One hundred and fifty years ago, on 14 August 1863, the first South Sea Islanders were kidnapped from their home on Tanna Island in Vanuatu and taken to Australia to be used as slaves for the white bosses. “Blackbirding” is the term used to describe the process in which people from many South Sea islands were stolen. The practice continued for more than half a century.

By 1904, when the practice officially ceased, approximately 60,000 men, women and children (some as young as 10) had been brought to this country as slaves. They were initially put to work in the cotton industry (the cotton plants failed in the Australian climate) and then in the sugar cane fields, doing the backbreaking work that built this immensely profitable sector of Australian capitalism.

When their labour was excess to requirements, many were deported to any island the authorities saw fit. As a result, many South Sea Islanders were dumped on islands in the Torres Strait where they had no family or connection to the local people.

On 17 August, some 200 descendants, friends, family and supporters of the South Sea Islander community in Australia gathered in Brisbane Square to mark 150 years since the beginning of Australia’s slave trade. People spoke about the theft of their ancestors’ lives as well as their language and culture.

In 1994 the federal government recognised the existence of Australian South Sea Islanders, and in 2000 the Queensland government followed suit. While their existence as a people is no longer denied outright, Islanders hear only silence when they raise the question of compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labour or reparations for the suffering inflicted upon thousands.

Descendants hold out little hope that this will change and point to the experience of Australia’s Aboriginal population. One woman said, “What hope do we have when the Aboriginals, the first people of this country, have received so little for their stolen wages?”

Such is the fate of the underclasses in Australian capitalism then and now. While Robert Towns, one of the chief architects and beneficiaries of the blackbirding system, made a fortune built on slave labour and went on to have a major town named after him (Townsville), the South Sea Islanders have little hope of receiving anything more than empty recognition by the Australian ruling class.

Despite this, they do not forget and will continue to organise and march to keep their history and culture alive.

[More information can be found at assis.org.au]