Innumerable Manilamen arrived in Western Australia from the late 1860s, and were recruited to work as pearl divers in Cossack and later in Broome in the Northwest and in the Torres Strait.

In Broome, they also worked as crew, shell openers, sorters, and captains, also becoming fishermen, woodcutters, kitchen hands, proprietors or boatmen. By 1901, 279 Filipinos were working in the pearling industry in Broome, along with Koepangers and other Malays.

The growth in the pearling industry also hastened the development of Thursday Island. By 1874, Filipinos and Pacific Islanders were already working in the industry in Torres Strait with indentured labor replacing individual agreements. In August 1899, the steamship Changsa arrived in Thursday Island with 72 Filipinos onboard under private agreement to work in the pearling trade.

In the last years of the 19th century, Thursday Island was the centre of pearl shelling and other maritime industries, and Filipinos were working mainly as divers and trepangers.