Blackbirding
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Blackbirding was the trade in indentured labourers from the Pacific in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is often described as a form of slavery, despite the Slave Trade Act 1807 and the Slavery A
In 1869, HMS Rosario seized the blackbirding schooner Daphne and freed its passengers, who were bound for Queensland, Australia.
Kanaka workers in a sugar cane plantation in Queensland, late 19th century.
Robert Towns
Vanuatuan recruits for sugar plantations in Australia, Vanuatu, c. 1910
South Sea Islanders
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South Sea Islanders, also known as Australian South Sea Islanders and formerly referred to as Kanakas, are the Australian descendants of Pacific Islanders from more than 80 islands – including the Oce
Blackbirding
…America, often to work on plantations in conditions similar to the Atlantic slave trade. These blackbirded people, known in Australia as Kanakas or South Sea Islanders, were taken from places such as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Niue, Easter Island, the Gilbert Islands, Tuvalu and the islands of the…
South Sea Islander labourers on a Queensland pineapple plantation, 1890s