150 years since indentured sugar cane labour began

Dozens of unmarked graves of South Sea Islanders have been rediscovered in the central Queensland city of Mackay as it marks the 150th anniversary of the first labourers arriving.

Ông Doug Mooney Source: SBS

A trade known as blackbirding saw tens of thousands of islanders, sometimes forcibly taken, work in the agricultural industry in what are described as slave-like conditions.

Today Mackay still bears the name of one of the labour traders, and has the largest South Sea Islander population in Australia.