Settlers in the New Colony of Australia were desperate for labor and early settlers relied on convicted and neglected children, their own and other people. From 1870's aboriginal children were widely unemployed in a complex wed of contract and apprenticeship Law, in the pastoral and pearling industries in the North West.
Often kidnapped by Black-birders, these children received no wages and had no opportunity to attend school. Settlers, Servants and Slaves also show how concern over the problem of children of mixed descent of the 19th century was to provide the rational for the infamous 20th century 'solution' - namely the forced removal of indigenous children from their parents and the establishment of " Aboriginal Reserves".
Force Labour or Slavery - Men were regularly sent on twelve months contracts, often on cattle ranches. Women were frequently dispatched to white homes as domestic servants, refusal to go incurred punishment or banishment to a Penal Island. From 1904 the wages they earned went to local Police "Protectors" who were supposed to hand a fraction to the workers as "Pocket Money" and place the rest in trust funds.
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