Australia has often sought to reassure itself that at least the nation is untainted, unlike Britain and the US, by a heinous history of slavery.. But “the evidence of the Australian slave trade through blackbirding is everywhere – it hides in plin sight”, Emelda Davjus, a former Sydney citi coucillor, community advocate and second-generation descendant of Blackbirded South Sea Islanders, said.
The Guardian re;ports that FDavis has written the foreword for a new book, by Ryan Butta, Blackbirding, A reckoning with the Australian slave trade. The book’s release aligned with the landmark June 2026 bilateral Nakamal agreement between Australia and Vanuatu, in which Australia formally acknowledged, for the first time, the legacies of blackbirding.
Between 1860 and 1906 up to 62,000 Pacific Islanders were shipped to Australia to work primarily in sugar cane and cotton farming. They also worked on the Sydney docks and in some other maritime industries, and as labourers in civic projects.
Butta writes: “The Pacific Islanders came, they died, they were buried like dogs and more were sent for.”
As a former member of Sydney city council, Davis was central to ensuring that it acknowledged the city’s seminal link to Australia’s blackbirding history. She says Butta’s book is a potential watershed in Australia acknowledging that blackbirding was slavery.
