Archipelagic Connections in Australian and Pacific Literature · Macknade Plantation and Mill

Macknade Plantation and Mill

Name: Macknade Plantation and Mill
Type of carceral site: Plantation
Dates of use: 1874 – 1908
Quote: Since Pacific Islanders were not protected by any government as the Indian, Chinese, Cingalese and Javanese were, masters felt they could act with a degree of impunity, safe in the knowledge that no meddlesome officials would protest or more importantly, interfere, if abuse were detected.
South Sea Islander History.
Saunders, Kay. Workers in Bondage: The Origins and Bases of Unfree Labour in Queensland, 1824-1916. University of Queensland Press, 1982, p. 14.; My grandfather was brought to the Herbert River to cut cane at Macknade. He told us they lived in long huts, with dirt floors, lined up near the fields. They had little choice, the bell told them when to get up, when to eat, when to sleep.
South Sea Islander History.
Cristine Andrews and Rosemary Kennedy. Fields of Sorrow: Oral Histories of Australian South Sea Islanders. ASSIUC Press, 2000, p. 58.; ... gentlemen of the flashing blade.
Novel, Historical Fiction.
Naish, John. Cruel Field. Hutchinson, 1962, p. 61.
Authority: Polynesian Labourers Act 1868 (Queensland)
location: Macknade
Contact: Kieren
identifier: SITE-NADE

Media: Mill house on the Macknade Sugar Plantation, Ingham, ca. 1881. Courtesy of the State Library of Queensland.; View of the Neame residence from the Herbert River, Ingham, ca. 1881. Courtesy of the State Library of Queensland.