14/04/2026
Kaya Babbingur
'Black Harry's’ 1873 letter to the Perth Gazette. is a sophisticated critique of colonial law. He speaks of stolen wages, the kidnapping of women by 'gentleman farmers,' and the terrifying threat of being sent to Wadjemup. 150 years later, his demand for 'upright' justice still resonates.
The letter, written on Harry’s behalf, perhaps by a well-meaning wadjela, is written in the sort of pigeon dialect that Aboriginal people may have spoken in. If they did, I think they modelled it on the way white people spoke to them…. the sort of speech with which the Native Americans supposedly spoke as recorded in American cowboy pulp fiction.
I’ve rendered it into modern English for ease of reading.
*****
Perth Gazette and WA Times 14 Nov 1873 - An Aboriginal person’s Appeal.
To Mr Paper-talk (the Editor).
I’m a poor Aboriginal man. I can only write a little bit. I was at the long time at the Mission, … the good Bishop told me, love each other, white and black … both have the same God.
I know God commanded, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife”, etc.
Please, Mister Editor, tell me (and I will bring you many kangaroo skins if you do), why dangerous white men steal poor Aboriginal men’s wives, and keep them in their huts with plenty nalgo (‘nalgo’ meaning in Noongar tooth or teeth is probably used in this case for ‘food’), tea and sugar, and make them drunk, and when tired of them, turn them out and send them back to their husbands.
Why don’t policemen say anything to the white men? We don’t insult white women … why do you take our women?
If we go to fetch our women, a white man will come out of hut with gun and shout, " I’ll shoot you."
If an Aboriginal man throws a spear, a policeman will catch him, and chain him, and send him to Rottnest.
I think the laws made by the big white curled wig gentleman, who says, "You are to be hung," should be made from the laws of God. If I steal a sheep, I go to Rottnest.
If a white farmer -some call them gentleman farmers, others call them ‘cocky’ asks me, "What’s your name," I say "Harry, sir."
"You work for me, 20 shillings a month, and rations?" he asks
"All right."
I sign a piece of paper with an X.
All right; but a few months after, I ask for my money; and he gives me a shirt, to***co, and few shillings and says ‘All right.”
But I say, " Not all right," and I feel sulky and leave the farm. A bush policeman catches me.
In court I can’t speak to the magistrate but he and the farmer talk to each other a lot.
Magistrate says, “Harry, you’re a bad fellow; go to Rottnest ;" and i get on the boat and I’m very , sick. On Rottnest I do hay-making. I’m a good worker, and Mr Jackson gives me a little 'bacco’ and says I must go back to white cockatoo. I won't.
Mr Editor, Aboriginal people’s wages ought to be paid by the farmer to an upright magistrate, and given to the workers by that magistrate. Then i can go to the store and buy my own nalgo and to***co.
You Mr Editor, please send this to white curled big wig fellow.
My name is
BLACK HARRY.
X
His Mark.
*****
"Black Harry’s" letter is a searing indictment of the "Master and Servant" laws and the systemic double standards of colonial Western Australia.
For instance the blatant hypocrisy in which the law punishes him for "coveting" (stealing) a sheep but does nothing to punish the white man for "coveting" and stealing an Aboriginal man’s wife at gunpoint.
Pic: Unidentified Aboriginal man working on a runway, Wyndham, Western Australia.
State Library of Victoria Date: [ca 1929]. ID: IE7214958.
