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As the pearling industry was being developed in Australia, in the
Philippines, political events challenged the Spanish colonial
authority. What began as a reform movement led to the Philippine
revolution in 1896, compelling some ‘natives’, mostly entrepreneurs
and sojourners, to move abroad, including Australia.
By 1884, a newly arrived Catholic priest found 40 Filipinos living
in Thursday Island in Australia. “Four hundred Catholics from
Manila” were scattered among various islands, with the
best-documented and longest-lasting community being in Horn Island,
south of Thursday Island.
Filipinos were referred to as ‘Manilamen’, ‘Manillamen,’ or simply
‘Manillas,’ despite not necessarily originating from the capital,
Manila. In the late 1880s Northern Australia, Manilamen at times
found themselves categorized as ‘Malay’, a generic term referring to
Southeast Asians such as those from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore,
Thailand, and East Timor.
“I can remember all the Filipino people; all the old men
worked in the bakery, my grandfather’s bakery. Some of them
lived across the bay in Fishermen’s Bend.”
- Evelyn Masuda
Manilamen descendant
Manilamen
were not just seafarers but labor
migrants who were part of a global working class.
They worked onboard vessels in the maritime world
that linked the Philippines to Asia, Africa, the Americas,
Australia, and Oceania. Some stayed only temporarily
for work while others found themselves settling
in a new territory.
Manila divers in Sunday attire, circa late 1890s or early 1900s
Photo courtesy of State Library of Western Australia (slaw_b1926943_1).
The Pearling Industry
The Revolutionary Transients
