John Ewen Davidson News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Forced labour in the cane fields of Queensland has had a lasting influence of the Australian nation.

Emma Christopher Australia's use of Pacific Islander workers in the late 19th century was part of a much bigger story of British sugar barons and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. South Sea Islander children in Queensland, around 1902-05. Photo: Queensland State Library There are moves afoot to scrub colonial businessman Benjamin Boyd’s name from the map. The owners of historic Boydtown on the NSW south coast are planning to change its name, while Ben Boyd National Park may also be renamed. Residents in North Sydney will take part in a survey to rename Ben Boyd Road, too. The reason: Bo...

There are moves afoot to scrub colonial businessman Benjamin Boyd’s name from the map. The owners of historic Boydtown on the NSW south coast are planning to change its name, while Ben Boyd National Park may also be renamed. Residents in North Sydney will take part in a survey to rename Ben Boyd Road, too. The reason: Boyd’s links to “blackbirding” in the 19th century. Blackbirding was a term given to the trade of kidnapping or tricking Pacific Islanders on board ships so they could be carried away to work in Australia. Boyd instigated this practice in the late 1840s, bringing the ...