The Australian South Sea Islander community made a significant contribution to Australia's sugar and cotton industries' development.
Between 1863 and 1904, an estimated 55,000 to 62,500 Islanders were brought to Australia for labour on sugarcane and cotton farms in Queensland and northern New South Wales.
Known as 'Kanakas' (a Hawaiian word for 'man'), these labourers often faced forced removal from their homes, a practice referred to as 'blackbirding' (where 'blackbird' was synonymous with slave).
They hailed from over 80 Pacific Islands, including Vanuatu (then known as the 'New Hebrides') and the Solomon Islands, as well as from New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, and Tuvalu, primarily consisting of young men and boys aged 9 to 30 years, with relatively fewer women and girls among them.
South Sea Islanders riding on Cane Trucks in the Farleigh Mill District in 1886. (JOL#366989). Shared by the Facebook page, ‘Have you seen the Old Mackay’
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