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.
