A new history of ‘blackbirding’ favours moral condemnation at the expense of complexity
Determined to illustrate ‘slavery’, Ryan Butta’s history of ‘blackbirding’ says little of the labourers’ recovery and resilience.
Ryan Butta’s new book, "Blackbirding: A Reckoning with the Australian Slave Trade," offers a detailed examination of the forced recruitment of Pacific Islanders for labor in 19th-century Queensland. The author traces the trade's origins in Benjamin Boyd’s failed attempt to bring Pacific laborers to New South Wales in 1847, his subsequent success in recruiting Islanders for Queensland’s sugar cane plantations.
Boyd’s actions prompted resistance, including Sydney’s Atlas newspaper warning of "pastures filled not with European Christians but with cannibals fresh from their last disgusting banquet." The New South Wales Legislative Council ultimately passed a law in 1847 making it impossible for Boyd to enforce employment contracts signed by Pacific Islanders. The author notes Boyd likely kidnapped or coerced Islanders to work in New South Wales.
In the 1850s and 1860s, other Sydney-based entrepreneurs recruited Islanders for labor in Natal, Réunion, and Peru. These ventures exposed the challenges of assigning culpability to various parties, such as recruiters, chiefs, ship captains, and employers. Butta argues the latter effectively purchased Islanders.
The book also details Robert Towns’ role in the trade. Towns, a sandalwood trader, acquired land in Queensland after the American Civil War disrupted the cotton industry, allowing him to import Asian workers to work his cotton fields. Towns supported a colonial act that enabled the regulated inflow and outflow of cheap labor.
The Queensland government struggled to enforce Britain’s anti-slavery laws due to its reliance on cheap labor and lawmakers benefiting from this arrangement. The Queensland government's 1868 Polynesian Labourers Act, aimed at protecting Islanders, Butta argues, actually protected slavers from accusations of kidnapping and slavery.
The author recounts several instances of abuse, such as a ship’s captain being drugged and imprisoned by his recruiter in 1869. Despite public agitation and complaints from foreign governments, the Queensland government’s efforts to regulate the trade were largely unsuccessful, leaving Islanders vulnerable to exploitation and suffering.
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