Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This silent black-and-white clip shows a labour gang of Melanesian men cutting sugar cane in Nambour, Queensland, in 1899. While one group hand-cuts the cane, slashes off the leaves and throws the stalks onto a pile, other labourers collect the stalks and stack them onto a wagon. The labourers’ work is supervised by an overseer.

Educational value points

• The clip is taken from film used to entice British farmers into migrating to Australia. It portrays the cheap labour available to sugarcane growers and provides a rare historical record of Melanesian cane workers in Australia.

• In the second half of the 19th century, the Queensland sugarcane industry rapidly expanded and a recruitment drive began for cheap farm labour. Between 1847 and 1904, nearly 60,000 Melanesians, also known as South Pacific Islanders, were indentured (contracted into service). They were contracted for three years and worked 10-hour days in harsh conditions, earning a wage of £6 a year (in 1907, the basic weekly wage was £2 2 shillings). During recruitment, or 'black birding’ as it became known, Islanders were often deceived and sometimes taken against their will.

• The clip offers historical insight into Australia’s early attitudes towards immigrant labour. While the employment of Islanders to do the physically demanding work of cane cutting was embraced by sugarcane growers, their enthusiasm was contrary to the political push for restrictions on 'non-white’ immigration. At the end of 1901, the Pacific Island Labourers Bill was enacted to phase out the recruitment of Islanders by 1903, and from 1904 most workers were deported. Descendants of those who stayed in Australia number around 20,000 today.

• The clip shows early footage of sugar production in Australia. Sugar cane probably originated in New Guinea, and the first successful sugarcane crops in Australia were grown by Captain Louis Hope (1817–94) in 1862 near Brisbane. By 1865, Hope had also opened Australia’s first raw sugar mill. As the industry expanded, sugar cane spread north and by 1877 mills were established as far north as Cairns. Sugar cane was also grown in northern New South Wales.

• Early sugarcane farming, from planting through to harvesting, was undertaken manually. Each year, between July and December, the cane was burnt off and then hand-cut by workers in gangs using flat broad-bladed knives. It was then loaded onto horse-drawn wagons and taken to the closest mill.

• This actuality footage was shot on a Lumière Cinématographe camera by the official photographer of the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fredrick Charles Wills, and his assistant Henry William Mobsby. The film was sponsored by the Queensland Agriculture Department, and represents one of the few times that Islander cane gangs were captured on film.