Summary

This item is one of our 50 Treasures: Celebrating 50 years of James Cook University.

Emeritus Professor Clive Moore answers the question 'Why is this significant?'

The register contains the names of 782 Pacific Islanders, more usually known as South Sea Islanders, who worked on the Drysdale brothers' Pioneer Plantation in the Burdekin district in north Queensland between 1895 and 1906. A government register kept by the local Inspector of Pacific Islanders and his deputies—officials of the Queensland Immigration Department—it shows Islander names, the ships and dates on which they arrived and the dates of their initial and subsequent contracts on Pioneer, different levels of wages, deaths, imprisonment, and other occasional pieces of information. Only two of the entries are for women.

Pacific Islanders, mainly from Melanesia, arrived in Queensland as indentured labourers (1860–1904) to work in the pastoral, maritime and sugar industries. There were 62,000 contracts issued for about 50,000 individuals (a significant number came more than once) and over 95 percent were men and youths. Similar registers must once have been common on other large sugar-cane plantations, although this register seems to be the only one to have survived. Overall the register confirms many aspects of the labour trade already known. Wages were paid every month in front of the Inspectors, who kept the register up to date. The Islanders also received a clothing allowance and sometimes had money advanced to them ahead of their regular six-monthly wage payments. Another typical feature of the labour trade, shown in the ship arrival details, is that the Islanders moved between districts.

Wages varied depending on experience. First-indenture Islanders always received £6 a year. Those reengaging from the islands usually received around £8 a year. The long-term labourers renewing contracts in Queensland were paid up to £31 a year at the end of the labour trade, but more usually between £20 and £26 a year. All received accommodation and limited medical care. Twenty-three served terms in prison from between two weeks and four months, two were declared insane and were returned to their islands, and 24 died while employed on Pioneer. After 1884, the wages of deceased Islanders were transferred to the Immigration Department's Pacific Islanders Fund, supposedly to be paid to their families, although this occurred in only 16 percent of cases.

There were always allegations that the labour trade was a new form of slavery, and the death rates in Queensland (one-quarter) were extremely high.