Australian imperialism and the New Hebrides, 1862-1922
Abstract
Australians first became aware that the New
Hebrides were an important group of islands when news
of sandalwood discoveries, in the 1840s, encouraged
Australian merchants to risk losing ships and crews on
uncharted reefs or at the hands of fierce New Hebrideans
for the handsome profits to be made from the sale of
sandalwood in China. At the time a decline in supply
and demand closed this trade, in the 1860s, one of its
leading entrepreneurs, Robert Towns, successfully
experimented in harnessing the energy of New Hebrideans
for plantation work in Queensland. This prompted other
Australians to engage in a labour trade between Australia
and the group; during the next 40 years over half the
Pacific islands labourers brought to Queensland came from
the New Hebrides. At the same time, in the late 1860s,
a handful of Australians took the plantation system to
the group, where they found other Europeans who, since
1862, had been receiving money from Australia to preach
the Presbyterian version of the Christian Gospel.