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“Starting from the 1860s, tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders were taken to Australia to work on plantations...often by force or trickery...Unmarked mass graves full of labourers who died on those plantations are still being uncovered today.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/blackbirding-australias-history-of-kidnapping-pacific-islanders/8860754
“Most were originally from Vanuatu & the Solomon Islands, however workers were also “recruited” from the Loyalty Islands (part of New Caledonia), PNG, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Fiji.”
“Whether you call them slaves or not, they definitely worked in slave like conditions. It was often horrific.”
“The Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1901 ordered the mass deportation of most of the 10,000 or so indentured labourers in [Australia]. The legislation was part of a package of reforms that later became known as the White Australia policy.”
“The money of the dead paid for the deportation of the living.”
