PACIFIC ISLAND LABOURERS IN QUEENSLAND
Nomu lako au na rarawa kina
Cava beka ko a mai cakava
Oh my, Oh my, Happy visitor
Your leaving will sadden me
Why did you come in the first place …
Nation building requires people. To advance the prosperity of the colony of Queensland, labour was required to clear and till the land. South Sea Islanders served the purpose. They came in their thousands to hoe and till the land. The sugar cane grew like Topsy, the mills rumbled and tumbled and sugar production soared. Sixty odd thousand islanders came to Queensland as guest workers. Many of them were re-engagements, happy to return to the fields of Queensland to get more trade goods.
To meet this demand for labour, a specialised passenger service was established. Sailing sloops known as labour vessels regularly left the regional ports of Queensland like Maryborough, Bundaberg, Townsville, and Dungeness for the South Sea Islands. On their outwards passage, they carried islanders back to their islands, who had completed their tour of labour. There were 816 outward-bound journeys with returnees for their home islands and 784 inward journeys with recruits; for the period 1868 to 1905, a total of 1600 journeys were recorded.
The development of the labour trade in the South Sea Islands began to alarm certain sections of the UK and colonial communities. By the time the labour trade had established itself, there was a substantial British missionary presence in the South Pacific. The missionaries motivated by Christian principles opposed this trade and lobbied the UK government to have it banned. The UK Government agreed to intervene but only to control and regulate the trade, not to ban it outright. As a consequence, the Imperial Kidnapping Acts of 1872 and 1875 were enacted. These Acts created several statutory offences which were enforced by the Royal Navy.
The Royal Navy, Australian Station, adopted a policy of lethal force in the South Seas. With their four men-of-war and five armed schooners, the Royal Navy had more than an adequate platform from which to engage blackbirding vessels and predatory islanders. On occasion, the Navy shelled villages and landed armed parties of marines and sailors, who were not only instructed to capture suspects but to carry out acts of war against villagers by burning their dwellings, destroying their canoes, chopping down coconut trees and other fruit trees as well as destroying gardens.
Eleven cases of kidnapping were brought before the courts. The cases in which the Crown failed to obtain a conviction for kidnapping were: Active, May Queen, Jessie Kelley, Forest King (Owners), Ethel (Loutit), Stanley and Voss. Thirty-four shipwrecks were recorded. In the majority of cases, the crew and passengers (recruits/returnees) were saved. From thirty-four wrecks, a total of 279 crew and passengers lost their lives, presumably by drowning. Furthermore, on 4 occasions, the wrecks were plundered by the indigenous natives domiciled at the place of the wreck.
On the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, the South Sea Islander labour trade came to an end, and the exodus began for the many islanders still on the cane fields of Queensland. Some went willing, like the Israelites of old, but some clung to Pharaoh’s apron strings, unwilling to return to their island paradise.
KANAKA BOATS IS A-COMIN’ PACIFIC ISLAND LABOURERS IN QUEENSLAND by Paul Dillon, ISBN: 978-0-9946381-6-8, Softcover, 243 pp, Perfect bound to A4 size (210 x 297mm) $29.90
This book is currently out of print. In the near future an abridged edition will be published and available Connor Court Publishing, Brisbane.
Dillons Books 