Pearling in Western Australia

Pearling in Western Australia existed well before European settlement. Coastal dwelling Aborigines had collected and traded pearl shell as well as trepang and tortoise with fisherman from Sulawesi for possibly hundreds of years. After settlement the Aborigines were used as slave labour in the emerging commercial industry.Pearling centred first around Nickol Bay and Exmouth Gulf and then around Broome to become the largest in the world by 1910. The farming of cultured pearls remains an important part of the Kimberley economy, worth $67 million in 2014 and is the second largest fisheries industry in WA after rock lobster.

In Australia, the harvesting of pearl shell began millennia ago with the Aborigines. They did not dive but were so successful in harvesting the shell that the ‘patterns of distribution’ or trade in the shell that they harvested have been traced throughout many parts of the continent. They also had enough surplus to engage in an overseas trade. This phase began with the visits of the Makassan trepangers to the northern coasts in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The trade resulted in the exchange of trepang, turtles and pearl shell for tobacco, rice and axes. There was also violence, including the abduction of men and women. As a result, both groups were often armed and the Aborigines learnt to treat any newcomers with suspicion. From a European perspective, William Dampier and then the French explorers saw (Pinctada albina) at Shark Bay and Dampier, Stokes, Grey and F.T Gregory found (Pinctada maxima) on the north-west coast. While anchored at Nickol Bay, waiting for him to return from his explorations, Gregory’s crew obtained a quantity of shell and a good pearl. While Gregory reported on this in his widely read journals and accounts, it appears that others were more secretive. Some visiting whalers, for example, also knew of the shell, having either harvested shell themselves, or having acquired it in trade with the Aborigines. Recorded as being on the coast in great numbers after the 1840s, they also frequented areas where shell is found, including Nickol Bay and Shark Bay. Pragmatic, and keen to guard any potential lucrative return, they kept few historical records. North-west shell was found on the wreck of the American whaling barque Cervantes that was lost while sealing about 120 nautical miles north of Fremantle in 1844, for example.

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