Sir Robert Towns, Townsville, North Queensland.

Promised below to tell you what happened to the Kanakas after the 1900 introduction of The White Australia Policy. In this post I will eventually let you know:

Oh, before I start I have to tell you I lived in Townsville for a decade and I still have a house there so all this concerned me deeply:


There are very few things I'd willingly go to jail for, but when Townsville City Council announced they'd erect a statue in the centre of town of Founding Father Sir Robert Towns, I immediately thought "No. You won't! I won't let you!" and I began toying with the idea of how exactly I'd take a chainsaw to whatever they put up to honour him.

Luckily I didn't have to do anything because the announcement caused an uproar. "He started the Blackbird Trade" everyone screamed and the horror of learning this - don't you hate people who don't know their own history - caused the Council to immediately toss out the plan and even to toy with the idea of changing the name of the city. (I disagreed with that one. Townsville has such a long history of involvement with every important aspect of iconic Australian life, the name has moved far, far away from its source. Hell, it's even where "The Power Puff Girls" come from!) However, yes, everyone agrees Sir Robert Towns is considerably detestable and should never ever be honoured in any way, shape or form!

The current statue in the centre of Townsville!
An earth gnome.
Preferable to a slave trader?

But, unlike everyone else, I don't detest Sr Robert Towns to the very fibre of my being simply because, along with Townsville, he also founded the Australian Slave Trade. Times were different in 1860 and, sometimes, you know, founding a Slave Trade seems like a good idea. No! There is a far deeper and more significant reason to detest Sr Robert Towns to the very fibre of one's being and that's how he ENDED the Australian Slave Trade. But you'll have to wait for that one.

First, what is Blackbirding? If you read my posting immediately below you'd know all about it: how it was discovered that North Queensland could grow sugar so a lot of rich Anglo types from down south came up north to set up sugar plantations, only they couldn't find anyone who'd work for them ... and so Sir Robert Towns - the ultimate rich Anglo bastard - who'd been doing this sort of thing for twenty years, to get workers for his cotton plantations in the south, decided to send ships out into the Pacific to kidnap and enslave Pacific Islanders. All the other rich Anglo bastards who also wanted to set up sugar plantations then thought "Yipee, what a spiffy notion!" and so did the same. In the end there were thousands of these Sugar Slaves from all over the Pacific who became known collectively as Kanakas! (Cane Hackers?) And it was these Kanakas who, as well as carving the plantations out of the jungles and tending to the sugar crops, built the towns, wharves and infrastructure of the region.

So there we have, from 1860 to 1900, rich Anglo bastards enslaving Pacific Islanders, but then along comes Federation and "The White Australia Policy" and "Get your slaves off our shores! Return them to the Pacific!" the brand-new Australian Government announces to the cotton sugar plantations. Mmm, there's a problem! How to return them home?

Dah, dah! Along comes Sir Robert Towns, again with the solutions!! "Send them to me" he tells the rest of his ilk, "I'll return them to the Pacific for you!" and so, paying through the nose for the privilege, all the Slave-Owners ship their thousands of slaves up to Townsville to Town's plantation ...

Cleveland Bay on the horizon
Site of Towns' sugar plantation.

... and when they're all assembled, they're marched down to holding prisons set up at Townsville wharf!

Three ships! The first thousand or so, very excited about finally going home, were marched onto Sir Robert Towns three ships, and they sailed off towards the distant horizon!

Five days later the ships were back! Now, those waiting Kanakas weren't stupid! They knew it would take more than five days to return everyone home! And so they all tore down the fences and made a mad dash for the hills! Vanished into the jungles! Never seen again! (Well, not for the 50 years of "The White Australia Policy"!)

But the sad part about all this is that, in truth, they didn't actually stay in the jungles. They didn't know the food, and that toxic wild-life would deter anyone, so all came out again and, now calling themselves "Aboriginal", made lives for themselves in the towns and cities of the North, and eventually, through the generations, they forgot they were Pacific Islanders and genuinely believed they were Australian Aboriginees. All that sad, sad lost history!!!

If you read my post "Past Lives", you'll know all about Mr Benjamin, Aboriginal Law Officer in the Oz Outback, and his 7 year quest to unravel his ancestors' part in all of this sorry story. And, well, what I'm about to tell you comes from his research, although there's some of my own in here as well:

Sir Robert Towns did indeed live up to his promise of "returning the Kanakas to the Pacific". His three ships simply went out beyond The Great Barrier Reef, where the Pacific starts ... and threw them all overboard! Bastard of the First Order, yes? And are you too thinking of chainsaws?

Today, however, there are many, many "Aboriginees" like Mr Benjamin who are out there rediscovering their history; people like "Aboriginal film-maker" Christine Tapoo who made a documentary - "Sugar Slave" - about her quest to discover her "aboriginal roots" and discovered instead that she was a princess from Vanuatu. As soon as she told me about this, I slapped myself on the forehead and went "Yes. Of course you are. Your surname's Tapoo!!! That's the royal family of Vanuatu!!!" Don't know why I didn't realise it earlier. Guess the tag of "Aboriginal film-maker" blinkered me!

Or those sublime 1967 Aboriginal Citizenship Referendum ladies! Lois Donahue and co. But that too is a long story so I'll have to save it for another post!

Later: went and looked this up and found there is practically nothing on-line about Sir Robert Towns, but what is there records two interesting and pertinent facts: 1) he died in 1873 and it was simply the captains of the ships owned by his company Towns and Co. who massacred the Kanakas. 2) he was married to Sophia Wentworth, sister of Sir Charles Wentworth who is ... um, an ancestor of our friend Jeff, and also ummmm .... how to say this .... my own beloved mother!

Dear oh dear! The company our ancestors kept!!!