An alleged "blackbirder"

Following a failed petition two years ago, there has been little momentum behind calls to change Townsville’s name raised because of the namesake's historical links to slavery.

Robert Towns, who the city was named after, has beenaccused of engaging in the practice of “blackbirding” in the 19 ^th  century. Blackbirding involved the forced removal of people from Pacific islands to work in Australia.

 An 1863 edition of the Courier describes Towns’ contemporaries accusing him, in the Queensland Parliament, of acquiring forced labour for one of his cotton plantations near present day Beaudesert. Subsequent editions of the Courier amplify these accusations.

 Jen Burke, who has lived in Townsville for over twenty years, says that “having the city named after a man like Robert Towns is emblematic of a history of racism that we should be striving to overcome”.

Ms Burke said that when she created a Reddit post asking if it was time for Townsville to consider changing its name, she was met with a surprising amount of vitriol online. Burke says she was accused of virtue signalling and told that changing the name of the city would be pointless and wouldn’t solve anything.

 Professor Clive Moore, a historian from the University of Queensland and an expert in the history of Australia and the Pacific Islands, says describing Towns as a slave trader is inaccurate.

Professor Moore says that Towns took advantage of South Sea Islanders for cheap labour and that Towns admitted that the men who he brought from the Pacific to work for him in Australia may not have understood the terms of their employment.

However, Professor Moore says that there is no definitive evidence that Towns engaged in the practice of kidnapping people for forced labour when recruiting men from the Pacific Islands and that the men who worked for Towns were always paid.

Professor Moore says that he does not think that a name change for Townsville is a realistic or attainable goal. As an alternative, he suggests that erecting a statue of a South Sea Islander alongside the statue of Robert Towns in Townsville would highlight the role that islanders played in the early history of the city.

A petition, submitted to the Queensland parliament in 2020, called for some towns and cities in the state to be renamed due to their alleged associations with slavery. Townsville was one of those places.

However, the petition attracted only 393 signatures, according to  news.com.au . After the petition was submitted, the mayor of Townsville said that changing the name was unnecessary. Jenny Hill was quoted in the Townsville Bulletin as saying, “trying to bury history doesn’t change what happened”.

Ms Burke says that she is not aware of any further discussion regarding officially renaming Townsville since the petition in 2020.

She adds that she thinks the issue of changing the names of places with historical links to forced labour has become overly politicised. In her words, it becomes “about where you sit on the political spectrum, and the question comes with so much baggage it’s almost impossible to shift anyone’s opinion on it.”

Chrystopher J Spicer, a cultural historian and lecturer at James Cook University, points out that place names are, by nature, transient. He says that there are plenty of places in Queensland that have already been renamed due to their “overtly racist” previous names.

Dr Spicer says that the context of historical figures is important to consider when deciding whether places should be renamed. He contrasts William Wellington Cairns, after whom the city of Cairns was named, with Robert Towns.

 William Wellington Cairns was a colonial administrator, but according to Dr Spicer did not face allegations of blackbirding, unlike Towns, so Dr Spicer views Cairns as a less controversial name than Townsville.

 In 2021 it was announced that Ben Boyd National Park, in New South Wales, will be renamed due to Boyd’s association with blackbirding. Professor Moore says that, like Towns, it is difficult to definitively prove that Boyd participated in the importation of slave labour.

 Professor Moore says it is much easier to rename a national park than a city with a population of over 150,000. Moore says that although Towns was a disreputable businessman who would do anything to turn a profit, this hardly sets him apart from his 19 ^th  century peers.