The Cooperative Movement

A cooperative mining company, Northern Development and Mining (or NODOM) was established at the end of 1951. The success of the mining venture led the government to withdraw its opposition to the movement. By 1952, upward of 700 people were involved in the independent mining community, and the local pastoral industry was facing even greater labour shortage than during the strike. As a result, a Committee of Inquiry was appointed by the government to investigate the circumstances in which marrngu were leaving the stations.

Among those who left stations at this time was a dynamic woman called Daisy Bindi, who led almost a hundred people into the cooperative from Roy Hill station in early 1952, after their negotiations with station management had failed to achieve the improvements in wages and conditions they were seeking.

Obtaining land had been a primary objective of the strike and this was achieved with the purchase of Yandeyarra station from the profits the group had made from mining. Government approval of the movement provided de facto recognition of the right for Aboriginal people to control their own affairs.

Idealistic men and women, including writers and artists, travelled to the Pilbara from other parts of Australia, to be a part of this exciting social experiment. They included the artist Sam Fullbrook who built himself a studio at the Group’s tanto-Columbite camp at the Pilgangoora Bore. At a time when Aboriginal administrations across Australia were planning policy for the incorporation of Aboriginal people into mainstream Australian society, these men and women were, to some extent at least, being incorporated into an Aboriginal social organisation.

Education was a major objective of the group. Most had had no formal schooling, and they saw literacy as vital if they were to achieve full independence. This Western Australian Department of Education report documents the community’s strong desire for a school and strongly recommends that one be provided.

When NODOM went into liquidation, the group was unable to market its minerals or buy food. Many marrngu left the group. Some remained, however, surviving through what became known as the starvation time. This is remembered by Munda Woodman, who was a child at the time.

This photograph shows Mitchell, Middleton and other members of the group with a truck that was purchased by the Department for the Pilbara Native Society. Middleton’s willingness to assist marrngu as a group rather than on an individual or nuclear family basis is a measure of the authority they had established. The Department went to considerable cost, purchasing not only this vehicle but mining equipment and Riverdale Station for the Society.

While Middleton was setting up the Pilbara Native Society, McLeod was in Perth arranging for the establishment of another company, called Pindan Pty Ltd, to replace NODOM. When McLeod returned to the Pilbara in May 1955, after nine months’ absence, Middleton rushed north to persuade marrngu to stick with the Pilbara Native Society. At a historic meeting at the Bore Camp, Middleton and McLeod vied with one another for the right to manage the group’s affairs.

The group and the government had established a good working relationship in the early years of the 1950s, but this relationship deteriorated badly in the latter half of the decade. This photograph shows Pindan men in Perth to attend court for a libel case they took against the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Commissioner for Native Welfare Middleton.

Autonomy and self-reliance remained a keynote of the group’s ideals.

In 1958 Pindan returned to mining, embarking on a joint manganese mining project with Albert Sims and Co, through a syndicate company called Simdan. However, discontent within Pindan led to upheaval in the company’s affairs and to McLeod’s resignation in 1959. Pindan became a wholly Aboriginal company. This photograph of the Pindan shareholders with their wives was taken by the anthropologist John Wilson.