Cossack: Why Did a Shallow Harbour Leave an Archaeological Town?

Cossack stands on Butchers Inlet at the mouth of the Harding River on Western Australia’s Pilbara coast, about 35 kilometres from Karratha, on the traditional lands of the Ngarluma people. Colonial settlers landed there in 1863. The settlement was first called Tien Tsin and renamed Cossack in 1871. It soon became a port for the north-west and a base for Western Australian pearling before Broome rose to prominence.

The harbour’s strength and weakness came from the same water. Its shallow inlet and large tides suited small pearling vessels, yet made access difficult for deeper-draught shipping. By the late nineteenth century, the pearling fleet was moving to Broome. When a jetty was established at Point Samson, regional shipping also bypassed Cossack. The permanent population had fallen to 164 by 1901, and the townsite was largely abandoned by the mid-twentieth century.

What remains is more than a group of handsome stone buildings. Butchers Inlet still contains wrecks, chain piles, stone ballast and evidence of old maritime works, while camps and divided cemetery areas survive archaeologically around the town. These traces show that pearling relied on European, Asian and Aboriginal labour, including Aboriginal and South-East Asian people drawn into the industry through coercion. A multicultural streetscape should not hide unequal power.

Cossack matters, then, for more than the dramatic story of a boomtown becoming a ghost town. It shows how infrastructure and labour relations can become obsolete together while remaining visible in the ground. Once the harbour no longer suited ships, routes and investment, commerce moved quickly. The archaeological townsite keeps the people, materials and waterways used by the old industry within the same local history.

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