This picture was taken at the Wyndham Prison in the early 1900s. Wyndham is the oldest and northernmost town in the Kimberley area of Western Australia in 1886, it was established due to a gold rush at Halls Creek.
There are only speculations about the circumstances and story behind the picture as they are unknown. There are s several reasons they could have been arrested as a result of the various local laws that had been passed.
The Aboriginals were under a lot of restrictions from the enacted local news. The laws granted a legal basis for the arrest. Some laws forbade them from entering or being within a certain distance of named towns.
Among the speculations are that the Aboriginals could have been arrested for drinking or owning firearms that were illegal at that time. It’s also possible that they were being rounded up to be moved to reserve areas which had been created at the time and that these people were adamant about not moving. It could also have been a staged picture as a publicity stunt.
Each of these 19th-century prisoners in Australia wore an iron chain around his neck that weighed approximately 5 pounds – 2.3 kg. They wore the chains in the open with temperatures ranging from 35 and 45 degrees Celsius.
These chains were padlocked and connected to the next prisoner, making a chain of about nine or ten prisoners. This method was soon ditched for a new one.
The new way of chaining Aboriginal prisoners was to chain their ankles; the chain was then to pass inside the leg of their trousers and be supported by a heavy belt around the waist.
These prisoners would then be chained in pairs and overseen while they worked outside the cells. Some cells had metal hooks on the walls where prisoners we e chained for prison discipline.
Irrespective of the inhumane treatment the indigenous people of Australia went through, they weren’t sold into slavery. However, the colonial government made convict labour readily available to private individuals when there was a workforce shortage.
