How The West Was LostThe Native Question in the Development of Western Australia |
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Foreword Donald William McLeod is a remarkable Australian. Now in his mid-seventies, he still thinks nothing of crossing the deserts of Western Australia to attend meetings with the original inhabitants of this harsh region. For him to be able to complete such journeys, travelling thousands of kilometres along waterless tracks, speaks of his fortitude and his unique standing with the people who are the main subject of this book. Most of the locations mentioned in the book are in that greater part of Western Australia which is either desert or semi-desert. McLeod has lived and worked in this huge region all his life, moving from place to place in response to circumstance and opportunity. It is a rare pleasure to travel with him. There is a steady flow of anecdotes, some hilarious others subtle; accounts of recent happenings; and studied observations about the rocks, grasses and animals one passes. Don McLeod knows this country and he knows it well. One of the first white children born in Meekatharra, his formal schooling was not extensive and he was off and independent by the time he was sixteen. Being a highly observant person, he quickly picked up the many skills necessary for successful enterprise in the bush. He became a prospector, mechanic, well sinker and miner. His ability to repair and maintain old vehicles and equipment is legendary. The North-west, on the eve of the depression, was a rough and ready place. Don noted that mateship was not universal in the outback: the towns were run by cabals of the wealthier landowners, whose word was law and whose antipathy towards prospectors and working men like Don ran deep. In that period, the Aborigines were virtually slaves of the squatters. Don McLeod began to study these oppressive arrangements in 1937 when he was asked some powerful questions by senior Aboriginal Lawmen of the Pilbara and desert regions: Why is our country no longer ours? Why can't we travel without being arrested? It is significant that the Lawmen came to him. The questions were unusual ones for that era and odd indeed for Aborigines to put to a white man. Don's research into their questions resulted in an invitation to a great desert meeting which took place in 1942. His profound respect for the way the desert people ordered their lives, for their wisdom, humour and stoicism, stems from what he observed at this seminal meeting. He came to view these people who called themselves Blackfellows in a new light, as the Beneficial Owners of Western Australia. At the meeting he entered into an agreement with the Beneficial Owners, as described in Chapters 3 and 4. The agreement has dominated his life and led ultimately to the stirring events described in this book. In 1946, Clancy McKenna, Dooley Bin Bin and Don McLeod led the Blackfellows in a pastoral strike. This was a mass movement, one of the major events in Australian history, notwithstanding its low profile in our history books. Just a few of the stories of those times are repeated in this book - told from the viewpoint of the relatives and friends of the desert Aborigines. The original inhabitants have had a succession of self-appointed masters in the last century - pearlers, squatters, pastoralists, missionaries and now the bureaucrats. Reading this book one can appreciate a gradual softening in the extent of physical cruelty, but it is argued that the mental picture the wider community holds of Blackfellows has not changed significantly. They remain a commodity to be exploited. While the results of this exploitation have been devastating for them, it is suggested that all of society suffers the consequences in a loss of humanity and enlightenment. Don McLeod was persecuted during the strike and for the decades after it. Few men have suffered and withstood such a hounding for so long. Perhaps the reason for the intense reaction he still creates was expressed by Harold Macmillan who has commented "After a long life I have come to the conclusion that when all the establishment is united it is always wrong". These words could have been Don McLeod's. To question official wisdom on what was known as the Native Question was to invite persecution. His activities had stung the establishment and continue to do so. A long and lonely personal struggle makes Don McLeod the appropriate person to write the story of the desert Blackfellows. In the early days it was not obvious why his support for them caused him to become so suddenly a public enemy. Nowadays it is quite clear to him. He sees that the Native Question, under whatever new label it is presented, is the central issue of the Australian polity. This book is about the Native Question and the fundamental, uncompromising and continuing role Don McLeod has played in its unfolding. PAUL ROBERTS, Perth, 1984 |
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