Come along at lunchtime and join us at a special staff only screening of the history of Australia’s sugar slaves as part of our Australian South Sea Islander National Recognition Day program.

Australia’s Blackbird trade is an untold story. Few people know that the Australian sugar industry was founded on the forced labour of Melanesian men, women and children kidnapped from the 80 islands of Vanuatu and Solomons.

Sugar Slaves tells the history of Australian South Sea Islander families' stories and reconnections with their Vanuatu homelands. Between 1863 and 1904 some 60,000 Pacific Islanders were transported to Queensland, where they slaved across sugar, maritime, fishing, pastoral, and railway industries in establishing Australia’s rich economy.

Australian South Sea Islanders are descendants of the Pacific Islands Blackbird trade.

Australian South Sea Islander National Recognition Day marks the date in 1994 when the Commonwealth Government officially recognised the Australian South Sea Islanders as a distinct cultural group.

Bring your lunch