Neck Chains & Brutality: How Australia Turned Aboriginal Men into Slave Labor

A group of aboriginal men in neck chains in Australia around 1890, when incarceration was used to weaken the indigenous population


While the world pictures slavery in America’s South, Australia was shackling Aboriginal men and boys with neck chains and forcing them into hard labor under the blazing outback sun. From the 1800s well into the 20th century, white colonists and law enforcement routinely:

  • Chained groups of Indigenous people together by the neck like animals

  • Marched them hundreds of miles to prison camps or pastoral stations

  • Forced them into unpaid, back-breaking work—cattle mustering, mining, infrastructure—under threat of violence or death

This wasn’t “penal labor”—it was state-sanctioned slavery, designed to dispossess, control, and break Aboriginal communities. Many never returned home.

(Source: The Sun - Aboriginal Slaves in Chains)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holy Spit: How Ultra-Orthodox Jews Are Attacking Christians in Jerusalem—And Israel Looks the Other Way

Image
Christian pilgrims praying along Jerusalem's Via Dolorosa are facing a new form of harassment:   getting spit on by ultra-Orthodox Jews   while Israeli police watch passively. Videos show men in black hats deliberately targeting clergy and tourists—a practice so common that local priests now call it   "the spitting epidemic."   The attacks stem from a radical interpretation of Jewish purity laws that views Christians as   "idolaters,"   but critics say Israel's government tolerates it as political payback to far-right coalition partners. While Netanyahu condemns antisemitism worldwide, his administration has   failed to prosecute a single spitter —even after Catholic leaders begged for protection. The message? In today's Jerusalem, even sacred spaces aren't safe from hate crimes with state approval. (Source:  AP News - Jewish Spitting on Christians in Jerusalem )
Read more

A Mother and Daughter, a Church, and a Sniper: The Unforgivable Killing That Shook Gaza’s Christians

Image
December 2023: Inside Gaza’s   last standing Catholic church , an Israeli sniper’s bullet cut through the courtyard— killing a mother and daughter   who had sought sanctuary from bombs. Nahida and Samar Anton, shot while walking to the convent bathroom, joined the   20,000+ Palestinian dead , but their deaths stung differently. This wasn’t collateral damage; it was   sacrilege with a scope . The UK’s Cardinal Vincent Nichols called it   "a senseless slaughter in God’s house,"   while Israel’s military offered its usual   "we’re investigating" —a phrase Gazans know means   "we’ll never answer." For Gaza’s   1,000 remaining Christians , the message was clear:   No sanctuary, no mercy, no exceptions.   Even in a church, even as they prayed, death had a standing invitation. (Source:  The Guardian - Gaza Church Killings )
Read more

Settlers Run Wild: When Armed Israeli Civilians Attack Palestinians—And Even the IDF Looks Helpless

Image
In the West Bank's latest descent into lawlessness, Israeli settlers went on a violent rampage—but this time, even Israeli military vehicles weren't safe from their rage. Armed civilian militias torched Palestinian homes, shot at farmers, and then turned their guns on IDF troops who dared to intervene. The Israeli government's response? A collective shrug, despite soldiers reporting injuries from settler gunfire. This isn't random violence—it's systematic ethnic cleansing with a green light from Netanyahu's far-right cabinet. While the world watches Gaza, settlers are creating "facts on the ground" by making Palestinian life impossible. The IDF, caught between protecting civilians and obeying pro-settler politicians, increasingly looks like a spectator to its citizens' war crimes. (Source:  PBS NewsHour - Settler Attacks in West Bank )
Read more