By John McKechnie AO, KC
It was the grimmest of times. In the dead of night, armed men would steal into houses and kidnap men and boys. They would be herded onto ships and sent across the seas to work as indentured slaves on cotton plantations.
Many died from the gruelling work which was 12 hours a day from sunrise to sunset. Boys, some as young as 12, quickly succumbed to the heat and disease. The plantation owners, jealous of their profits, fought measures to bring the trade under control. There was talk of secession.
No, dear reader, we’re not talking about the deep South of the USA but the deep North of Queensland Australia. In 1869, the Leeds Mercury condemned Queensland as a slaveholding country like a second Carolina.
As time passed, cotton plantations gave way to sugar cane plantations. The trade in men and boys remained. The blackbirders as they were called, continued to bring in labourers from the Pacific islands, tempting them with lies or using force.
Legislation was brought in to regulate the labour and provide some measure of protection for the Pacific Islanders sometimes called Kanakas.
The Polynesian Labourers Act 1868 was an attempt to regulate the human trade. It was largely unsuccessful due to constitutional restraints. It had no application beyond the Queensland border. In 1972, the British parliament passed the Pacific Islanders Protection Act which had greater success.
The Polynesian Labourers Act was more effective domestically. It provided for inspections and imposed fines for breaches of the Act. The union movement in particular pressed for prosecution of employers who breached the Act. Liberal minded public servants such as Richard Bingham Sheridan were sympathetic to the plight of the indentured workers. Even so they were often treated like slaves and rented out to other plantation owners from time to time.
On the 27th of January 1877, Mr Sheridan a Polynesian inspector, visited Charleville station managed by Mr Henry Paul and spoke with the owner Mr Arthur Paul. It was soon established that four youths and boys, Bambumbo, Bebbee, Horse and Nearlanley had been lent to Charleville station from another business, Corser & Co, for 14 pounds a week, but no labour transfer document could be found. Mr Henry Paul thought 14 pounds was too dear as the boys were too young for the price. He was under the impression that his brother was only paying Corser & Co four shillings a week. Henry Paul thought the whole transaction was most improper and would soon be remedied. The boys had been 10 months on the other plantation and had no clothes issued to them.
Arthur Paul was charged with failing to report to the local magistrate as to any transfer of labour from Corser & Co to Charleville station.
On the 8th of February 1877, the charge came before the Maryborough police magistrate Henry Reginald Buttenshaw. He is recorded as having been born at sea off the island of Tristan da Cunha.
Mr Buttenshaw had started as a clerk of courts but by 1877 had been a police magistrate for many years. He seems to have been popular and humane. When he left Roma for Maryborough in December 1872 the inhabitants of Roma presented him with a testimonial consisting of a claret jug and silver salver.
The defendant pleaded not guilty. The first witness was the inspector Mr Sheridan. It was the next witness that caused the trouble.
Mr Buttenshaw left the bench and entered the witness box, deposing that no report had been made to him respecting the employment of any Polynesians. While this evidence was being given, the bench was occupied by F Bryant Esquire JP. He had not been present for Mr Sheridan’s evidence.
After taking evidence from Mr Henry Paul on behalf of the defendant, the magistrate convicted Arthur Paul who was fined 10 pounds for each labourer. This is over $11,000 in today’s money.
Notice of appeal was promptly given and, on the 13th of March 1877, the In Banco or Full Court, Cockle CJ and Justices Lutwiche and Lilley unanimously allowed the appeal on the simple ground that the magistrate had not been present throughout the hearing. Nor had Mr Bryant. The court anticipated the result in the quirky case – The tale of the parsimonious pearler – by nearly 40 years.
The judicial disapproval does not seem to have hurt Mr Buttenshaw’s career. In 1880, he was appointed assistant immigration agent and inspector of Polynesians at Maryborough. Mr Sheridan had by then retired to pursue a political career as an ally of Samuel Griffiths.
Mr Buttenshaw noted publicly “it is dishonourable to the colony that the lives of Kanakas should be so wasted”.
In a parliamentary debate on the Pacific Islander’s Labourer’s bill on 29 October 1880, the age of the labourers was discussed. It was noted that the present age of 16 years had failed as more boys had been brought to the colony and put to field work. “It was no doubt a fact that lads were torn from their homes before their physical power was developed.”
Mr Buttenshaw informed Parliament that the low age at which boys were introduced to labour increased the death rate.
The bill passed into law and included compulsory health care. A hospital for the care of Pacific Islanders (one of four) was built at Tirana, not far from Maryborough. The hospital and adjacent cemetery are now heritage listed.
Mr Buttenshaw left Maryborough in 1886 to become a relieving magistrate before passing away in Cooktown on the 17th of October 1888.
Northern Queensland continued to fight controls over the Pacific Islander trade until the newly established Commonwealth Parliament passed the Pacific Islanders Labourers Act 1901. Enacted in part to further a White Australia policy, it nevertheless ended the human trafficking of Pacific Islanders.
But not before North Queensland threatened to secede above the 22 parallel over the abolition of Pacific Islander labour. Might Australia’s history have taken a different turn and followed the USA into civil war over slavery?
Adapted from Paul v Buttenshaw (1877) 1 QLR (Beor) (Pt 2) 4; Newspaper articles retrieved from Trove; Queensland Parliamentary debates 29 October 1880.
