Tag Archives: Blackbirding

Press Release for Launch of Hardwork: Australian South Sea Islanders Bibliography.

PROFESSOR CLIVE MOOREIt is hypocritical of the Morrison Government to assure Pacific Islands nations of Australia’s good intentions when the Australian Government has never dealt adequately with problems within its own Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) community. Two major issues have been caused by the Australian Government.

One dates back to Federation: the deportation of the majority of original Islanders in the 1900s as part of the White Australia Policy. This was an attempt to remove an entire ethnic group—to cleanse the new nation of its Pacific immigrants. The second issue is inadvertent but none the less damaging. It relates to public service initiatives aimed at assisting Indigenous Australians since the 1960s.

The three governments need to take into consideration that policies aimed at assisting First Australians have damaged the ASSI community. The 1967 referendum enabled the Commonwealth to take control of Indigenous affairs and count First Peoples in the national census. The creation of a modern bureaucracy to administer First Peoples’ affairs led to the alienation of ASSI, both at the level of actions by the public service and by definitions which left them outside schemes to provide special assistance.

While no one begrudges the overdue special assistance to Indigenous Australians, it has had inadvertent consequences in straining relationships at an individual, family, community and government level. Today’s ASSI are descended from immigrants with strong kin links to Indigenous Australians. ASSI were once considered an integral part of the Australian Black community. Yet today they are categorized as immigrants, ignoring the similar issues they face with their First Australian brothers and sisters, and their close kin relations with First Australians.

Hardwork, a bibliography of over 1,400 sources on Australian South Sea Islanders (ASSI), has been released as part of celebrations marking the first arrival of ASSI in NSW in 1847 and in Queensland in 1860. The Australian, Queensland and New South Wales Governments will find its useful in their considerations.

I have prepared the bibliography at a time when Indigenous Queenslanders in July 2019 were awarded $190 million as a settlement relating to Hans Pearson v State of Queensland in the Federal Court of Australia. The Queensland Government made a settlement and avoided a final Federal Court decision, although the Federal Court will supervise the financial distribution.

This was a class action to recover wages taken from Indigenous Queenslanders over several decades, which detailed the extraordinary and draconian conditions under which Indigenous Queenslanders were forced to live, and the Acts of Parliament which controlled their lives.

The original immigrant ASSI and their children were also bound by Acts of Parliament passed specifically to control their lives, and a 1901 Commonwealth Act aimed at total deportation of all ASSI. There are many similarities between the conditions faced by ASSI and Indigenous Queenslanders. This is not the place to argue the case; in a sense the whole Hardwork bibliography does that in outline.

Over recent years, there have been discussions between lawyers and ASSI associations over the possibility of mounting a class action. These discussions will continue, now in part fuelled by the July 2019 award by the Queensland Government. Hardwork documents many of the necessary sources. The misuse of the wages of dead Islanders held in the Pacific Islanders Fund and the possible misuse of Islander bank accounts—just as with similar funds belonging to Indigenous Queenslanders—may yet drive a class action against both the Queensland and Australian Governments.

Although most of the abuse was at the hands of the Queensland Government, the Australian Government is implicated because it used Queensland’s Fund to pay for the deportation process in the 1900s. ASSI intermarriage with both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples adds complexity, as could the involvement of various Pacific Islands’ nations in any class action.

This year NAIDOC Week had three themes: Voice, Treaty and Truth. The truth needs to be told about Indigenous Australians, but also about immigrant Pacific Islander descendants from the Blackbirding years. If I can nudge the governments into owning up to their past and their responsibilities to the present ASSI generation, all the better.

One basic suggestion is that it would useful if the historical sources could be collected in one place and housed in a library so that ASSI can have easy access. Digital access should be easy to accomplish to enhance the availability. As part of this, all ASSI oral history collections should be made available as part of building understanding within and of the community.

There is much more to do in acknowledging Australia’s past relations with the Pacific Islands. Pacific nations realise this, although all Australian governments remains shy of their responsibilities. My challenge to all three governments is to be honest and to help heal past damage if they truly want a good relationship with their Pacific neighbours.

Clive Moore
Emeritus Professor
School of historical and Philosophical Inquiry
The University of Queensland

Press Release for Launch of Hardwork: Australian South Sea Islanders Bibliography:

1. DOWNLOAD : a copy of this Press Release (100kb pdf file) HERE.

2. DOWNLOAD : your copy of: HARDWORK: AUSTRALIAN SOUTH SEA ISLANDER BIBLIOGRAPHY WITH A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE SUGAR INDUSTRY AND THE PACIFIC LABOUR TRADE (1.6mb pdf file)

Daily Mercury story on South Sea Islander slave labour

Daily Mercury story South Sea Islander slave labour

Daily Mercury: Mackay and District Australian South Sea Islander Association’s Starrett Vea Vea hopes for more commitments from government to his community.


10th Nov 2016 – The Daily Mercury, Mackay ran an interesting article entitled EXPOSED: Lost history of South Sea Islanders slave labour. The article talks about Blackbirding in Queensland, growing up in North Mackay and going to school with many descendants of those who were blackbirded.

State Member for Pumicestone Rick Williams has sponsored a petition calling for a formal apology to the South Sea Islander community for forcing up to 62,000 people into the indentured labour trade known as ‘Blackbirding’, which was akin to slavery.

The petition currently has only 110 signatures. Mr Williams needs to secure 10,000 by February to ensure it is read in Parliament.

We emplore everyone to sign the petition to help with this goal.

Go to the Queensland Parliament website, click on ‘petitions’ and go to ‘current e-petitions‘ and look for ‘Australian South Sea Islanders – formal apology’ in the list.

Click the name and then click ‘YES’ next to “Do you wish to sign this E-Petition?”

You can read the full Daily Mercury story South Sea Islander slave labour by CLICKING HERE

Admission Impossible

Admission Impossible is the true story of the behind-the-scenes political forces and the propaganda campaigns that attempted to populate Australia with “pure white” migrants.

Between 1865 – 1900 Pacific Islanders were kidnapped from their Island homes and brought to Australia for use as slave labour. They were rounded up and taken off to “they knew not where” in sailing ships.

The cruelty and savagery they experienced, at the hands of European recruiters, was appalling but after the first ones returned bringing back guns and steel tools, Islander life was transformed.

After that, a steady stream of men were sent over, not necessarily by choice, they were sent by the elders to bring these things back. So what had been a kidnapping service became a routine trade in human cargo.

Up until that period of time [c. 1890], they thought that only black men could do that hard manual outdoor labour; and the white man he had to work in the shade because his lily-white skin would get sunburnt.

Once they got to Queensland, as many as one third of them died. They worked from dawn, long before dawn in fact, until night with no food, little rest. They were beasts of burden. They were sold virtually on the dock, by the head, as commodities.

Pacific Islander ‘Kanakas’ are brought to Queensland as ‘a routine trade in human cargo’ to harvest cane. Reaction against them is instrumental in the formation of the White Australia Policy, which Phillip Adams discusses.

For much of the 20th century, successive Australian governments pursued a policy of deporting and barring entry to any race of people they considered undesirable, this was known as the White Australia policy.

In 1901 The Commonwealth of Australia becomes a self-governing member of the British Empire and the Immigration Restriction Act passed in Federal Parliament introduces a ‘dictation test’ with the prime purpose of excluding non-European migrants while the Pacific Islanders Labourers Act allowed for deportation of Pacific Islanders.

1903 Naturalisation Act excludes Asians and non-Europeans from the right to apply for naturalisation.

1904 Saw the deportation of Pacific Islanders from Queensland and the assisted immigration of Britons revived.

Daniel Boyd has become the first indigenous/ASSI man to win the Bulgari Art Award

daniel boyd

Daniel Boyd has become the first indigenous/ASSI man to win the Bulgari Art Award, one of Australia’s richest cultural accolades.

The Cairns-born, Sydney-based artist received the $80,000 award from Italian jewellery brand Bulgari for a work based on a 19th-century photograph from Vanuatu. The luxury brand was guided by the Art Gallery of NSW which, under the terms of its partnership with Bulgari, acquires the painting for $50,000.

Boyd receives that money, plus $30,000 for a residency in Italy. “It’s very humbling,” the artist said after Tuesday’s announcement. “I’m very grateful to be seen in the company of the previous winners,” Boyd added, referring to Michael Zavros and Jon Cattapan.

In the award-winning piece, Untitled 2014, Boyd bedecked his large, predominantly black painting with glistening droplets of transparent glue, which he refers to as “the cultural lens”. “My use of dots references the idea of the cultural lens and the fact that we all have different points of view,” he said.

Boyd’s current series of history paintings investigates the hidden and mysterious histories that took place during the colonisation of the Pacific Islands. Pentecost Island in Vanuatu was home to Boyd’s great-great-grandfather before he was brought to Queensland to work in the sugarcane fields – a practice known as “Blackbirding”.

Many South Sea islanders were brought to Australia to support this industry between 1863 and 1904, and worked for little or no pay. The 31-year-old artist, who left Cairns to study at the Canberra School of Art, also belongs to the Kudjla/Gangalu people from far north Queensland.

Professor Gracelyn Smallwood speaks out to Australian South Sea Islanders

Professor Gracelyn Smallwood

Professor Gracelyn Smallwood speaks out to Australian South Sea Islanders with her talk on ‘Community Cohesion and Activism’ at this year’s Wantok 2013 National Forum.

As a surviving descendant of the Blackbirding trade in Australia between 1863 and 1908, Professor Smallwood will be presenting a talk on ‘Community Cohesion and Activism’ at this years Wantok 2013 Australian South Sea Islanders National Forum in her capacity as leader of the Historical Advisory Panel to the ASSI.PJ interim national body.

Smallwood says… “When people in general don’t understand the history of Slavery they internalise their pain and take it out on the very people that are trying to promote unity, justice and reparation”. She looks forward to presenting at Wantok 2013 and answering any questions.

Emelda Davis says… “The ASSI-PJ board are humbled that Professor Smallwood is a volunteer advisor to the interim national body with her high range of qualifications. We look forward to Gracelyn’s presentation and continued work with our organisation.”

As well as a being scholar in residence at Drexel University Philadelphia USA, Gracelyn has lectured in cross-cultural studies at the East-West Centre in Hawaii and has also lectured at Universities in the West Indies comparing the philosophy of the late Marcus Garvey, Civil Rights Movement of the world with that of the South Sea Islander (Kanaka Slavery in Australia). Continue reading →