<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/10/sydney-sugar-industry-slave-trade-pacific-islanders-ntwnfb>
"Emelda Davis is a former Sydney city councillor, community advocate and
second-generation descendant of blackbirded South Sea Islanders. Otherwise
known as enslaved people.
Australia has often sought to reassure itself that at least the nation is
untainted, unlike Britain and the US, by a heinous history of slavery. But “the
evidence of the Australian slave trade through blackbirding is everywhere – it
hides in plain sight”, Davis says.
She has written the foreword for a new book by Ryan Butta,
Blackbirding, A
reckoning with the Australian slave trade. The book’s release aligned with the
landmark June 2026 bilateral Nakamal agreement between Australia and Vanuatu,
in which Australia formally acknowledged, for the first time, the legacies of
blackbirding.
“Blackbirding is a term that comes directly from the African slave trade, then
into the West Indies and the US,” Butta says. “It’s a term that’s sort of been
hidden behind [in Australia] and a lot of people go, ‘Oh, it was something that
just happened up in a small part of Queensland to do with sugar cane.’ But most
of Australia has had no concept of the scale of it.”
Between 1860 and 1906 up to 62,000 Pacific Islanders were shipped to Australia
to work primarily in sugar cane and cotton farming. They also worked on the
Sydney docks and in other maritime industries, and as labourers in civic
projects.
Butta writes: “The Pacific Islanders came, they died, they were buried like
dogs and more were sent for.”
But one of the most troubling things he documents is that remains of Pacific
Islanders continue to be held in Australian museums and collections to this
day."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
