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“White Queensland”: The Queensland Government's Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector 1880–1901
Author(s) -
Megarrity Lyndon
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8497.2006.00404a.x
Subject(s) - white (mutation) , commonwealth , white paper , government (linguistics) , settlement (finance) , position (finance) , ideology , political science , geography , economy , economics , law , politics , finance , biochemistry , chemistry , linguistics , philosophy , payment , gene
This article looks at the Queensland Government's attitudes towards the Pacific Island labour trade between 1880 and the time of Federation. Especially after the failure of the Griffith Government to abolish the Pacific Island labour trade during the 1880s, the dominant Queensland politicians of the late nineteenth century tended to pursue a paradoxical vision of a “White Queensland” in which the settlement and commercial aims of European Queenslanders were partially fulfilled by a barely acknowledged labour force of Pacific Islanders. It will be demonstrated that “White Queensland” was a powerful racial ideal similar yet subtly different to the White Australia policy pursued by the Commonwealth after 1901.