Dost Mahomet (1873 – 1909), sometimes spelt Dost Mohammad, was a Baloch "Afghan" cameleer in Australia. He used his animals to transport goods between the ports and remote inland mining and pastoral settlements of the Goldfields, Pilbara and Murchison regions of Western Australia at the end of the 19th century, and owned many camels and property at Port Hedland. He was married to the Prussian-Australian Annie Grigo and they had six children. Dost became a man of wealth and standing in the community, but both he and Annie met violent deaths.
Early life
Dost Mahomet was born in about 1873 in Lal Bhaker, in Baluchistan.
In 1893, Dost disembarked at the port of Fremantle, Western Australia with 25 camels. He trekked inland with them to Coolgardie seeking work at the new gold diggings. In his early years in the colony, Dost attended night classes at Perth Boys High School to learn English, in which he became very proficient.
Camel business
Gold was first discovered in Coolgardie in 1892, beginning the famous Coolgardie-Kalgoorlie gold rush for surface gold. Camel transport operators, mostly from South Asia and known as the "Afghans", quickly established themselves here, many living in a tent settlement at the end of Coolgardie Street. Demand for transport was high and Dost acquired more camels and found men to work for him.
Over the next decade, Dost carried goods to remote settlements further north including Laverton, Wiluna, Cue, Port Hedland and Marble Bar. He had drays built to help in haulage. Pastoral stations had been edging northwards following reports from exploring expeditions led by John and Alexander Forrest, Lawrence Wells, David Lindsay and John Wedge. Many of these expeditions relied on some camel transport. De Gray, Mundabullaangana, Pardoo, Tabba Tabba and Wallareenya were all pastoral stations, well established before Port Hedland became a gazetted town in 1896. Camels were still to be seen loaded with wool bales loping between some of these stations and the rail head until the mid nineteen thirties.
Mining operations in the Pilbara preceded those at Coolgardie with gold, tin, lead, zinc, tantalite, antimony and bismuth being among the minerals chipped from the Pilbara rocks and sands during this period. The miners needed equipment, large and small. Small stores and hotels alongside prospecting sites retailed food, drink, clothing and other supplies which were brought in by camels as well as teams of horses and bullocks and, eventually, by rail from the Whim Creek wharves. Five years after the shifting of the port to Port Hedland, a new rail link was made to Marble Bar.
Dost set up a permanent base at Port Hedland in 1906, servicing the Pilbara region. Although his older brother Jorak had preceded Dost to Western Australia, it was Dost who became the leading figure among the cameleers in the north-west. Other relatives worked in the area, along with other cameleers from northern British India and present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. Many made journeys back and forth between Western Australia, South Australia and their birthplaces.
European cameleers also worked in the Pilbara, usually hitching wagons behind camel teams, unlike the method of loading individual camels traditionally used by Baloch and Afghan cameleers.
In 1908, not long after Dost settled in Port Hedland, storekeepers at Marble Bar began arranging contracts with some of the camel operators to have their goods transported from the Port Hedland wharves. Contract rates were lower than the established going rates, and tensions flared. Non-contractors refused to cart for the storekeepers and went on strike, rallying against non-union rates. 250 camels at 32-Mile Well were unhobbled and scattered into the scrub and camel loads were flung to the ground. The dispute was eventually settled after police and officials from both Perth and the local area intervened. Troubles resurfaced periodically – three years later agreement was reached to almost double cartage rates, but it had been a period of financial stress to the cameleers.
An Australian family
In Coolgardie, Dost Mahomet formed a lasting relationship with Annie Charlotte Grigo, whom he met when she was working at a bakery run by her father, Carl Grigo. Annie's family had migrated from Peak Downs in Queensland. Annie's parents were European-born – her mother in Horsens, Denmark, her father in Mitchulan, Prussia.