Sugar Slaves

In 1994 Australia took over Cuba to become the largest exporter of raw sugar in the world. Ironically in that same year, Australian Islanders descendants from the South Pacific Islanders who were kidnapped and enticed by white slave-traders and transported to Queensland to work the Queensland sugar plantations over one hundred years ago, finally won official recognition as a distinct ethnic community - the only substantial black migrant group in Australia. This documentary film tells of the hardships, the appalling working conditions and the exploitation which took place in Queensland between 1863 and 1904 of about 60,000 “Kanakas”, mainly men, but some women, slave labourers from the South Pacific Islands, including Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. It follows several Australian Islander descendants as they try to retrace the history of their long-lost relatives and combines their personal stories with archival footage, stills, newsreels and quotes from newspaper articles of the time. Many Australians are unaware of our not so proud past dealings in human trafficking and slave labour and the term “blackbirding” (white slave-traders’ term for sailing in and stealing the Islanders) and so “Sugar slaves” for that very reason makes compelling viewing. Contains some b&w sequences. Narrated by Jonathan Holmes.