Paper short abstract:

I examine the avian labour of Indian mynah (Acridotheres tristis) to cheaply ameliorate pests, as they did in other sugar-growing areas in the Pacific. This paper considers colonial Queensland’s sugar industry as a more-than-human enterprise in which Indian mynah played a foundational role.

Paper long abstract:

Just as tropical climes concerned whites in India, Australia’s tropical north was a source of grave anxiety that prompted sustained Anglo efforts to ensure its economic and demographic development. This paper contributes an environmental perspective to the growing interest in the legacies of British slavery beyond the Americas. In this case, schemers hoped to import Indian indentured labour for the growth of the plantation economy in the tropical north of Queensland. These attempts failed not on the grounds of their racialised environmental reasoning, but rather because private recruiters capitalised on their proximity to the nearby South Pacific islands, from where they ‘blackbirded’ labourers. Although subsequent calls for Indian labour were politically divisive and ultimately unsuccessful, planters nonetheless recruited non-humans from South Asia to the serve the sugar industry from the early 1880s. Drawing on the insights of more-than-human history, I examine the avian labour of Indian mynah (Acridotheres tristis) to cheaply ameliorate pests such as grasshoppers and cane beetles, as they did in other sugar-growing areas in the Pacific, such as Fiji and Hawai’i. Although these birds later became pests themselves, this paper considers Queensland’s sugar industry as a more-than-human enterprise in which the Indian mynah played a foundational role.