Blackbirding

Name: Blackbirding
Brand: Affirm Press
Price: 29.75 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

A reckoning with the Australian slave trade

By: Ryan Butta

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Paperback | 28 July 2026

At a Glance

Format
Paperback

Dimensions(cm)
23.4 x 15.3

Paperback

RRP $36.99

$29.75

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or 4 interest-free payments of $7.44 with

Available: 28th July 2026

Preorder. Will ship when available.

An important reckoning with Australiaâs unspoken history of slavery.

From the author of the bestselling books The Ballad of Abdul Wade and The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli

As Australia becomes more willing to confront the violence and trauma of its colonial past, one chapter has remained largely hidden: the Australian slave trade known as blackbirding.

Between 1860 and 1906, more than 60,000 Pacific Islanders were brought to Australia to work the Queensland sugarcane fields. Men, women and children were taken from their homelands through coercion, deception or outright abduction. Forced into contracts they could not read, unpaid until the end of their service and denied basic rights, they endured brutal working conditions that led to the deaths of nearly 15,000 people.

In this immersive and meticulously researched work of narrative nonfiction, Ryan Butta confronts one of the least acknowledged episodes in Australian history. Exposing a deliberate âengineered forgettingâ that has kept these stories out of the national memory, this book brings the hidden history of blackbirding into the light and reckons with the enduring legacy of Australiaâs forgotten slave trade.

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