page_title: Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Richard Bingham Sheridan - Queensland politician
context_page_description: Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site is a heritage-listed archaeological site of a former hospital and private cemetery at the corner of Bluebell Road East and Gernich Road, Tinana, Fraser Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1883 to 1888 .It is also known as Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site, South Sea Islander Hospital and Cemetery site, and Pacific Islander Hospital, Maryborough. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 27 October 2017.
context_section_description: The Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site at Tinana, formerly named the Pacific Islander Hospital, Maryborough, and originally comprising 13.18 hectares (32.6 acres), is situated between Iindah, Genrich and Bluebird Roads, at Tinana, approximately 5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi) southwest of Maryborough. The hospital officially opened on 19 December 1883 and closed on 31 December 1888. One of only four central hospitals built for the treatment of South Sea Islanders (then called Pacific Islanders or Polynesians), the site is a rare and important remnant of the response by the Queensland Government during the 1880s to the high death rate among indentured South Sea Islanders. The former "Polynesian Cemetery" site has the potential to yield new information that will contribute to a greater understanding of the role and treatment of indentured South Sea Islander workers in Queensland's history. The Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site has a special association with South Sea Islanders who, as indentured workers, made an important contribution to the establishment of the Queensland sugar industry, and has a special association with their descendants.
  The settlement of Maryborough in the traditional country of the Butchulla people, started in 1847 to serve the needs of the pastoral settlers in the district. Maryborough, with a population of 299, was declared a township in 1851. It was proclaimed a port of entry in 1859 and a municipality (the Borough of Maryborough) in 1861. From April 1861, land on the Mary River was sold for agricultural purposes, and by the end of the 1860s thousands of free immigrants had entered Queensland through the Port of Maryborough. Supplying the Gympie goldfields from 1867 further boosted Maryborough's growth.
  Sugar cane was cultivated around Maryborough from the late 1860s. The first commercially viable sugar cane crop in Australia had been grown by Captain Louis Hope on his Ormiston House Estate at Ormiston, Queensland in 1862 and by 1864 he had established the first commercial sugar mill in Australia. Cultivated primarily on plantations, sugar cane production spread rapidly to coastal areas to the north, such as Maryborough, Mackay and Bundaberg, where the warmer climate proved more suitable.
  A labour shortage existed in Queensland at the time and it was believed that labouring in the tropics was unhealthy for Europeans. Therefore, an inexpensive, non-European labour force was sought by cane plantation owners (planters). The use of South Sea Islander labour in Australia began in the 1840s when Benjamin Boyd employed them as shepherds in lieu of convict labourers in the Riverina District of New South Wales. The first group of South Sea Islanders brought to Queensland as indentured labour arrived at Brisbane on 14 August 1863 aboard Robert Towns' ship the Don Juan, and went to work on his cotton plantation, Townsvale (later Veresdale), on the Logan River. Captain Claudius Whish employed Islanders on his Oaklands property near Caboolture, as did Captain Louis Hope on his sugar plantation at Ormiston, near Cleveland.
  South Sea Islanders made a major contribution to Queensland's early sugar industry. Between 1863 and 1904, approximately 50,000 Islanders were brought to Queensland as indentured labourers, generally employed on three-year contracts bound by the current Masters and Servants Act 1861. Most came from 80 islands in Melanesia, mainly those of present day Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. They made a vital contribution to the sugar industry by performing virtually all of the associated field work during the first phase of the sugar industry's development. Most returned to their islands at the conclusion of their contract period.
  The first South Sea Islanders employed in the Maryborough district arrived in November 1867 aboard the schooner Mary Smith, a month after the Gympie gold rush commenced. Most of this group of 84 men became employees of the Maryborough Sugar Company. The cost to employers of their travel to Maryborough was approximately £9 and their wages were £6 per annum (compar
caption: Richard Bingham Sheridan
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