South Sea Islanders

South Sea Islanders, loading sugar cane, c1890. Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland image 16964

South Sea Islanders, Lower Herbert, c1890. Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland image 18049

South Sea Islanders arriving in Bundaberg by ship, c1893. Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland image 2246

South Sea Islander recruitment, New Hebrides, 1893

Australia

See map: Google Maps

1 January 1893

22 October 2010

Location

Australia

See map: Google Maps

22 October 2010

Collection of Queensland State Archives

Map of the New Hebrides with handwritten numbers indicating where and how many South Sea Islanders were taken on board during the twentieth voyage of the Labour Vessel, Ariel, 1893 and list of Islanders 'recruited' on this voyage. Collection of the Queensland State Archives

Sugar slaves

White Society used them as labourers when needed and discarded them when no longer needed: they were coerced and expendable labour

Pearling

Pearling became the largest industry in far north Queensland in the 1890s and had a massive impact on coastal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The Swallow family and members of their staff at Hambledon Sugar Plantation outside Cairns, c1889.

Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland image 171012

Neighbours: Asia and the Pacific

Queensland, the Pacific and Asia share a distinctive geography and history. Queensland is geographically part of the Pacific, separated only by the boundaries of modern nation states.