Historical Information Sheet No 18: Early ASSI Settlement in Northern New South Wales
The northern New South Wales Australian South Sea Islander population is largely but not entirely descended from Islanders brought into Queensland on three-year contracts as indentured labourers. There are possibly others, like the Watego family, who seen to have come via Sydney, where a considerable number of Pacific Islanders arrived on ships. Sydney was a major Pacific port, through which Islanders flowed constantly as boats crews, as well as worked on the wharves. Sydney was also the transhipment place for Pacific Islander labourers working in Torres Strait onwards from 1860. These were first governed by the Merchant Shipping Act (NSW) 1854, and the Masters & Servants Acts, then by the Pacific Islanders Engagement Act (NSW) 1879. Queensland’s Pearl-Shell and Beche-de-Mer Fishery Act (1881) regulated the Strait’s industries, although the New South Wales Acts still applied to labour hire out of that colony. There were never New South Wales Acts specifically to govern Pacific Islander indenture within the colony, and Queensland Acts did not apply.
It is possible that some of the Northern Rivers families date back to the 1860s, as Pacific Islanders were working there as early as 1869, at Cudgen on a plantation owned by Michael Guilfoyle. Others may have come to the Northern Rivers of their own volition from southern Queensland as time-expired labourers. Right from 1863 there was a substantial Islander population in the Brisbane region, mainly on cotton and sugar plantations on the Logan River, around Redland Bay, and at Caboolture. Tweed Heads in just over 100 km south of Brisbane, and although in another colony was easily assessable, by road, ship, and rail. The rail line between Brisbane and Beenleigh opened in 1885 and was extended to the Gold Coast in 1889. A branch line running from Southport to Tweed Heads opened in August 1903. Transport was easy, and as with other working-class Australians, they often walked long distances. It was quite possible that South Sea Islanders walked from southern Queensland to northern New South Wales, carrying their few belongings.
The sugar-cane industry began in the Northern Rivers district in the 1860s using primitive mills, mainly on the Clarence River. Colonial Sugar Refinery Co. Ltd. opened its first mills there in 1870, at Southgate and Chatsworth Island. In 1873 they moved their Darkwater mill from the Macleay River to Harwood Island on the Clarence and renamed it the Harwood mill. Southgate mill closed in 1879 and the Chatsworth mill in 1887, as CSR had decided to concentrate its efforts on the Clarence River and the Harwood mill. After 1884, there was a serious long-term decline in sugar prices which led to many of the 40 smaller mills in the Northern Rivers district closing, and gave CSR monopoly control of the sugar industry there. CSR opened its second plantation and mill at Broadwater on the Richmond River. Next, CSR moved into the Tweed district. They first inspected the area for a plantation and mill site in 1872, a final site was chosen in 1877, on the eastern bank of the Tweed at Condong. This mill first crushed in 1880.
Exactly when and how the group of Islanders living around Cudgen, Murwillumbah and Tumbulgum in 1892 arrived is not clear: the most exact date found is about 1884. They may have chosen to move south over the border, or they may have arrived on new indenture contracts, made out in Queensland for work in New South Wales. The 1890s and 1902 were a time of drought and depression, which made work scarce for time-expired labourers—those who had already worked at least one three-year indenture contract. It is possible that they realised that once they crossed the border the laws of Queensland specifically designed to control their lives, no longer applied. It may also be that they were exploring the possibilities of a new southern area, in no different a way than they extended to Port Douglass and Mossman, north of Cairns. The main early family links between Queensland and northern New South Wales are with southern Queensland as far north as Maryborough and Bundaberg, which is probably the catchment area. The wages were better and they seem to have had more freedom in the Norther Rivers.
Our most detailed early information on the community comes from NSW police reports in 1892, motivated by Thomas Garvin, Police Superintendent at Armidale, in charge of the Tweed district. He put a case for adding another constable to the force in the Tweed, and chose as his reason the increasing numbers of South Sea Islanders living there. He seemed worried about their level of alcohol consumption and their behaviour while drunk, although this may have been a rouse to gain an extra constable in his force. Out of the information he provided, we gain our first real picture of the community. In 1892, they had lived around Cudgen since about 1884, working in cane gangs, planting, stripping, cutting and carting cane to the mills. They were also lesser numbers working around the Clarence and Richmond Rivers. An 1892 estimate by the editor of the Tweed Advocate was that there were 220 Islanders working on plantations in northern New South Wales, and by inference others working on Islander-run farms and perhaps European-run farms. They were also working in mills, which was illegal in Queensland after the mid-1880s. Around Murwillumbah and Tumbulgum, they worked in groups of between 3 and 12 for European farmers, 70 worked for the Robb & Co. plantation and 15 worked for W. G. Collin, both at Cudgen. The earliest significant mill at Cudgen was built by W.W. Julius and first crushed in 1878. In about 1890, he was joined by John Robb from Victoria and they operated as Rob and Co., reputedly employing 500 men on a plantation and in its mill.
In 1892 there were also four Islanders who owned or leased their own farms and employed their wantoks: John Mudlop employed four, Sam Tonga employed three. Tom Api employed three, and John Pentecost employed five. The farmers’ names tell us which islands they came from: Matlop (Valua), Tongoa (Kuwaé), Epi and Penetcost, all in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). This pattern was quite usual in Queensland cane-growing areas as well, where many small Islander farms, some freehold and some leased, remained until the 1920s. They had survived because under the legislation excluding South Sea Islanders from the sugar industry onwards from the 1900s it remained possible to employ relatives on farms. By then the farmers were old, and lack of finances for mechanisation drove them out of the industry.
The police reports reveal some interesting variations from the Queensland scene. No Islanders in Queensland in 1892 were paid as much as European labourers. Superintendent Garvin reported that in the Northern Rivers “Kanakas get the same wages as white men; they will not work for less.” By comparison, in 1892 experienced time-expired labourers at Maryborough earned over £22 for annual contracts and over £24 on seasonal shorter contracts. European labourers received between £30 and £50 a year, plus board and lodgings. Even if Islander labourers in New South Wales received closer to £30 than £50, they were still considerably better off than their compatriots who stayed in Queensland. The other difference is surprising, as there is no evidence from Queensland of similar occurrences. Constable J.L. Brown reported in a telegram that:
…it is a fact that some five or six Kanakas joined Labour Union under delegate from Trades and Labour Council, Sydney, about twelve months ago; man named M’Mahon was labour delegate.
The picture that emerges is of a substantial settled Islander community, some of whom, or their descendants, may have been there onwards from the late 1860s. Although the majority would have been single men, a proportion—perhaps 10 percent—were married to Islander, Aboriginal and mixed-race women. A few had their own farms and employed their countrymen, while others worked for plantations, farms and mills. The likelihood is that some of the Islander farmers were Queensland ‘ticket-holders’ who had entered the colony before September 1879 and were exempt from all later restrictions.[1] The remainder would have been ‘time-expired’ labourers who had served at least one three-year contract, and perhaps more. The 1892 reports suggest that could compete with European rural workers, which means they were experienced labourers. If we add up the years, they are all likely to have been in Australia for around 15 years or more, with the extreme possibility of 23 years if they reached Cudgen in 1869.
The Islanders built two small Anglican churches: St. John’s at Cudgen, where Jonah Woqas from Mota Island (New Hebrides) and Ravu from the Gela Island (Solomon Islands) conducted services for a few dozen Islanders; and St. Barnabas’ at Tumblegum, where John Tala from Mota and Jimmy from another New Hebridean island were the preachers. Rev. Reynolds, the Anglican priest at Murwillumbah, and the local Presbyterian minister, visited both groups regularly. The Queensland Kanaka Mission also established a base at Cudgen in the 1890s. They were the equivalent of any of the smaller Queensland Islander communities. They remained in touch with their northern and Sydney kin, and intermarried with them, as well as with the Indigenous population and their Queensland kin.
[1] Moore 1985, 160-167.