bundaberg

Burnett River, a river in southeastern Queensland, Australia, rising on the western slope of the Burnett Range, east of the Eastern Highlands. The river flows southwest to Eidsvold and turns east at Mundubbera and then northeast through Gayndah and Bundaberg to enter the Pacific Ocean at Burnett Heads, after a course of 270 mi (435 km). It has a catchment area of 12,440 sq mi (32,220 sq km). The chief tributaries are the Auburn and Boyne rivers and Barambah Creek. Its upper reaches water beef-cattle country, whereas further downstream sugarcane and dairy farms predominate. Navigability is limited to the 10 mi below Bundaberg. The river was named after the surveyor J.C. Burnett, who explored it in 1847. Source: www.britannica.com/place/Burnett-River

Bourbong Street Many grand and historical buildings have been built in Bundaberg since it was founded in 1867. - The Commercial Hotel was built. Later, in 1885, a new two-storeyed building renamed ‘The Grand’ was built on the same site (corner of Targo and Bourbon streets). - The original School of Arts was also built in 1871, but the current building was constructed in 1889. It is Bundaberg’s oldest public building still standing in its original form - Adam’s Hotel was built on the corner of Barolin and Bourbon streets. It was renamed Metropolitan and demolished in 1885. - 1887 Bourbon Street was developed as the main business area of Bundaberg. - 1888 The first substantial council headquarters were built in Bourbon Street (west side of the Post Office). - 1913 Bourbong Street is being described a being two chains wide with many ornate business premises and weeping fig trees. - 1915 Electric light poles are seen down the sides of Bourbong Street, with a single street light in the middle of intersections. Source: bundabergtoday.com.au/news/2022/01/31/grand-buildings-of-...

This is the little-known story of exploited foreign workers, told by Auntie Joyce Lea. "I am a proud South Sea woman. My dad was blackbirded, from Tanna island in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). Put to work in the cane fields in Bundaberg, as slave labour. There was no money, they worked for their food, and I think about this quite often, how hard it must have been for them," said Lea. "He told us the story of how he was lured on the boats with fake jewelry. They took jewelry onto the islands and showed the Kanaka people on the island that if they wanted more they only had to come out to the boats. This is the story my Dad used to tell us and then when they got their quota or the number of people they wanted on a boat they would just pull up anchor and then they sailed and he was put to work into the canefields of Bundaberg." They came from 80 Pacific islands, mainly in Vanuatu and the Solomons. The 40-year-long indentured labour program was the backbone of Queensland's colonial-era sugar industry. Professor Clive Moore from the University of Queensland is a leading historian of the Pacific. "I don't think there is any immigrant group in Australia who were worse treated than Australia South Sea Islanders, and If you think about it right through the process, there are only people who were at least partly kidnapped and brought here illegally, that's the Australian South Sea Islanders", said Professor Moore. "The death rate was higher than any immigrant group to ever come to Australia, and are a scandal, and they're the only immigrant group that ever had an act of Parliament passed by the federal government to totally deport them. You put those three things together and it explains a lot of the problems we have a century later in the South Sea Islander community, " he added. Source: www.sbs.com.au/news/article/south-sea-islanders-mark-suga...