Ingham. The Mercer Lane mosaics tell the story of Ingham, a sugar town in North Queensland. The Herbert River and sugar cane trains.

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The town was surveyed in 1878 and the lots were sold in 1879. The town soon had a general store, two hotels, and a post and telegraph office. A telegraph line between Townsville and Cardwell passed through the settlement. Sugar was the town’s raison d’être. As a British colony, Queensland had good intentions to protect the rights of South Sea Islanders, but being an imperfect world, these rights were not always well protected. The Polynesian Labourers Act of 1868 was primarily aimed at preventing blackbirding or kidnapping of South Sea Islanders after the first shiploads arrived in Queensland in 1863. Ship captains were prosecuted or imprisoned for kidnapping. South Sea Islander protectors were hired by the government to monitor health, housing, and food issues. They visited plantations and spoke to islanders. This prevented much, but not all, abuse. Conditions were harsh and difficult for the South Sea Islanders, as well as for poor white labourers and their families in the late 19th century. In 1895, Reverend William Gray wrote a book about the conditions endured by the Kanakas. He was born near Gawler in South Australia and educated at the University of Adelaide before going on to the New Hebrides as a missionary. He was the first moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland and saw the trade as immoral, much as abolitionists in the northern half of the United States saw slavery in the south as immoral in the 1850s. The Queensland Kanaka Mission produced an annual report on the issues and Gray used this as part of his sources. He found that South Sea Islanders were treated more harshly in the courts for their crimes than whites were for similar offences. But he also noted that most Kanakas were as law-abiding as white settlers. Gray died in 1937 at Westbourne Park after doing missionary work in the outback with Jean Flynn.

Hawaiians still call themselves Kanakas, and a local term for the islanders of the New Hebrides was Kanak. Thus, Kanakas sent to Australia were not from Hawaii, but from Melanesia – the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands. Kanakas were also taken to Canada, Chile, Fiji, Oregon and California in the US. Although descendants of the South Sea Islanders like to call themselves Sugar Slaves, this term would be highly offensive to any descendants of African slaves from the Americas and the Caribbean. Indentured servitude was a common labor system in the 19th century and continued into the 20th century. In Australia, the Commonwealth government operated a similar indentured labor program in the 1920s for young British men who wanted to become farm laborers. They served a three-year term, without pay until they completed their indentures, and required government permission to purchase work boots or other items. In SA this scheme was known as the Barwell Boys (Barwell was the Premier of SA at the time) scheme but it also operated in WA and other states. This system of indentured labour ended in 1925. The boys in this scheme were paid £30 for the three year contract.

The employment of Kanakas in Queensland was regulated by law and they were indentured labourers, known as indentured labourers. However, in the early years many Islanders were kidnapped (blackbirded) and brought to Queensland without a contract. Some ship captains were sometimes murderously cruel to the Islanders they transported, including killing and throwing rebellious Islanders overboard. The Islanders were paid less than white labourers who received only £18 for a three-year contract, compared to £30 a year for white rural labourers at the time. They received their wages at the end of their contracts. However, they were given shelter, food and clothing. Government officials monitored working conditions, but some unscrupulous plantation owners were abusive to the Islanders. Compared to slaves, the Islanders had much better conditions; they had their freedom and they fared reasonably well in the legal system. Slaves had no legal rights at all. Indentured labourers could leave at the end of their term and most did so. Their children were not automatically indentured, as was the case with children born to slaves who remained slaves for the rest of their lives. Between 1863 and 1904, approximately 62,000 Kanaka were brought to Queensland. Many landed at ports between Townsville and Cairns to work in the sugar industry. The labour system was banned in 1904 by the new Australian federal government after it introduced the White Australia Policy. At this time, the Islander population in Queensland was at its peak, with around 9,000 Islanders. Commonwealth legislation prohibited recruitment from 1904 and deportations began in 1906. By 1908, 7,000 Islanders had been deported, with around 2,000 allowed to remain in Australia due to marriage, land ownership or health problems.

Following Federal legislation, the Queensland Government attracted Italian immigrants to Ingham and elsewhere to work on sugar plantations and farms. Today, about half of Ingham’s residents are of Italian descent. The town holds an Italian fiesta once a year. The Italian community ran their own hospital between 1929 and 1945, and the Italians have their own distinctive section of Ingham Cemetery with their family mausoleums. In the 1930s, the Italian community was extorted by a handful of their own in a mafia-style protection racket. This was the Black Hand Threat. Although the Queensland Government took action to suppress it, a number of local residents were murdered for not paying extortion money. During the ten years from 1931 to 1941, eleven Italians were murdered in the Ingham to Innisfail area and thirty bombings were carried out by the Black Hand Threat. Today Ingham is known for its TYTO (a type of barn owl) wetlands, its information centre, lookouts and walking trails. The TYTO 110 hectare wetland area has approximately 240 species of bird and three labelled walking trails. Jabiru and Crimson Finches are often seen. A special feature is the Sugar Tracks walk with 18 pieces of historic sugar mill production machinery. All are clearly labelled for you. Although Ingham is not known for its historic buildings, you can see the old courthouse on Main Street. It was only built in 1948 but it was designed to suit the tropical climate with special ventilation equipment and metal sunshades etc.