The Swallow family and members of their staff at Hambledon Sugar Plantation outside Cairns, c1889.

Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland image 171012

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, two visions of a white tropical Queensland vied for ascendancy. One was based on the principle of white dominance.

Sugar planting in Queensland, Emigration pamphlet, The Times London, c1890 Courtesy Fryer Library, University of Queensland
Cover shows Queensland canefield ablaze as sugar crop is burnt off before cutting begins, cover image Walkabout, August 1963
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