Kanakas

''In Hawaiian usage see Haole

The Kanakas were workers brought from the Pacific Islands as indentured servants to cover serious labor shortages in various European colonies, such as Fiji, Australia and British Columbia, Canada. It is alleged by some that their recruitment sometimes involved kidnapping or blackbirding as the practice was known at the time, but historians such as Keith Windschuttle denies this in his book "The White Australia Policy".

Australia repatriated many of these people to their places of origin between 1906 and 1908 under the provisions of the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 [link].

In British Columbia many of the Kanaka men married first nation women and their descendants can still be found in British Columbia and Washington state.

Kanakas

See also