Jasmine Togo-Brisby South Sea Possibility
he nineteenth century practice of ‘blackbirding,’ as it has euphemistically become known, consisted of the widespread removal – through both coercion and force – of Indigenous peoples across the Pacific, to provide labour for the newly-established sugar plantations in Queensland. Between 1847 and 1904 this practice led to the displacement and enslavement of roughly 62,000 documented people – in addition to an unknown number of those who remain undocumented. This legacy has stayed largely absent from the pages of history, removed by numerous acts of erasure: from mass deportations in the wake of the Pacific Islander Labourers Act in 1901, to Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s 2020 declaration that there had been ‘no slavery’
