Australian Dictionary of Biography

Ernie Mitchell, Port Hedland, 1960

Courtesy John and Katrin Wilson

Putangaja Ernie Mitchell (c. 1900–1970), activist and community leader, was born in the early 1900s near Strelley station, south-east of Port Hedland, Western Australia. His father, also named Putangaja (known as Charlie), and mother, Wirrkinya (Minnie), were Nyamal speakers. He inherited the Warinypina (eaglehawk) totem, as well as customary Country connections around Strelley, from his father.

During the first half of his life Mitchell worked on pastoral stations in the Pilbara region, such as Tabba Tabba, Wallareenya, Strelley, Carlindie, and Warralong, undertaking stockwork, horse-breaking, and maintenance jobs. He developed enduring friendships with some of his non-Aboriginal employers and appears to have been generally well respected. In the mid-twentieth century he emerged as a key leader of the Pindan group, an independent Aboriginal collective formed by workers who did not return to their stations after the 1946 Pilbara pastoral workers strike coordinated by the Nyamal man Clancy McKenna (also known as Warntupungkarna) and the Nyangumarta man Dooley Binbin (also known as Winyirin or Yurlpuly). Initially formed to meet the strikers’ subsistence needs, the Pindan group evolved into a communal movement that envisaged, and undertook, collective economic and political activity independent of the strictures of the Western Australian Native Administration Act 1936 and the control the laws gave to pastoralists, police, and protectors.

Mitchell had played a lesser role than McKenna and Binbin in the years leading up to the 1946 protest, but this changed after the strike. Government bureaucrats who visited the strikers’ base at Twelve Mile, Port Hedland, identified him as a key character, suggesting that without his influence, and that of a couple of others, the group would have returned to work.

As a core member of the Pindan leaders (1946–60), later known as directors, Mitchell was instrumental in developing and coordinating a sophisticated communal labour and economic system. The group’s many camps, located to the east and south-east of Port Hedland, were self-governing. They had camp bosses, gangs with assigned tasks and responsible gang bosses, and regular, often daily, meetings to manage communal affairs. The group established a distribution system, collecting saleable items, initially mainly fish, grass seeds, and pearl shell, and delivering subsistence goods such as tea, flour, tobacco, soap, and clothing. Manual alluvial mining (yandying) for tin, wolfram, and other metals and minerals progressively grew to dominate their economic activity. Some Aboriginal families had been yandying since the first arrival of non-Aboriginal people. Mitchell and his fellow directors maintained these economic activities for many years, but due to discriminatory legal limitations, were unable to engage in formal processes of commerce such as owning tenements or leases and establishing companies. This increased the group’s reliance on, and the influence of, their main non-Aboriginal collaborator, Don McLeod. He was pivotal as they scaled up and formalised their mining activities in a company, Pindan Pty Ltd, with leases, joint-venture partners, and its own plant and equipment.

Mitchell filled a range of roles in Pindan over the years. He coordinated company matters from various bases near Port Hedland (Twelve Mile, Two Mile, and One Mile); served as camp boss at Kajarinya (about 31 miles [50 km] to the east) and Pilgangoora (about 62 miles [100 km] to the south); ran the supply truck around the camps; and engaged with external parties including lawyers, mining venture partners, and government officials, at times travelling to Perth on company business. A significant law carrier and ceremonial leader, he also coordinated ceremonial activity at Kajarinya and became involved in negotiations, both overt and ngulu (secret/sacred). These activities were critical to the evolution of traditions necessary to facilitate the collective living, working, and sharing practices of the disparate language groups involved in the protest movement.

In 1959–60 Mitchell’s views and influence were instrumental in the split that divided the Pindan group, sometimes described as the ‘second strike’ (Kurtiri Charlie Coppin 2015). The division arose from the desire for independence from external influence, specifically from McLeod. McLeod had played a key role in the original strike and was an important advisor to the group. Mitchell and his primary offsider or deputy, Peter Coppin, disagreed with McLeod on several principles that were integral to the functioning of the collective. One concerned communal finance: McLeod, in line with his communist ideals, advocated economic collectivism; Mitchell and Coppin, and those they represented, wanted individual control over the money they earned. As Coppin later noted: ‘we wanted the money in our own pockets, not to have to ask McLeod like before with Welfare, or the station bosses’ (Peter Coppin 2004). Another issue related to engagement with government and other external parties. Mitchell and Coppin perceived McLeod’s virulent distrust of non-Aboriginal parties as inhibiting their collective ambitions. Ultimately, after a series of large group meetings, the Pindan mob split into two: Mitchell led one group and McLeod led the other.

After developing housing at Two Mile, Port Hedland, and working out of some of the Pindan camps, Mitchell led his group to establish a community out of town, initially at Wajakayinya and later at Yandeyarra, 93 miles (150 km) south of Port Hedland. They called themselves Mugarinya. The Martu Wangka man Minyjun Jacob Oberdoo and others remained with McLeod, adopted the name Nomads, and established communities at Strelley and Warralong. Despite the split, these groups maintained strong social, ceremonial, and religious ties.

Communal discussion remained a central feature of the complex governance system Mitchell helped to develop at Yandeyarra. As well as regular scheduled meetings, everyone had the ability to call impromptu meetings by ringing a big bell if they thought there was an issue to be addressed. Most decision-making was collective, everyone had a job, and responsibilities for areas of activity were fairly allocated. In addition, there were known consequences for misbehaviour, such as hard labour (supervised by Elders and senior people) for breaches or indiscretions. While personal income was distributed, contributions were expected for communal purposes, including ceremonial activity. This was achieved by senior people literally holding out a hat as people collected their money from the office on payday. For many years, the only non-Aboriginal residents at Yandeyarra were a couple who ran the school.

An independent and strategic thinker, Mitchell dealt with all people equally, argued intensively but not aggressively, and always sought to build consensus. As a young man he had married the Ngarla woman Smiler Wanayiningu Mantawawa. In about 1943 he married the Pijikarli Nyangumarta woman Kakaya Lucy and together they had two daughters, Doris (1950–) and Margaret (1956–1992). He married his third wife, Queenie Kapuny, in the 1960s. His strong sense of responsibility to and for the Pindan group, later the Mugarinya group, kept him busy and often travelling, but he was still an engaged and loving father.

During a trip to the Marble Bar area in 1970, Mitchell suffered a stroke. Flown to Port Hedland for treatment, he died at the district hospital there on 22 May 1970. On the day of his funeral a mile-long cavalcade of mourners—‘from the Administrator of the North West to those friends who enjoyed a beer with him at the local hotel’ (News Letter 1971, 15)—turned out to pay their final respects. Having exerted enormous influence in Aboriginal collective action, he is remembered as an impressive, restrained, and collaborative leader with a profound sense of responsibility for family, kin, and community. His efforts helped Aboriginal people liberate themselves from the oppressive social, political, and economic regime that characterised Aboriginal affairs in the mid-twentieth century in Western Australia and led to its eventual abandonment. In 2009 his eldest daughter, Doris Eaton, was named Female Elder of the Year by the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee.

Jodi Neale and Ernie’s daughter, Doris Eaton, collaborated to produce this biography. Since 2004 Jodi, who is of Aboriginal and Irish descent, has worked with Doris and Nyamal people, among others, around Port Hedland and the Pilbara region.