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Origins: History of immigration from China - Immigration Museum, Melbourne Australia

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Bejah Dervish at Mullewa, WA, leaving for the Calvert Expedition, 1896. Image Credit: State Library of South Australia

IN THE SHIMMERING haze, turbans, sandalled feet and dark beards mingled with the plain dungarees of the bushmen as a crowd rushed to collect mail from the train that had just pulled in. Suddenly the hiss of steam and the excited babble were punctuated by the sound of gunshots. An Afghan fell to the ground, wounded. Another swiftly and silently slipped away into the surrounding desert. The place was Marree, South Australia; the year was 1904.

Early one hot December morning in 1986, I recalled that story as I sat under sparse shade in a dry, red-soil creek bed at Farina, 50km from Marree. Since 5am "Charlie" DadLeh and I had been on the road south from Marree to the long-forgotten site of the old Farina "Ghantown".

As we sat in the creek bed, sipping from Charlie's cool water-bag I tried to picture the nearby barren hillock as it had been in 1904 when occupied by tin huts, camel-yards, a simple mosque and an entire Afghan community. It was from here that Sher Khan, seeking revenge, had hidden himself on the train as it passed through on its way to Marree.

Only a few weeks before, the young cameleer had been betrothed to a girl of 14 from the Marree Ghantown. He had paid her father £100 deposit (equivalent to more than $5000 today) on the negotiated £150 bride price, and after the traditional communal feast had set off up the Birdsville Track to earn the balance. In his absence an older, wealthier Afghan made the girl's father a higher offer, and man and girl were hastily married.

From 1860s, 20,000 camels and handlers from Afghanistan and Pakistan were shipped to Australia. (Source: State Library of South Australia)

After his shooting attack on the avaricious rival, Sher Khan returned to the Farina Ghantown, where his compatriots tried to conceal him, for under their tribal code it had been his duty to avenge the deceit. But he was arrested, tried and gaoled.

Birdsville cameleer

Charlie (real name Dur Muhammad Dadleh) had been a cameleer himself, working the Birdsville Track until trucks took over. Now in his 70s, his memory was sharp with recollections of the camel days. Not for the first time, I wondered at the fortitude of Charlie and his people. Here at Farina they baked in their tin shanties in the scorching summers and were exposed to howling winds and piercing cold in winter - comfortable compared with the conditions under which they worked their cartage contracts in some of the harshest terrain in the world.

Charlie echoed my meandering thoughts: "They were real hard workers, long hours. Never took holidays in them days," he said. Pausing, his soft, lisping voice continued: "I was out working with camels when I was 14." And a longer pause. "I perished three times along the Birdsville Track." My surprise turned to amusement as I realised he was using the old bush meaning of the word 'perish' - to become faint, dizzy, dehydrated.

Charlie had been my mentor and guide during several trips to the Marree area on my search for information about these elusive Afghan cameleers. Son of Dadleh Balooch and an Irish mother who had married at Marree, Charlie lived in Ghantown there. He had taken me to locations long forgotten by the world - old Ghantowns, lonely graveyards, crumbling old mosques. He could tell me who was buried in the unmarked graves, recall who had occupied which Ghantown hut, and vividly recount stories of the characters and incidents of childhood in Marree.

Ghantowns: part of Australia's foundation years

Camels opened the great central expanses of Australia. For more than 50 years until the 1920s, camel trains radiated into the outback from railways that gradually extended into the interior, or from points near otherwise Isolated, inaccessible parts of the country. In long strings of up to 70, they sustained human life and new endeavours in the emerging outback communities. They carried building and railway materials, food, furniture, water, mail and medicine to the pastoralists and mining ventures, returning with the products of those inland enterprises - baled wool and oil. Camel cartage bases were formed at railheads or near ports, and 'Afghan-towns' developed on their outskirts. These became known as Ghantowns.

The cameleers were Muslims who adhered faithfully to their religion and built mosques wherever they settled. They brought with them no women, and although some married European or Aboriginal women, their families always lived in the Ghantowns and rarely mixed in Australian society. Camels were singularly superior to horses and bullocks in the dry centre, and the Afghan cameleers were better suited physically than the Europeans to the harsh conditions in inland Australia.

Unloading camels, Port Augusta, 1890s. (Source: State Library of South Australia)

My six-year odyssey began in May 1982 at the Port Augusta wharves - where the first commercial shipment of camels and their handlers disembarked from the steamer Blackwell on New Year's Day 1866. The shipment was made by pastoralist-entrepreneur Thomas Elder, who was determined to establish a carrying business and camel stud at his Beltana property in the nearby Flinders Ranges.

A great crowd had gathered on the wharves to watch the unloading of such strange cargo with their exotic, turbaned handlers. They weren't, however, the first camels in Australia. Among the first were those imported in 1860 for the Burke and Wills Expedition that was the first to cross the continent from south to north. Their use on that expedition led to the later imports.

Elder's original, elegant homestead at Beltana stood on a hill at the end of a winding road, behind date palms planted 100 years earlier by his Afghans. Station manager Peter Moroney was a little surprised by my interest in Afghans, and pointed down the hill. "They lived down there, somewhere near the troughs, but there's only a bit of rubble left. Their cemetery was somewhere between the hills," he said. "I've never been able to find it."

Outside the homestead I passed a memorial cairn erected to the explorer Ernest Giles, who set out from Beltana station in 1875 with Beltana camels and two of Elder's cameleers - Coogee Mahomet and Saleh - to successfully cross the Great Victoria Desert to the coast of Western Australia.

Beltana became a recruiting base for the invaluable camels and their handlers for major desert exploration expeditions - including Colonel Warburton's horrific crossing of the Great Sandy Desert in 1873 and William Gosse's into central Australia the same year, when Gosse and his Afghan offsider, Kamran, were the first Europeans to see and climb Uluru.

Afghan cameleer explorers

At the bottom of the hill below Beltana homestead I was surprised to see beautifully preserved stone and slate camel troughs, and the remains of a 'camel whip'. This latter piece of Afghan ingenuity allowed water to be drawn from a deep well using two wheels, rope and bucket and two camels - one attached to each wheel. Today, a windmill pumps water to the surface at Beltana, and the water quenches the thirst of its sheep, not camels. Nearby were the crumbling stone walls of the cameleers' living quarters, where broken china and glass, forks and a few metal fragments were all that remained of their material possessions.

Among the windswept hills I found four or five graves haphazardly huddled together. They were a dilapidated but recognisable representation of the folk graves of north-eastern Afghanistan. Some had pieces of local slate as head and foot markers; others had the wooden jenaza bier grave-surrounds (a representation of the deceased's last bed) of the Afghan's native land.

Loading camels at Marree, circa 1901. (Source: State Library of South Australia)

Faiz Mahomet was chief cameleer, or jemadar, at this first Afghan settlement in Australia. Born in Khandahar, he had come out with his younger brother, Tagh, in Elder's' first shipment. The brothers later became camel importers and merchants themselves, borrowing money from Elder to start their carrying business. In 1883 they established a base at the new railhead at Marree (then called Hergott Springs), which soon became the hub of camel cartage, servicing virtually the whole of central Australia.

Gold rush time

From Marree, Faiz and Tagh Mahomet and many of their compatriots followed the great 1893 gold rush to Coolgardie, Western Australia, and the new fields in the north, taking supplies to the diggers.

Coolgardie is Australia's most famous mining ghost town. Majestic Bayley Street, wide enough for a camel-train to turn unhindered, was once lined with grand hotels (by bush standards). The Afghans lived on the western periphery. The district relied on them and their animals even for entertainment, for camel races drew the crowds. These races between locals and Afghans were the forerunners of such events as the Alice Springs Camel Cup and the Coolgardie Cup. The sight of these ungainly, exotic beasts lumbering towards the finishing line or, just as often, away from it - with their often eccentric riders, continues to give perverse pleasure to outback crowds.

Frances Tree, together with her husband is custodian of goldfield warden John Finnerty's original house at Coolgardie. Thanks to the Trees, the house is now a public museum. "The Afghans' mosque was on Mount Eva," said Frances, pointing to a hillock south of the house. "The camel camp was below it, spread around the base."

The bare, rubbly hillock was the site of the 1896 murder of Tagh Mahomet, Faiz's brother. A Ghilzai tribesman had crept up on the Durrani merchant as he was preparing to enter the mosque for prayers and had shot him dead. It was a revenge murder: the Ghilzai and Durrani tribes had fought over leadership in their own country for hundreds of years, and factions had continued the feuding in Australia.

Two Afghan handlers and their camels, one of which is wearing traditional decorative harness, c.1890. (Source: State Library of South Australia)

Their country was Afghanistan. The cameleers were indeed predominantly Afghan tribesmen - Durranis, Afridis and Baluchis (from the Afghan province of Baluchistan) - and not Indians, as some historians claim. In 1893 the Amir (king) of Afghanistan and the Government of India agreed upon a border between Afghanistan and India, and the Durand Line was drawn on the maps. But the freewheeling tribesmen paid no heed to such abstractions and straddled or crossed the line as they chose, many living at or near Peshawar (once an Afghan city) and Karachi (once an Afghan port), now both part of Pakistan.

In the coolness of late afternoon I drove to the Coolgardie cemetery, a few kilometres east of town. The Afghan graves were at the very far end. There I found the headstone that marked Tagh Mahomet's grave, next to that of the Ghantown religious leader (mavlavha), Hadji Mullah Merban. Magenta rays from a setting sun slanted through the gums beyond, enveloping the monuments in a mystical light. As dusk fell, a vision of these men swam before me - bowing, prostrating, performing their evening prayer beside a scrubby, shallow creek or in their crude bush mosques dotted across the outback, their camels chewing contentedly nearby, the beasts' tinkling bells barely audible above the exotic chanting.

I drove back to the Railway Lodge, one of the few hotels still surviving from the boom days that followed the arrival of the railway at Coolgardie and nearby Kalgoorlie in 1896. That significant event was followed in 1903 by the opening of a pipeline carrying water 560km from Mundaring, near Perth. The railway and pipeline ruined Afghans' pack-camel businesses. Some took their camels north to the goldmines, around the Murchison River and into the Kimberley district; others set off for north-west Queensland. Copper mining near Cloncurry, Queensland, was booming in the late 1890s as the world price escalated.

Last century the whole area, from Bourke to Barcaldine, was ablaze with violent clashes between cameleers and the Australian horse and bullock teamsters. 'The Great Shearers' Strike of I891 had inflamed deep antagonisms. 'The Pastoralists' Union was attempting to lower both carrying charges and shearing rates because of a slump in wool prices, and its members were glad to use the cheaper non-unionist cameleers from over the border to carry baled wool from strike-bound areas. The police and army had to be called in to protect the Afghans and their camels.

An important Afghan leader in Cloncurry last century was the flamboyant esmel merchant Abdul Wade, known as the 'Prince of the Afghans'. He arrived from Bourke, NSW, following the copper rush. The headstone of his chief cameleer Sayyed Omar, who was the Ghantown's mullah (prayer leader), is one of the few to survive in the Afghan section of Cloncurry's cemetery.

Settling in Alice Springs

It is ironic that although Alice Springs has been popularly and romantically linked with camels and Afghans in recent years, Alice was the last place where the cameleers settled. Their camels serviced central Australia from Marree and Oodnadatta until well after the turn of the century.

During one of several visits to Alice Springs, one of my great thrills was the sight of a herd of feral camels on the Oodnadatta Track. The track runs close to the path the Afghans took from Marree and Oodnadatta to Alice, and on my visit it was bordered by brilliant red rosy docks that are believed to have germinated from the grasses and seeds used to stuff camel saddles.

On the outskirts of Alice, I found the Mecca Date Farm, with the palms originating from eboee the Afghans planted in various Ghantowns between Marree and Alice Springs. Dates were the fruits of the Prophet, enriching the health and the spirit, and were eaten at the end of the day during Ramadan, the month-long religious fast. Jim Lukin, the farm's Swiss-born proprietor, showed me the palms from which much of the plantation had been seeded, now named for certain old Afghan characters like Saddadeen and Abdul gbarlick.

Camel farms around Alice Springs today lead safaris on which adventurous Australians and overseas visitors, get a taste of the romantic outback. I met Robin Mcleay when I came across one of his camels tied to the branch of a tree outside a shopping complex, and visited his camp south-west of Alice Springs at the edge of the MacDonnell Ranges. From there he takes those brave enough along the craggy escarpment and into the ranges. While we were having a cup of tea, a playful young camel stole the teapot and refused to give it back.

Camels are curious, intelligent, strangely endearing animals. Today only a few second-generation descendants of the original Afghans are still alive in Australia, most being in their 70s or older. A few still live in their original Ghantown houses, with Muslim mementos of camels and turbaned men on their walls. They have a quiet dignity and reserve; their houses smell deliciously of curries, they keep the pork taboo and many remember a few phrases in Pushtu or Dati, a few prayers in Arabic.

Marree, the centre of Afghan activity in Australia has the longest-surviving Ghantown. Still living there are the descendants of Khan Zadaa, Moosha Balooch, Dadleh Balooch and Mullah Assim Khan.

Afghan influence has stretched from Perth to Townsville, from Melbourne to Port Hedland, from Adelaide to Darwin - criss-crossing inland Australia. Afghan cameleers played an extraordinarily important - and unacknowledged - part in our history.

This was originally published in the Oct-Dec issue of Australian Geographic (AG#20).
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Bejah Dervish at Mullewa, WA, leaving for the Calvert Expedition, 1896. Image Credit: State Library of South Australia IN THE SHIMMERING haze, turbans, sandalled feet and dark beards mingled with the plain dungarees of the bushmen as a crowd rushed to collect mail from the train that had just pulled in.

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A history of South Sea Islanders in Australia

1860s - Opening up the tropical north
It was commonly believed at this time that white people could not labour safely in the tropics.[1] White labour was also scarce in the period after convict transportation ended and was expensive[2] : its use would limit the competitiveness of Australian tropical industries in comparison with those based in Indonesia or South Africa where labour was much cheaper. The idea of using 'coloured' labour to expand the north grew from these considerations. A Mackay plantation owner commented:

"It has been conclusively proved ... that white men cannot and will not do the work done by niggers in the field, and ... that if white labour were available, it would only be at wages which the planters could never afford to pay. The sugar industry is entirely dependent upon coloured labour." [3]

1863 - 'Coloured' labour
The first group of 67 South Sea Islanders were brought to Queensland to work on a cotton plantation.[4] However, as cotton proved unviable, the sugar industry began developing around this time and most South Sea Islanders brought to Australia worked as manual labourers in the sugar cane fields.[5] Others worked as domestics or shepherds on grazing properties, while some were transported into the west of the state to work on cattle stations. In this early period they were usually brought to Australia by force or trickery.

"Kidnapping was common in the Solomons in the 1870s, mirroring the initial phase of the labour trade in the New Hebrides [now Vanuatu] in the 1860s ... The Islanders often thought the men on the big ships wanted to barter ... but when they tried to trade ... their canoes were smashed and they were forced on board ... Others were kidnapped from their canoes while they were fishing." [6]

For the first five years or so, many recruits had no legal protection in Queensland law and employers were largely free to exploit them at will. Only those few on formal labour contracts were protected by the Queensland Master and Servants Act 1861. [7]

1868 - Polynesian Labourers Act (Queensland)
This was the first legislation introduced to regulate labour trafficking of Pacific Islanders into Queensland. It aimed to stamp out the practice of kidnapping South Sea Islanders. One estimate is that about 5% of Islanders were actually abducted, with at least another 20-25% procured by other illegal methods.[8]

The 1868 Act established a system of indentured labour for South Sea Islanders. They were supposed to sign up to three year contracts on a minimum wage of £6 per year, payable at the end of the contract plus rations. However, some Australian South Sea Islanders today report that the system was not policed and that their forebears were not protected by contracts and did not receive any wages.

"I maintain that it was a form of slavery. It is true that some people in the later years signed a contract to work for three years. But my father didn't, neither did his brother and neither did their sister. They were paid nothing whatsoever." [9]

Islanders could often re-enlist at the end of their first contract. Those who did could earn up to £12 a year - still less than the minimum for other workers. A few indentured labourers were introduced from Ceylon in 1882 and received a minimum of £20 a year plus accommodation, food, clothing, medical care and return passage under different legislation. [10]

1880 - Pacific Island Labourers Act (Queensland)
This was the first comprehensive legislation regulating all aspects of the trafficking and employment of labour from the Pacific Islands, with inspectors appointed to enforce it.

A licence was needed to import labourers, but would only be granted for labourers working in tropical or semi-tropical agriculture. They could not be recruited for pastoral work and could only be employed within 30 miles of the coast. An 1884 amendment explicitly banned them from domestic work, jobs in sugar mills and maritime industries, and confined them to menial jobs in agriculture such as clearing, planting and weeding. These provisions protected the more skilled jobs for white workers, such as engine-drivers, blacksmiths, mechanics and fencers.

The Act imposed minimum living standards on board ship and ships' masters had to post one bond against kidnapping and another to guarantee the return passage of labourers. The ships were supposed to return each recruit to his or her home island. However, it is believed that many were simply dumped closer to Queensland in the islands of the Torres Strait. [11]

Under this law, wages had to be paid at the end of each six months in the presence of an inspector. Other provisions banned the sale or supply of alcohol, firearms and ammunition to Pacific Islanders and imposed a limit of three years on their contracts (although re-enlistment was still allowed).

The legislation divided Islanders into three categories:

1. Those on first contracts whose labour was restricted to menial agricultural labour.

2. Time-expired labourers who re-enlisted but were still not permitted to undertake skilled work.

3. Exempted - those who had lived in Queensland since before 1 September 1879. There were only about 500 people in this category and they could take work wherever they found it, but could never acquire citizenship. [12]

Living and working conditions for the labourers were extremely harsh - perhaps one in every five died during their three year contract. [13]

"Poor food, inadequate housing, and medical neglect meant that the Islanders, supposedly adapted to the exigencies of a tropical climate, had a death rate four times higher than that of Europeans in the north." [14]

Mortality rates averaged 51.1 per 1,000 between 1868 and 1904, peaking at 147.7 in 1884. The rate for Anglo-Australians in tropical Queensland at the same time was 15-17 per 1,000.[15]

1896 - Coloured Races Restriction and Regulation Act (NSW)
NSW was the first colony to ban non-white immigration. Having restricted the entry of Chinese immigrants to the colony in 1881, NSW extended the restriction in 1896 to "all persons belonging to any coloured race inhabiting" Africa, Asia, or any island in the Indian or Pacific Oceans. This Act was the blueprint for the nation-wide White Australia policy, implemented principally through the Immigration Restriction Act by the new federal Parliament in 1901.

1901 - Pacific Island Labourers Act (Australia)
This Act was modelled on Queensland's 1880-84 legislation.

"The [Act] ordered the recruitment of the Pacific Islanders to cease after 1903 and gave the federal authorities the power to deport any Islander found in Australia after December 1906. The only Pacific Islanders allowed to stay were those who had arrived in Queensland prior to September 1, 1879, those working in crews on ships and those granted certificates of exemption under the Immigration Restriction Act. The [Act] granted compensation to the sugar industry and ordered the introduction of white labour on a just wage." [18]

At this time, about 10,000 Pacific Islanders were living in Queensland and northern New South Wales. [19]

1904 - Commonwealth deportations begin
A total of 7,068 Islanders were deported between 1904 and 1908 and another 194 between 1909 and 1914.[20] The impact was dramatic - in 1902, 85.5% of Queensland sugar was produced by 'coloured' labour, whereas by 1908, 87.9% was produced by white labour.[21]

1906 - Royal Commission into repatriation of Islanders
In response to humanitarian concerns about the forced deportations and to investigate whether there would be sufficient replacement labour for local industries, the Commonwealth established a Royal Commission.

"As a result of the Commission's investigation, the Pacific Island Labourers Act was amended. It exempted from deportation all who were in Queensland before [1 September] 1879, those who had lived continuously in Queensland for 20 years or more, those whose return because of marriage involved risks to themselves or their families, the old or the infirm and owners of freehold land." [22]

In 1906, 1,200 South Sea Islanders were granted residency in Australia (in total 1,380 were able to stay) [23] and an estimated 1,000 others stayed illegally.[24]

1909 - A remnant community facing severe discrimination
From 1909 until 1942 South Sea Islanders living in Australia experienced considerable hardship. Legislation prohibited their employment in the sugar industry, unions resisted their employment elsewhere and they could not obtain financial assistance from banks. Without extended family in Australia to assist and support them, the ageing original South Sea Islanders faced a great deal of hardship in the lead-up to the Second World War.

Islanders were usually treated with discrimination similar to that faced by Aboriginal people.

"In Central Queensland, Islander women were relegated to the 'black ward' at Rockhampton Base Hospital, which was separated from the main maternity section and overlooked the morgue. Islander and Aboriginal women gave birth in their beds, while the labour ward was the preserve of white women. Isolated and out of earshot, at the end of the veranda, they found the experience frightening." [25]

One historian has counted at least 40 pieces of discriminatory Queensland legislation between 1900 and 1940, which applied to South Sea Islanders who stayed on in Australia. [26] Most of these laws restricted their employment and income-earning opportunities. The Liquor Act 1912 prohibited the supply of alcohol to Islanders. Unions refused their membership applications and industrial awards restricted employment to union members.

Islanders who associated with Aboriginal people were usually treated as Aboriginal under Queensland law. One member of the community tells of his ten years of incarceration at the Aboriginal leprosarium on Fantome Island near Ingham from the age of seven. Other non-Indigenous people with leprosy were hospitalised on Peel Island near Brisbane. [27]

1964 - The ban on coloured labour in the sugar industry ends
The prohibition of 'coloured' labour in the sugar industry was finally abolished as late as 1964.

1970s - Organising the community
The Australian South Sea Islanders United Council was formed in the early 1970s in the Tweed region, with networks extending to North Queensland. The Council's aim was to improve housing, health and education services for the Australian South Sea Islander community.

1977 - Royal Commission into Human Relationships
Research by the Royal Commission found that South Sea Islanders were not eligible for benefits specifically for Aboriginal people unless they identified as being Aboriginal and therefore gave up their South Sea Islander origins. Many Australians at the time did not differentiate between South Sea Islanders and Aboriginal people - discriminating against both groups equally. The lack of differentiation has caused tensions over the years between the communities.

The Royal Commission recommended that "action should be taken to extend to them eligibility for benefits now available to Aboriginals." [30] The recommendation was not accepted.[31]

1991 - Support from the ACTU
The Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions committed itself to assist South Sea Islanders to be recognised as a group in their own right.

1992 - Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission research
This research made significant detailed findings about the ongoing disadvantage faced by Australian South Sea Islanders due to discriminatory practices by governments and the general community over the previous century. In many respects, Australian South Sea Islanders were still significantly disadvantaged. For example, although more than two-thirds of Australians at the time were home-owners, this was the case for less than one-third of Islanders.

In addition, the incidence of diabetes for Islanders was three times the national average. And while for all Australians aged 15 and over, three in every ten had a tertiary qualification, the figure was only two in ten for Australian South Sea Islanders. [32]

At the same time, Australian South Sea Islanders were generally less disadvantaged than Aboriginal people. For example, labour force participation was higher (74.8% for Islander men compared with 66% for Aboriginal men) and high school retention was more than double (73% of 16 and 17 year old Islanders were in high school compared with only 30% for Aborigines). [33]

The Call for Recognition report set out a range of recommendations, starting with official recognition by governments to begin improving the access and equity of this community.

1993 - Queensland community summit
In response to the Call for Recognition report, the Queensland Bureau of Ethnic Affairs convened a summit of more than 30 Australian South Sea Islander community representatives across Queensland to discuss community needs and develop a proposal for action. Funding was provided by the Bureau to develop a newsletter to meet the communication needs of the community and a second summit was planned for 1994.[34]

1994 - Recognition by the Commonwealth Government
In response to the Call for Recognition report, the Commonwealth Government officially recognised the Australian South Sea Islander community as "a distinct ethnic group in Australia with its own history and culture". The government acknowledged the injustices of the indentured labour system, the severe disadvantage suffered by the South Sea Islanders and their descendents, and their contribution to the culture, history and economy of Australia. The response included a number of initiatives especially designed for the Australian South Sea Islander community, including several projects to strengthen community members' awareness of and pride in their culture.[35]

The major Commonwealth Government initiatives have been:

Australian South Sea Islander community development project
A community development project was established by the former Office of Multicultural Affairs and administered by the Queensland Bureau of Ethnic Affairs to help Australian South Sea Islanders access government services.[36] This project received $240,000 in federal funding over three years.[37]

Cultural awareness
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade sponsors six Australian South Sea Islanders each year to visit Pacific Islands and study their culture.[38] This scheme has now ceased.

Australian South Sea Islander history in schools
The Commonwealth Government, in conjunction with the Queensland Education Department, funded the development of curriculum on the history and culture of Australian South Sea Islanders to be taught in Queensland schools.[39]

1996 - Commonwealth Government consultations with Australian South Sea Islander communities in Queensland and northern New South Wales
These consultations were necessary because of a lack of progress on the community development project. The consultations found:

As a result of recognition by the Commonwealth in 1994, many Australian South Sea Islanders were unable to access the Indigenous services they had used prior to recognition. It was understood that exclusion from these services would further disadvantage Australian South Sea Islander people unless mainstream services could accommodate their special needs.

Recognition raised unrealistic expectations among the Australian South Sea Islander community, such as the creation of an equivalent body to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) specifically for the Australian South Sea Islander community, which would include the associated funding and community power. The community development project also fuelled these expectations and increased already existing factionalism within the community.

There was a real need to improve access and equity measures for the community, which could be done through a revamped community development project, with a refocus on frontline community development objectives. [41]

1996 - After Recognition: Access and Equity for Australian South Sea Islanders
This report, commissioned by the Commonwealth Government, focussed on issues of access, equity and the identity of Australian South Sea Islanders by Commonwealth Government agencies post-recognition in 1994. The report made a number of recommendations for action by the Commonwealth Government to improve access and equity to services for Australian South Sea Islanders, as well as promoting the adoption of the following definition for consistent use across all agencies.

"Australian South Sea Islanders are the descendents of Pacific Islander labourers brought from the Western Pacific in the Nineteenth Century who were not repatriated, who identify as Australian South Sea Islanders, and who are accepted as such by the communities in which they live, or have lived." [42]

1998 -Report on the health of Australian South Sea Islanders in the Tweed Valley
A study on the health of Australian South Sea Islanders living in the Tweed Valley region of northern NSW was a joint initiative of the Tweed Valley Health Services and the Tweed-Northern Rivers NSW Branch of the National Federation of Australian South Sea Islanders.[43] The Tweed has the fourth largest community of Australian South Sea Islanders in Australia and the largest outside Queensland. The study was a needs assessment to assist future health service planning. The report finalised in 1998 recommended culturally appropriate health programs to assist with a number of health risks facing the Tweed community including high levels of smoking and weight problems.[44]

The action plan aims to:

Coordinate the actions the government will take to improve the community's access to services.

Increase the awareness of Australian South Sea Islander issues within the government and enhance the capacity of agencies to address these issues in a culturally appropriate way.

Improve the knowledge, understanding and acceptance within the broader Queensland community of the history, culture and current circumstances of the Australian South Sea Islander people.

Assist community development in the Australian South Sea Islander community.

Address discrimination and prejudice against Australian South Sea Islanders. [47]

The action plan is a whole-of-government initiative and Queensland Government agencies must report on their progress every year.

The major Queensland initiatives are:

Australian South Sea Islander Community Foundation
The Foundation provides scholarships for Australian South Sea Islanders at Queensland tertiary institutions. The value of each scholarship is $5,000 per year estimated to extend over a three-year period. In 2002 two scholarships were awarded at Central Queensland University and two at James Cook University (which also provided one extra scholarship). [48]

Public sector traineeships
As part of the Public Sector Employment Initiative established to create additional apprentices and trainees in the Queensland public sector, 39 traineeships were offered to Australian South Sea Islanders in 2001-02.[49] The traineeships primarily aim to improve "engagement between government and this community".[50]

Employment initiatives
The Department of Education and Training provided $60,000 to the Mackay and District South Sea Islander Association Incorporated for a 12-month intensive employment and training project in 2001-02. A similar project was undertaken by the Australian South Sea Islander United Council - Independent Rockhampton and District Incorporated which commenced in September 2001.[51]

1. W. Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 2002, pp.85-86.
2. Evans, Saunders & Cronin, p.158.
3. Harold Finch-Hatton in 1886 quoted in Evans, Saunders & Cronin, p.158.
4. The first South Sea Islanders were imported by Benjamin Boyd to work as shepherds in the Riverina in 1847: B. H. Molesworth, 'Kanaka Labour in Queensland', paper presented to the Ryal Historical Society of Queensland on 6 July 1916 and held in the Society's archives. See also the entry on Benjamin Boyd at http://www.bendigolive.com/links/notedaussies9.htm . The 'failed NSW experiment' (many of the Islander shepherds died in the first winter and the remainder, released by the NSW government from their obligations, escaped back to Sydney thereafter) was well known in Queensland which only became a separate colony from NSW in December 1859. A Queensland commentator in 1863 referred to the 'deluge' of South Sea Islanders brought into NSW: quoted by Kay Saunders in 'The Kanakas are coming' in Evans, Saunders & Cronin, p.149.
5. The Call for Recognition, p.75.
6. Moore, pp.39-40.
7. Evans, Saunders & Cronin, p.170.
8. Evans, Saunders & Cronin, p.167.
9. Faith Bandler interviewed by Paul Kelly and quoted in ABC Online.
10. Masters and Servants Act 1861 (Qld).
11. Personal communication from Mr Joe Eggmolesse, 28 October 2003.
12. Evans, Saunders & Cronin, pp.153-154.
13. The Call for Recognition, p.85. Evans, Saunders & Cronin documents deaths from overwork, exposure, malnutrition, scurvy, TB, insanity, dysentery, physical discipline and assaults such as beatings and floggings by supervisors, inter-tribal and inter-Island fighting, denial of medical treatment, drinking contaminated sly grog (Islanders were not permitted to obtain alcohol legally) and drinking contaminated water on the job as fresh water was not supplied during the working day.
14. W. Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 2002, p.85.
15. The Call for Recognition, p.85. Slightly different figures are provided by ABC Online: 'The death rate in the Queensland colony for non Pacific Islanders was 13.03 per 1000, whilst the Islander mortality rate was 62.89 per 1000.'
16. This scandal was investigated by a Royal Commission in 1885: Evans, Saunders & Cronin, p.161.
17. The Call for Recognition, p.15.
18. ABC Online.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Richmond River Historical Society, The Sugar Industry on the Richmond River, 1978, p. 5, quoted in The Call for Recognition, p.19.
22. ABC Online.
23. The Call for Recognition, p.17.
24. ABC Online. Note too that this source indicates 1,500 were granted exemptions after 1906.
25. Gistitin online resource.
26. P. Mercer, White Australia Defied: A Centennial History of Pacific Islander Settlement in North Queensland, James Cook University, Townsville, 1992, p.140 cited in The Call for Recognition, p.18.
27. Personal communication from Mr Joe Eggmolesse, 28 October 2003. The Peel Island lazaret was converted for whites only in 1940.
28. The Call for Recognition, p.89.
29. Faith Bandler is best known for the 10 years of her life she devoted to the May 1967 referendum which enabled indigenous Australians to come under Commonwealth law. Faith co-founded the Aboriginal Australian Fellowship in 1956 and later was NSW secretary, then General Secretary of (FCAATSI) Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. She served State and Federal governments in a variety of roles and was vice-president of the Evatt Foundation for many years. It was the lobbying of the Evatt Foundation in the early 1990s which induced the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to undertake the project reported in The Call for Recognition, 1992 (from Brisbane Institute People: http://www.brisinst.org.au/people/bandler_faith.html).
30. Royal Commission into Human Relationships, 1977, pp.46-47, cited in The Call for Recognition, p.2.
31. The Call for Recognition, p.2.
32. The Call for Recognition, Chapter 5. Note that the data for all Australians are from the 1986 national population census.
33. Ibid. Note that the data for Aborigines are from the 1986 national population census.
34. Commonwealth Government Consultations with Australian South Sea Islander Communities in Queensland and Northern New South Wales, Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, 1996, p.10.
35. Id, p.12.
36. Id, p.5
37. Id, p.5.
38. Id, p.45.
39. Id, p.45.
40. Premier Carr's memo is online at http://www.premiers.nsw.gov.au/pubs_dload_part4/prem_circs_memos/prem_memos/1995/m95-42.html
41. Commonwealth Government Consultations with Australian South Sea Islander Communities in Queensland and Northern New South Wales, Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, 1996, pp.5-6.
42. After Recognition: Access and Equity for Australian South Sea Islanders, Rural Social and Economic Research Centre, Central Queensland University, 1996, p.iv.
43. Australian South Sea Islanders in the Tweed Valley, Northern Rivers Area Health Service and Tweed Shire Council, 1998, p.4.
44. Queensland Government Action Plan - Australian South Sea Islander Community, 2001, p.3-5
45. Id, p.1.
46. Id, p.2.
47. Id, p.2.
48. Implementation of the Multicultural Queensland Policy 2001-2002, Report to the Premier, pp.19-20.
49. Id, p.20. The traineeships were located as follows:

50. Queensland Government Action Plan - Australian South Sea Islander Community, 2001, p.1.
51. Id, p.22

© Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Last updated 2 December 2003.

Contributing Authors: Tracey Flanagan, Meredith Wilkie, Susanna Iuliano

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eRace Archives - A history of South Sea Islanders in Australia

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1860s - Opening up the tropical north It was commonly believed at this time that white people could not labour safely in the tropics.[1] White labour was also scarce in the period after convict transportation ended and was expensive [2] : its use would limit the competitiveness of Australian tropical industries in comparison with those based in Indonesia or South Africa where labour was much cheaper.

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Everything is Alive - A can of cola transcript

So forth, my name is Luis and I am a can. I'm Go2 Cola that's a store brand go to so it's similar to Coca-Cola similar people call it a knockoff. I've been called The Best of the worst, you know, if uh, you wanted to get my honest opinion, I believe in a blind taste test. Your average person wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me and the can of regular Coca-Cola.

But yeah, uh bottom shelf. We can describe it comfortably as bottom shelf. I'm at peace with that literally on the most of the time yet. Okay. Well, um, I there's there's a lot of want to talk to you about today. Dude need any water anyting no. No. I'm I'm completely self-contained. I want to ask you about your time before you ended up in the fridge you're in now.

So, um you I take it were you were in a supermarket? Yep, and where were you I was in a safe way. I was bought had a case. So there were 24 of us. We were all purchased together and actually, uh, our next residents was a bowling alley for a 12 year old birthday party. Uh, I saw most of the rest of my case drunk at that party.

I was not drunk I was saved for later and brought home and put into a refrigerator and then forgotten about for a few months placed in the back of the fridge. Sure, I froze in the fridge. I was in the very back and uh, the temperature got very cold. I didn't freeze all the way through but uh, I had a frozen couple of weeks pretty learned.

You were slushy inside. I was left hand side. Yeah and uh, I had a brief Adventure when they realized I was still in the fridge and they took me out for a road trip. I got to sit in the front seat cup holder, you know. Yeah and I took a little fun road trip, uh down to Florida and then back again and they never got around to drinking me on that trip.

Then they put me back on the fridge and that's where I've been ever since. It sounds like you were almost chosen so many times. Yeah. Yeah. What does it feel like when you're saying at this birthday party and you're waiting for your moment

we ever seen the movie Jaws. Yeah, so, you know the story that uh that Robert Shaw tells to and uh the other guy. Anyway, you know the story about the USS Indianapolis or he's in the water and the sharks are coming and he's waiting to be picked off and he's waiting and having that long dark night and one by one is seeing his friends go that's kind of what it was like for me.

It was terrifying and on the one hand. I was very angry at uman beings for being in this position to consume us and then on the other hand, I was also very angry. How come you didn't want to consume me? Yeah. When you when you think about being consumed by human, do you think about the human that you want to be in if and when I'm finally consumed I hope I'm consumed by someone who enjoys it.

But I like to imagine that if you're drunk immediately that instead of being a painful process. There's the sort of first moment of relief the cannon is cracked open all of this internal fizzing that I have going on finally has somewhere to go just sort of drowned out from your external. Can we have that last moment where you're filling your.

Person beginning to blend in with this human being and you become part of their story

truthfully. Here's how I expect to go. Assuming that I am consumed. I'm expecting it's going to happen in the middle of the night when I'm not waiting for it and someone's going to open the fridge and pull me out and that'll be that. And would be nice to be poured into a nice big pint glass. You know, Frosty mug would be pretty good way to go not be pleasant.

You know, I doubt that's going to happen though. They don't Reserve Frosty mugs for go to colas. That's just another one of those Facts of Life. How did you see jaws? Oh, uh the human being who lives in my house was watching Jon's they took me out of the fridge. Kept me on the table. I thought this is it.

This is my big moment kind of part of me. There was the Robert Shaw scene where he's telling the story of the Indianapolis and I was thinking boy, this is just too perfect. This would be amazing. He was reaching for me. He was going to go for me and then at the last minute, uh, you know, another human being came into the house and scolded him.

I'm not drinking soft drinks. So I put him back in the fridge. Wow. Yeah, I would have been perfect, huh? Damn, you know I should ask you there's a lot of talk right now about the health effects of soft drinks people tend to think of of them as very unhealthy. Do you feel unhealthy? Do I feel unhealthy?

It's hard to say because I think if you were feeling the way I feel you would feel unhealthy, right, but I feel like me. I can't say that that means I feel good. But um, but to go back to your question, you know, unhealthy drinks are not like a new thing by any means have you ever heard of radio Thor radio Thor radio Thor?

All right. So back in the 20s, there was an energy drink with radium called radius or okay, and the idea was it was radioactive material in water. They claimed radio Thor gave you energy and cured a bunch of things. They also implied, um, that rate of Thor increased male virility reigneth or else were killed.

No people. So people would just drink radioactive material dissolved in water. I'm just looking at up here. There's actually there's an eBay ad. Uh, there's a bottle of ready Thor for sale. Oh, come on now currently $659 got to be kidding me. It says here. This certified radioactive water was advertised as a quote cure for the living dead and quote Perpetual Sunshine.

It goes on one guy who used it Eben buyers died from radiation poisoning and they had to bury him in a lead-lined coffin. Yeah. That's what you get when you're. Got radioactive material so they made a beverage which not only killed a man but his dead body would have had they not taken precautions, uh killed all life around him.

Yes, presumably his dead body is still radiating the poisons that he drank from Radio 4. In fact the the ad goes on they exhumed him for study in 1965. Oh his remains were still quite Radioactive. And then mentions its developer of radio Thor was not an actual medical doctor. Yeah, that sounds about right to me to also the bottle is in very good condition.

So there's your original Power drink for you. Are you got says to me more about human beings than it does about soft drinks to be perfectly honest our willingness our eagerness to find something to your chronic search for potency. Yeah, that's my evaluation of humanity chronic search for potency.

Hello.

Hey, I'm calling for Jeff. Yep. Hey, Jeff, uh, you're um, you're the man behind the bygone times vintage, right? Yeah. I'm guilty. Um, I noticed one of your eBay listings so you put up the radio Thor Thor yeah. Yeah. Is that is that for real? Oh, yeah. What happened was I was at a flea market and I found.

A set of about 20 25 of these things. Okay, looks like a shipping crate or something. And uh, so yeah, I have sold a few of those now and is it is it a reproduction or is it an original bottle now? These These are original? Yeah original. Did you check them with a geiger counter? Um, I have not I don't uh, I just assumed they wouldn't have any there's no content for them obviously, but I haven't no I didn't talk about the geiger counter.

I don't I suspected from the 1920s. That would be done gone. I think maybe it wouldn't be gone. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they would I don't know.

Can't put him under a black light or something. I hope it still active. I would that raises the interesting question, sir. Did you know much about Raditz or when you you know when you now yeah, I got on. Fortunately now we have the internet and Google was quite helpful to really an interesting story.

I don't know if you've taken the time to uh to look into it but Max mating. Yeah. Well, I just I just heard about it. It's um crazy that we we humans I know like I like the story about the guy who uh died from it and then they dug him up in the 60s and has led line coffin. He was still very active.

That's why I wear. I feel like you should maybe get checked out. You are I think I will. Yeah you go will now that you said that because I didn't really think that the glass would hold any of that, but I guess it's possible, you know radiation. You don't want to mess around with I guess when it comes down no now I hear you.

Hey, you have to I'm driving and I don't want to I'm getting onto a busy road now if I need to unfortunately hang up on you got it. Yeah. Be safe. Okay. Bye. Louis one quick thing I want to ask you about. Um, I have in my life occasionally dropped a can of soda Noah is that ever happened to you?

Oh, it's uh awful experience it feel I mean obviously very shaken. There's a rush I guess of a human being terms would be like a rush of adrenaline and for a while you're feeling just very very, um, Hyper after the shake up and then you start to sort of resettle back to a neutral state, but you have this awful kind of nauseous sleepy feeling after the fact and you feel kind of dumb, you know, the shake-up kind of like rattles you a little bit and it takes a little bit of time for your intelligence to kind of come back to you.

It's an awful experience. Hey, I imagine to like we often after that happens. We will tap on what would be your head don't it doesn't do anything. It doesn't. There's no reason to do it. It doesn't do anything to the carbonation. All it does is Annoy Us and a very sensitive moment. Yeah, don't do that.

You're listening to everything is alive on 99% invisible. So Louis this might be awkward to talk about but I feel like there's a hierarchy two sodas at least in terms of how humans think about them sure at the top. There's you know Coke and Pepsi and then there's seven up and Sprite and then there's these, you know, like your Sunkissed and grape soda Fanta that are kind of at the bottom.

I wonder if that does. Hierarchy does it mean the same thing to you? Well, let me tell you something about Fanta. I mean sure here in the US. It's not the most sophisticated soft drink, but overseas. It's huge like Japan huge Fanta Fanta in Thailand. It's all over the place. If you walk down the street there, you'll see half open bottles of fanta everywhere strawberry Phantom particular everywhere.

Just hanging out just like sitting on this the street. Yeah just on the street because humans there you strawberry Phantom as an offering. Two ghosts so they leave it out on the street because they're giving it to ghost. Yes friendly ghosts according to local custom love sweet red soda. So if you leave it out it attracts them and they hang out around your house and protect you from you know, I guess whatever unfriendly ghost might come around who I guess don't love sweetbreads soda, right?

Do you know what it is about? Um Strawberry Fanta in particular because of the color. So there's a theory that it's because they can't do blood offerings anymore. And so strawberry Phantom, which is another you know, red, uh, viscous liquid would be the next best thing strawberry Phantom among the sodas available to us looks the most like blood.

Yeah, which I personally don't see okay, but you know, it's a Thailand thing. We humans we think a lot about you know Spirits or at least you know, what might happen to us after we die. Do you as a cola do you think about that the afterlife? Yeah. Oh, yeah. How do you not think about all the time?

Yeah, because you know, I'm I'm reaching that age myself or I'm probably not gonna be around that much longer you are I mean you are recyclable. Oh, yeah, which opens up a whole other? Conversation, you know, my my body my can will almost certainly be repurposed and then that leads me to you know, ask questions of like well have I already been repurposed.

I don't know you could have been any number of soda or or anything else an airplane. I could have been I actually when I was younger I used to have a recurring nightmare that I was there was a plane crashing there was an ocean and a beach and in the it was nighttime, and it was raining and there was a.

And crashing on the beach and I used to like to think that in a previous existence. I was part of an airplane and this was some sort of uh memory that had traveled with me. Maybe I was part of like a I don't know ventilation system on board of a 747 or something. You referred to your your can as your body or your body as your candy.

Yeah is there. An equivalency between you know a human stock about Body and Soul. I'm sorry. I know I'm only saying because I wish I had the answer to this question. Is there an equivalence? Yes. Yes, the body-mind problem that human beings have been dealing with since the days of Descartes, uh, something all too familiar to us cans of soda Mi just a can a my soda.

What does it mean? To be soda and my part of the larger ocean of soda out there am I just the individuated? So my soda interacting with a can and like can being slowly eaten Away by the soda inside me. I thought about this a lot. Yeah, I don't have an answer but it's something I wrestle with all the time.

What am I fundamentally, once the sodas gone the can remains but by by me, I think. Yeah, who knows? Who knows? These are the Mysteries that permeate every level of existence as far as I know I have to say I think I think about the type of can you are with the pull tab? And then I think about other cans in the kitchen, you know, like a soup can I don't know if you know any soup can I know couples who cancer and it occurs to me?

You are so lucky because you think about the way a soup can get to open. Oh, yeah. The I can't open our to me seems like a torture device it is and let me tell you something else too. The I thank God every day of my life that I was not born to can administer any soup. I at least have lived a life.

I know where I've been, you know, I'm not all of my dreams may have necessarily come true. I may have taken a couple of bad turns here and there but at least at the end of the day, I've been witnessed in my own life. These poor bastards are stuck in these soup cams. I'm talk about hermetically sealed.

They lose all sense of time and perspective when you open a can of soup when they wake up. They have no idea how much time has passed. They're like astronauts coming out of cryogenic freeze and they're all spaced out in the completely disoriented. They don't know what's going on and their wake-up call is being torn open by these damn can openers what a nightmare of an existence their flesh is literally busted open only to wake up into a world that they don't know anything about all the rest of us do.

From the cans of soup and I'll be honest with you. I feel awful about it. But whenever I try to talk to a can of soup, they are weird. Um, you've mentioned that you're you're feeling like you're nearing the end of your life. Oh, yeah. What do you feel old or? Oh, yeah. Yeah, oh very much so I know for a fact I'm old.

I can look at my expiration date. Okay, and can I ask how close you are T-minus two weeks to go my friend. Wow, so what but you could keep going on after that, but that's just I could it's not recommended, but I could does it seem I mean I think about this with you because um. And I'm sorry if I have this isn't the right way to put it but it seems like your purpose is to be consumed by a human.

Yeah, and so, you know, we all want to serve our purpose. We all want to be useful, you know, um and yet for you the moment of your use is the moment where you are no more and I wonder if that's something you anticipate with optimism or if it feels like, you know approaching the end. That's a paradox, isn't it?

It is yeah.

I guess on the one hand. I do sort of dread the idea of being consumed. Yeah, you know all beings Endeavor to persist in their own being Spinoza said that I heard about that from a cup of coffee, but on the other hand, I guess on some level I still hope that uh, That I will kind of fulfill Myself by being consumed.

You know, I think that dream is still is still very much alive, though. If I'm being perfectly honest with you, um, you know, I do I do sometimes fear that that moment has passed I feel weird saying this but um, I could drink you right now. Yeah. I mean I want I I I I want you I am thirsty but I also I want this to be a good moment for you.

I want you to be red. I don't want you to do it. If you're not ready. Well, I'll make a deal with you. I've always said I wanted to go with my eyes wide open. I'm prepared to end it here. If you promise me that even if you're disgusted by I taste you will finish the camp. I I will make you that promise.

Is there anything you want to say to the humans you've encountered the cans you've encountered the countertops. You've known I think I think overall I would say life is a gift and a blessing and I don't believe anything ends, but everything simply transforms into the next thing. All right would say uh, if I can be a little bit soft hearted and set the mental for a moment or two.

Uh, it's a gift to get to be anything at all. Well, maybe what we'll do and then just in the interest of Journalism is all uh, I'll drink about half. And then we'll check in again. Great. Do you want to talk while I'm drinking you? I don't know. Okay. No, I want to have the full experience. Okay, but I'll check in with you at the halfway mark.

All right, so, um, I'm uh, I'm picking you up.

Give me one second.

Okay. Are you ready

this I have to say feels delightful. All right. Well, um, I guess uh cheers cheers to you with you. Here's hoping for the best.

I mean you're um, you are delicious. Thank you. You're very gentle. This is a Trippy feeling. I'm not gonna lie. All right, my first report feeling very spacious inside right now. I feel I think I got room to be. Yeah, but I'm also I'm feeling the warmth of the tummy very strange thing. I'm in two places at once spacious in my own body, but feeling warm and secure and your own Tommy.

Wow, all of a sudden I find myself, uh thinking about my body. I'm thinking about my body and I'm hoping that my body is a good place for you. I think so. I don't mind telling you my first impression of the inside of your own Tommy you seem to be taking pretty good care of yourself. Thank you.

Yeah.

I am seeing some are you sweating thing some with your right? I'm gonna I'm gonna have a little more you go ahead and finish me off. Okay.

Are you are you still there?

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Timeline of Australian history - Wikipedia

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This is a timeline of Australian history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Australia and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Australia. See also the list of Prime Ministers of Australia.

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The 17th century was the century that lasted from January 1, 1601, to December 31, 1700, in the Gregorian calendar. It falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and in that continent (whose impact on the world was increasing) was characterized by the Baroque cultural movement, the Dutch Golden Age, the French dominated by Louis XIV, the Scientific Revolution, and according to some historians, the General Crisis.

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Western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example, the "short" 18th century may be defined as 1715-1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, with an emphasis on directly interconnected events.

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Timeline of the 19th century - Wikipedia

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1803: The United States more than doubles in size when it buys out France's territorial claims in North America via the Louisiana Purchase. This begins the U.S.'s westward expansion to the Pacific referred to as its Manifest Destiny which involves annexing and conquering land from Mexico, Britain, and Native Americans.

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"Poignant, touching and at times laugh-out-loud funny examinations of the human condition...prepare to think deeply about yourself, to laugh and at times, cry."
--BBC

"It's made with care and understated wit, and it has a surprising frisson of seriousness, quietly provoking thoughts about the objects in our lives, unwittingly laden with our emotions."
--The New Yorker

"Laugh-out-loud funny, surprisingly informative and often moving...a profound pleasure."
--Time Magazine

"What starts out as a clever send-up, with its ticklishly absurdist dialogue...is also more than that, with surprising moments of poignancy."
--The New York Times

" Everything is Alive has its own realness, the enveloping authenticity of good films and theater and novels: Frankenstein's monster has feelings, so why wouldn't a can of cola have them too?"
--The Guardian

"The reality-construction is exquisite... Everything Is Alive is a unique, quirky, and smart little package with an unexpectedly moving edge."
--New York Magazine

" Everything Is Alive is doing more than just making you laugh-it's putting you under its spell."
--The A.V. Club

"If Terry Gross lived in a Murakami-like novel, her interviews would sound like these."
--Quartz

"Touching and powerful...unlike anything you've ever heard before."
--CBC

"Everything is Alive will change the way you view the world...it's as bizarre as it sounds and just as wonderful, too."
--LA Review of Books
ACCOLADES
Winner, Miller Audio Prize 2020
The A.V. Club "The Podcasts That Defined The Decade"
Apple Best Podcasts of 2018
Time Magazine 50 Best Podcasts to Listen to Right Now 2019
Time Magazine Top 10 Podcasts of 2018
New York Magazine Best Podcast Episodes of 2018
Indiewire Best Podcast Episodes of 2018
Indiewire Best Podcast Episodes of 2019
LA Review of Books Best Podcasts of 2018
BBC Culture's 10 Best Culture Podcasts of 2018
Quartz Favorite Podcasts of 2019
CBC's 25 Best Podcasts of 2018
Fast Company's 15 Best New Podcasts of 2018
The Globe and Mail Best Podcasts of 2018
The Economist Best Podcasts of 2019
Webby Best Interview/Talk Show Podcast 2019
Webby People's Voice Award 2019

Everything is Alive is an interview show in which all the subjects are inanimate objects. In each episode, a different thing tells us its life story--and everything it says is true. A proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.
WHO WE ARE
Ian Chillag is the host and creator of Everything is Alive. Previously he was a producer for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and he co-created and hosted the NPR podcast How To Do Everything. He's also worked on videos for The New York Times, contributed regularly to the literary magazine A Public Space, and has recorded four episodes of a podcast about a post-apocalyptic public radio pledge drive besieged by pestilence and death that he can't quite figure out what to do with.

Jennifer Mills produces Everything is Alive by looking all over the world for objects that are willing to speak. She is currently a writer and producer for National Public Radio, previously worked on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received her Masters in Performance Art. Jennifer is also the editor-in-chief of the long-running, non-award winning, weekly publication The Jennifer Mills News.

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Everything is Alive is an unscripted interview show in which all the subjects are inanimate objects. In each episode, a different thing tells us its life story--and everything it says is true.

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_Mongolian Octopus_Its Grip On Australia_

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Egalitarianism and racism on the goldfields

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Egalitarianism and racism on the goldfields

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Charlie covers the controversy surrounding Adam Goodes and the wider issue of Indigenous incarceration. See more on iview: http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/theweeklytv Catch The Weekly on ABC TV Wednesdays at 8:30pm Follow along at: www.twitter.com/theweeklytv www.facebook.com/theweeklytv https://instagram.com/theweeklytv/