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SADADEEN, CHARLIE (c1870–?), cameleer, was the first Afghan, from today’s Pakistan, to make his home
in Alice Springs. His name is an Anglicised attempt in the case of Sadadeen and was that which came to prevail
over another phonetic attempt, Sad-Ud-Din. (Even this was not truly phonetic, as the first part of his name was
pronounced Sa[r]id, with the ‘i’ almost silent.) The name ‘Charlie’ was probably a play on Sa[r]id. Whatever the
case, Charlie Sadadeen was the name that appeared in official correspondence in the early decades of the twentieth
century.
He was born in the Baluchistan area of India. His date of birth is not known, but it was probably about 1870.
As with all of his family and countrymen, he became a strict Muslim.
Although nothing is known about his early life, or his early experiences upon arrival in Australia, it is likely that
he obtained work at Oodnadatta at about the time of completion of the railway in 1890. Certainly, he was involved
in work with camel teams by 1902. He was employed by the Wallis Brothers, who had stores at Oodnadatta and
Alice Springs and, for a time, a contract to cart stores to Arltunga goldfield, to the east of Alice Springs.
Over many years, he worked for Wallis and Company, later known as Wallis Fogarty. He was extremely reliable
and hard working and eventually established his home in Alice Springs, not far from the city’s present Civic Centre.
This move eventually led to other Afghans moving to Alice Springs, where they formed a community within the
community, and where Charlie Sadadeen was a key leader in their worship of the Koran at a small mosque. (The
only indications of their community’s locality are the date alms near the city’s Civic Centre; they were brought to
Alice Springs from the Afghan community plot at Oodnadatta by Walter Smith, cameleer employed by Charlie
Sadadeen, in about 1916.)
Charlie Sadadeen’s camelherd, of about 60 animals, was built up as a result of his work for Wallis and Company.
He used the area of coolibahs and claypans on the east side of Alice Springs as his holding area, as did Wallis and
Company, who usually had a similar number of camels present. This led to the area being referred to as Sadadeen
Swamp and the nearby hills as the Sadadeen Range—and later as Sadadeen subdivision and electorate, with
Sadadeen Secondary College also commemorating him.
Sadadeen’s work involved him in taking loading from Oodnadatta, the railhead from 1890 to 1929, to Alice
Springs and beyond, as far as Newcastle Waters on occasions. Sometimes he had loading which involved travel
as far south as Marree and then north-east up the Birdsville Track, at other times from Oodnadatta to Arltunga
goldfield, and on yet other occasions to various pastoral properties. As with other Afghans he was prepared to work
very long hours, from ‘Afghan daylight’ (much earlier than dawn) to sundown or later if needs be to complete
each stage of travel. His ability to learn English quickly and well, and his great reliability, meant that for many
years—decades in fact—he was the outstanding cameleer working out of Alice Springs. He had responsibility not
only for keeping the camels and their equipment in good condition, but also for the other cameleers hired by Wallis
and Company for use in the Central Australian region. Thus Walter Smith, who was hired in 1914, found that he
was ‘taught the ropes’ by Sadadeen. He learned how to work camels, correctly balancing their loading, making and
repairing equipment, breaking young camels in to their role as team-camels, doctoring them, and so on. It was hard
work and Sadadeen was a hard taskmaster, on occasions leaving the then young Walter Smith alone with a billy
of water while he lay suffering from a migraine; maintaining his reputation for reliability prevailed over concern
for the young cameleer.
Sadadeen was keenly aware that vegetable foods were important in maintaining good health, particularly
avoiding the form of scurvy known as ‘Barcoo rot’. He collected native vegetable foods such as munyeroo, bush
bananas and saltbush leaf tips and added these to purchased or homegrown vegetables. One of his gardens was in
Alice Springs and another at a claypan and creek area some thirty kilometres south of the town. The town garden
was also used to grow poppies, from which opium was made—an illegal activity but of such limited scale that
no one bothered to tell Sergeant Stott of the police force; he, in fact, admired the flowers and remained innocent
about their use.
Although strong prejudice against Afghans existed in other centres, in Alice Springs the small Afghan
community of the first few decades of the twentieth century generally rubbed along well with the other inhabitants.
This was in part due to the smallness of the entire Central Australian community, which necessitated co-operation
in many things, but largely because the Afghans knew that their reliability made them more competitive than
most people from other races who became cameleers. Sadadeen instilled this need to be considered reliable when
carrying loading to remote areas, until he knew that the men who led his and Wallis and Company camel teams
could be entirely depended upon.
As he grew older, he focused more on the Oodnadatta to Alice Springs route, directing the younger men on the
long travels north and northeast of Alice Springs. The building of the railway to Alice Springs, completed in 1929,
coinciding as it did with the increased use of motor vehicles and the Great Depression, meant that the days of the
old-style camel teams were numbered. The latter stages of Charlie Sadadeen’s life, and whether he had a family or
not, are not known. He died in Alice Springs and is buried in the Muslim section of Alice Springs cemetery.
Sadadeen is representative of the many Afghans who came to Australia and assisted in the early post-European
years of exploration and settlement. It is fitting that this first Afghan to make Alice Springs his home is recognised
in the names of major physical and cultural features of the town and its surrounds.