Everything about Kanakas totally explained
Kanakas were workers from various
Pacific Islands employed under varying conditions in various
British colonies, such as
British Columbia (
Canada),
Fiji and
Queensland (
Australia) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They also worked in
California and
Chile.
The word kanaka originally referred only to
Native Hawaiians, called
kānaka ʻōiwi or
kānaka maoli in the
Hawaiian language.
Australia
According to the
Macquarie Dictionary, the word Kanaka, which was once widely used in Australia, is now regarded in
Australian English as an offensive term for a Pacific Islander. In part, this is because most "Kanakas" in Australia were people from
Melanesia, rather than
Polynesia, and included few Hawaiians. The descendants of
19th century immigrants to Australia from the Pacific Islands now generally refer to themselves as "
South Sea Islanders", and this is also the term used in formal and official situations.
In Australia, South Sea Islanders were often
unfree labour, of the specific form known as
indentured labour. It is often alleged that their employment in Australia was a form of
slavery, due to the belief that many people were recruited by "
blackbirding", as the enslavement of Pacific Islanders and
indigenous Australians was known at the time. However, historians such as
Keith Windschuttle (in his book
The White Australia Policy) dispute this, claiming all evidence of blackbirding is anecdotal. Another historian, Adrian Graves, in a ground-breaking 1983 article in
Past & Present (see reference list below), documented how some Pacific Islanders were paid
truck wages and actively sought to work in Australia.
The Australian government officially repatriated many South Sea Islanders to their places of origin in 1906–08, under the provisions of the
Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901. However, some remained in Australia.
Canada
In Canada, many Kanaka men married
first nation or Native Canadian women, and their descendants can still be found in British Columbia and neighbouring parts of Canada and the
United States (the states of Washington and Oregon). Canadian Kanakas were all Hawaiian in origin. Nearly all were contractees of the
Hudson's Bay Company although some had arrived in the area as ship's hands or, in some cases, migrated north from
California..
United States
Kanakas were
Native Hawaiian workers employed in agriculture and ranching was present in the mainland United States (primarily in
California under Spanish colonial arrangement and later American company contracts) as early as 1850, but the migration peaked between 1900 and 1930. Most of their families present in the fields soon blended into the
Chinese,
Filipino and more numerous
Mexican populations they came in contact with by intermarriage. Native Hawaiian sugar beet and apple tree pickers were in the states of
Washington and
Oregon. There is documentation of several hundreds of Native Hawaiian
vaqueros or
cowboys were present across the
Great Basin of the Western US.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Kanakas'.
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