etter track record than most, providing adequate food and shelter for the workers, even if they were substantially underpaid. The issue, however was not so much the conditions of employment, as the manner in which the labour was procured.
The idea of using Pacific Islanders in the cane fields was not a random act. Some Islanders had come willingly as early as 1847, and landholders viewed them as more intelligent and better suited to the task than Chinese or Indian labourers. With Queensland's rapid growth however, demand began to outstrip supply, so enterprising ship owners developed new methods for sourcing workers from the Pacific.
From 1863 to 1904, over 62,000 South Sea Islanders were �blackbirded� to serve as cheap or free labour on Queensland�s vast agricultural holdings. Blackbirding meant the recruitment of people through manipulation or simply kidnapping. Essentially it was enslavement. In some instances, entire villages were taken onto ships to work the sugar fields. Conditions aboard ship were notoriously poor with little sanitation or food, and frequent brutality. Many islanders died during their voyages to Australia.
The Queensland Government made some attempts to limit the effects of the practice, notably the Polynesian Labourers Act 1868, but the provisions were frequently evaded by unscrupulous ship owners who were paid per head of cargo. The British Navy also patrolled for blackbirding ships, but with little effect. In Queensland, the government faced an uncomfortably quandary; Slavery was illegal but the state needed cheap labour. Hence, in 1880, the British Government implemented the Pacific Islanders' Protection Act 1880 which outlined the minimum standards for importing "indentured labourers". The Act may or may not have helped improve standards aboard ship, as its principal purpose was to licence operators and their human cargo.
Later revisions of the Act focused on making it more difficult for the trade to continue
