Australian South Sea Islanders

The ASSI Kommunity played a significant role in the development of Australia’s sugar and cotton industries. Between 1863 and 1904, an estimated 63,000 Islanders were brought to Australia to labour on sugar-cane and cotton farms in Queensland and northern New South Wales. [1] These labourers were called ‘Kanakas’ (a Hawaiian word meaning ‘man’) and their recruitment often involved forced removal from their homes. This practice of kidnapping labour was known as ‘blackbirding’ (‘blackbird’ was another word for slave). They came from more than 80 Pacific Islands, including Vanuatu (then called the ‘New Hebrides’) and the Solomon Islands, and to a lesser extent, from New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati and Tuvalu. Most were young men and boys aged from 9 to 30 years. There were women and girls. When the first Islanders were brought to Queensland in the early 1860s, there were no laws or labour contracts to protect them from the most extreme kinds of exploitation by their employers. Many were abducted then paid nothing for their labour and were effectively treated as slaves. Later in the 1860s, a law was passed to regulate labour trafficking into Queensland and establish an indentured (contract) labour system. Under this system, Islanders signed three year contracts and were paid a meagre wage. Even under the indentured labour system Islanders continued to be exploited. In line with the White Australia policy, most remaining South Sea Islanders were deported in the early 1900s – the only victims of mass deportation in Australian history. Those able to stay continued to suffer discrimination by law. They could not become citizens or purchase liquor, and those who associated with Aboriginal people were subjected to the same discriminatory and punitive laws as those applied to Indigenous Queenslanders. The Commission’s 1992 report, The Call for Recognition: A Report on the Situation of Australian South Sea Islanders, called on the Commonwealth Government to recognise the community as a unique minority group which is severely disadvantaged by racial discrimination. In 1994, the Commonwealth Government formally recognised Australian South Sea Islanders as a distinct community and in 2000 the Queensland Government followed suit. Source: HREOC. Erace Australian South Sea Islanders A century of race discrimination under Australian law The role of South Sea Islanders in Australia’s economic development