Bundaberg
Bundaberg is the major regional city in the Wide Bay-Burnett region of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is the ninth largest city in the state. The Bundaberg central business district is situated along the southern bank of the Burnett River about from its mouth at Burnett Heads, where it flows into the Coral Sea. The city is sited on a rich coastal plain, supporting one of the nation's most productive agricultural regions. The area of Bundaberg is the home of the Taribelang-Bunda, Goreng Goreng, Gurang, and Bailai peoples. The common nickname for Bundaberg is "Bundy", although its history as a major sugar producing region means it is often referenced as the "Rum City" or "Sugar City". The residents of the city are referred to colloquially as 'Bundabergians'. In the, the Bundaberg urban area had a population of 73,747 people.
The district surveyor, John Thompson Charlton designed the city layout in 1868, which planned for uniform square blocks with wide main streets, and named it ‘Bundaberg’. An early influence on the development of Bundaberg came with the 1868 Land Act, which was a famous Queensland via media, that aimed to create a class of Australian yeoman. Large sugarcane plantations were established throughout the 1880s, with industries of sugar mills, refineries, and rum distilleries that delivered prosperity to Bundaberg. These plantations used South Sea Islanders as indentured labourers, many of whom were blackbirded, a practice considered a form of slavery. The trade was outlawed in 1904, with most South Sea Islanders deported by 1906. Major floods in 1942 and 1954 damaged the river, ending Bundaberg's role as a river port and led to a new port at the mouth of the Burnett river. In the post-war era, Bundaberg continued to grow with its wealth tied to its sugar industry. In 2013, Bundaberg experienced record flooding from Cyclone Oswald, which was the worst disaster in the city's history.
The economy of Bundaberg is based primarily on agriculture, forestry, fishing and tourism, with a gross regional product at about $5.62 billion as of June 2023. Bundaberg also has a major distillery and brewery industry that exports to international markets. The city is served by the Port of Bundaberg and the Bundaberg Airport.
Bundaberg has a rich history and culture, along with its humid subtropical climate it is known for its weeping fig trees, dry stone walls, and historic plantations, including the Fairymead Plantation and the Sunnyside Sugar Plantation, the latter of which is the site of a mass grave. Other sites of South Sea Islander cultural significance include Sir Anthony's Rest atop the Bundaberg Hummock and the South Sea Islander Church. Major cultural institutions include the Hinkler Hall of Aviation and the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery. The city's culinary culture is highlighted by its annual 'Banquet on the Bridge', and an iconic rum and gin culture with Bundaberg Rum originating in the city.
Bundaberg is a popular tourism destination, the city's hinterland includes the historic towns of Childers and Gin Gin, Lake Monduran, Cania Gorge National Park and the Promisedland mountain bike trails. Bundaberg's coastal areas include Bargara and Mon Repos, Deepwater National Park, and the southernmost reaches of the Great Barrier Reef alongside the islands of Lady Musgrave and Lady Elliot.
Geography
The city is about north of the state capital, Brisbane. It is inland from the Coral Sea coast and situated on the Burnett River.Etymology
City name
The name was coined by surveyor John Charlton Thompson and his assistant Alfred Dale Edwards. Bunda was derived from the name of one of the kinship groups of the local Taribelang people, and appended with the suffix "berg". Two sources of the suffix have been proposed. It is a Saxon suffix which means "hill". It is also a German word which translates as "mountain", and refers to the Sloping Hummoch, the singular hill rising above the relatively flat region surrounding the Burnett River on which the city is situated.Colloquially, the city is widely known throughout Australia as "Bundy". Residents are referred to by the demonym Bundabergian, which is also a corresponding adjective.
Bourbong Street
Bourbong Street is the main street of the city. and there is some controversy in regards to its spelling and meaning. Bourbong was alternatively spelled Bourbon or Boorbong, which was a local Aboriginal title given to a large waterhole in the area. The main street was historically also gazetted in the Bundaberg Mail as "Bourbon" street, but by 1941 there is no reference to "Bourbon" street. Robert Strathdee's farming selection in the vicinity of the watering holes was recorded on early survey maps as 'Boorbung'.A pioneer pastoralist of the region, Nicholas Tooth, wrote that "Bourbong" was derived from the local Aboriginal phrase "bier rabong", meaning "plenty dead". Tooth, who took up land in the area in the early 1860s, found that Aboriginal people resolutely avoided the "bier rabong" vicinity. He later found the skeletal remains there of around twenty Aboriginal people who were apparently massacred in a raid by the Native Police.
History
Early history
The Traditional owner Aboriginal groups in the region are the Taribelang, Gooreng Gooreng, , and Bailai peoples. They are the original inhabitants of the region. A determination of Native Title was made for all four cultural groups by the National Native Title Tribunal, pursuant to the Native Title Act 1993, on 28 November 2017. It was determined that "native title exists in the entire determination area" of Bundaberg, Gladstone, and the North Burnett.As such, the Bundaberg Regional Council has reflected this recognition in their "First Nations Strategy 2022-2026", and endeavours to celebrate and embrace the region's "local connections to First Nation Peoples and other cultures".
Initial British colonisation
The first British man to visit the area was James Davis in the 1830s. He was an escaped convict from the Moreton Bay Penal settlement who lived with the Kabi people to the south of the region. He resided mostly around the Mary River and was referred to as Durrumboi. The Burnett River was surveyed by John Charles Burnett, after whom it was named during his exploration mission of the Wide Bay and Burnett regions in 1847.British occupation of the land in the region began in 1848 when pastoral squatters Gregory Blaxland Jnr and William Forster established a sheep station. Blaxland was a son of the Blue Mountains explorer, Gregory Blaxland, and Forster was later to become a Premier of New South Wales. They selected a very large area of land which encompassed most of the western part of the modern day Bundaberg Region along the Burnett River. They named this pastoral lease Tirroan.
Blaxland and Forster had previously set up sheep stations near the Clarence River and had a notable history of conflict with Aboriginal people. Sheep stations imposed on native bushland disrupt native food production, typically resulting in widespread hunger and illness amongst native peoples. Conflict continued at Tirroan when two of their shepherds were killed by Aboriginal people in 1849. Forster and Blaxland led a punitive expedition causing multiple Aboriginal deaths. Further conflict occurred the following year when Blaxland was clubbed to death. Forster and a number of other squatters conducted another reprisal, resulting in a large massacre of Aboriginal people in scrubland toward the coastal part of Tirroan.
In the early 1850s, Forster sold the property to Alfred Henry Brown who changed the name of the pastoral lease to Gin Gin. At the same time, Native Police officer, Richard Purvis Marshall, took up the Bingera leasehold in the rainforest scrubland downstream from Tirroan. Three towns in the Bundaberg region, Tirroan, South Bingera and Gin Gin, commemorate these massive initial leaseholds.
Cattle and logging
Before colonisation, much of the land around the lower reaches of the Burnett River consisted of either the Woongarra Scrub, a subtropical rainforest that stood where most of the Bundaberg canefields now grow, or the Barolin Plains, a lightly timbered grassland that stretched along the coastal fringe. Neither of these areas were suitable for sheep farming but the British soon found that raising cattle was possible. In the early 1860s the first cattle stations in the area were established; Branyan on the south side of the Burnett River and Tantitha on the north side.Timber companies, such as that owned by William Pettigrew, started the logging of the Woongarra Scrub in 1867.
In 1868, Samuel Johnston erected a sawmill in Waterview, on the north bank of the Burnett River. The Waterview sawmill became a prominent supplier of timber until its closure in 1903 after being damaged by flood.
Town of Bundaberg
In 1867, timber-getters and farmers, John and Gavin Steuart, established the Woondooma property which consisted of a few houses and a wharf on the northern banks of the Burnett River where Bundaberg North now stands. An official survey of the area was undertaken in 1869 by John Charlton Thompson, assisted by James Ellwood and Alfred Dale Edwards, and the town of Bundaberg was gazetted across the river on the higher, southern banks. The first Bundaberg land sale was held in Maryborough on 11 May 1870 where hotelier John Foley bought the original lots.Sugar
Most of the early settlers exploited the timber and grew maize on their selections but as a result of the incentives of the Sugar and Coffee Regulations of 1864, sugar became a major component in Bundaberg's development from the 1870s. Experimental sugar cane cultivation in the district was first grown at John Charlton Thompson's Rubyanna property in 1870 and the first sugar mill was built by Richard Elliot Palmer at his Millbank plantation in 1872. Bundaberg rapidly became an important sugar production region after the construction of the Millaquin Sugar Refinery at East Bundaberg by Robert Cran and his sons in 1882. The Fairymead sugar processing plant owned by the Young Brothers opened in 1884 which further augmented Bundaberg's sugar producing capacity.The initial 35 years of the sugar industry in Bundaberg was reliant on South Sea Islander workers, who were often blackbirded and kept in a status close to slavery. The first significant shipload of Kanaka labour, as it was called, to arrive on the Burnett River came in January 1872 aboard the Petrel. Allegations of kidnapping and wounding immediately arose concerning the recruitment of the Islanders on this vessel. Influential Bundaberg plantation owners were able to purchase recruiting ships in order to obtain labour directly from areas such as the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides. The Young Brothers owned the Lochiel and the May vessels, the Cran family and Frederic Buss were the major investors in the Helena while the Ariel was co-owned by a number of local planters. While some of the recruitment was voluntary, violence and deception toward Islanders often took place. For example, the crew of the Helena fought a battle with the locals of Ambrym while taking Islanders from there.
These labourers had to work for three years and were only paid at the end of this time period. Instead of cash, they usually received substandard goods and trinkets of minimal value as payment. Excessive mortality of the Islanders while serving their term of labour in the Bundaberg region was frequent. Overwork, poor housing, inadequate food, contaminated water supplies and a lack of medical care all contributed to the high death rate. Penalties for the plantation owners whose neglect resulted in these fatalities were rare and did not exceed a £10 fine. Importing South Sea Islander labour was made illegal in 1904 and enforced repatriation of these workers out of Bundaberg and other locations in Queensland occurred from 1906 to 1908.
The 1911 Queensland sugar strike occurred after the phasing out of South Sea Islander labour, with workers claiming that many plantation owners had substituted black indentured labourers with white ones. Workers sought better accommodation, wages and conditions, including an eight-hour day and a minimum weekly wage of 30 shillings, including food. The mobilisation of unionists from Bundaberg to Mossman was a major achievement, with the 1911 strike lasting over seven weeks in Bundaberg where the town's economy was largely based on the sugar industry. The end result of the strike was a Commonwealth Royal Commission into the sugar industry in 1911–12, which had been initially requested by Harry Hall, a Bundaberg AWA organiser in 1908 with a petition signed by 1500 Bundaberg sugar workers. The Royal Commission, with ALF Secretary Albert Hinchcliffe as secretary, concluded the AWA demands had been justified. The union victory was a watershed in organised labour in Queensland and Australia.