Blackbirding: How a Dark Map Rewrites Australian History

Between 1863 and 1904, an estimated 60,000 Pacific Islanders were coerced, kidnapped, or tricked into hard labor on Queensland plantations in a practice known as “blackbirding,” according to author Ryan Butta in his book Blackbirding: A Reckoning with the Australian Slave Trade. Approximately 15,000 of these workers died on Australian soil—a 25 percent mortality rate—driven … Read more