report more fully on the strike, the strike had attracted the support of church and other charitable organisations. More muscle was obtained with the support of 19 Western Australian trades unions, seven federal unions and four Trades and Labour Councils. The Port Hedland wharf workers banned any handling of wool from the sheep stations involved in the dispute.


Despite the widespread obsession amongst some politicians with trying to ban communism, full credit for organising the strike, taking action and seeing it through to the end belongs to no one but the Aboriginal workers themselves.

The resourcefulness with which Aboriginal organisers helped everyone know what day to walk off is impressive: Using scrap paper, they developed ‘calendars’ with big red circles around the date. Although ‘employees’ were confined to stations, there were always itinerant Aboriginals arriving at and leaving stations, so distributing calendars was not too hard.
On some stations, people who could not follow the calendars would just keep asking the white bosses how many days to the first of May.

On the 1^st of May, over 800 pastoral workers from two dozen stations walked off the job. Many white people were shocked – before they become furious – to think Aboriginals would be able to organise something so well.

To survive during the strike, Aboriginals made money by ‘yandying’ (surface mining) for gold and tin, or trading skins and pearl shells. 

Wartime rationing was still in place, and station managers had sent the workers’ food coupons to the police station at Marble Bar. The police tried to bribe workers back by saying they wouldn’t hand over ration coupons, but the workers persisted. McLeod did explain the coupon system to the workers, but they were the ones who went and demanded the coupons be returned.

The strike lasted til 1949, when some of the workers were enticed back to stations by offers of a better rate of pay, though some workers did not go back at all. The strike had been as much about dignity as it had been about money.

Despite whitefella Australia raising union membership and strikes to an art form, this Pilbara strike still has the record for the longest strike in Australia’s history.

Although at one point McLeod had been arrested, as had some of the workers, the strike turned out quite well. One large group of workers were released when each of them had claimed to be the leader, and the Police Officer couldn’t name any individual so he couldn't charge them with any offence. McLeod was released on bail and ended up with a rather large fine.

This was not the first action taken by Aboriginals, but it was the first strike over wages and conditions.

Two encouraging things resulted from the strike:

For the first time, Aboriginals from different clans and language groups had joined together to achieve something, without letting traditional differences influence them.

The workers themselves were able to prove to themselves that they could achieve for themselves.

A movement grew out this experience which is sometimes called the ‘Pindan” movement – pindan being the name of the red, Pilbara sand.

Some of the workers registered a mining company; this venture ultimately failed, but then the group split and two stations were bought, owned and operated by Aboriginals. Some of that land has been handed to the traditional owners.