November 10, 1794 - Robert Towns
Towns built a substantial commercial empire across colonial Australia, but his lasting notoriety rests on his central role in establishing the Queensland labor trade — the systematic recruitment, and frequent coercion, of Pacific Islander workers known as Kanakas to labor on cotton and sugar plantations under conditions that drew contemporary criticism and later condemnation as a form of indenture bordering on enslavement. The scale of his operations and his political standing gave the practice an institutional legitimacy that helped entrench it across the colony for decades. He is remembered as a founding figure of Queensland's economy precisely because he shaped both its infrastructure and its most exploitative labor arrangements.
From Wikipedia
Robert Towns (10 November 1794 – 11 April 1873) was a British master mariner who settled in Australia as a businessman, sandalwood merchant, colonist, shipowner, pastoralist, politician, whaler and civic leader. He was the founder of Townsville, Queensland and named it after himself. He is also known for his involvement in blackbirding and labour exploitation of immigrant workers.
After a career at sea as a master mariner based in Britain, Towns came to Australia in 1843 as the agent for London merchant Robert Brooks (MP). He also became a merchant in his own right in Sydney with involvement in the sandalwood and pelagic whaling trades. He was an importer of sugar and tea, and an exporter of wool, whale oil, cotton and other commodities. He became a pastoralist and pioneered the cultivation of cotton in Queensland, often employing Kanakas.
The head office of Robert Towns & Company was in Sydney with branch offices in Melbourne, Brisbane, Dunedin and Townsville.
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