Address: Tweed Coast Road Chinderah NSW 2487 The monument commemorates the contribution of the more than 62,000 South Sea Islanders, many of whom were "blackbirded" (kidnapped) from their villages in the South Pacific, and transported to Australia from 1863 to 1904, to work as indentured labour in the sugar cane fields and banana plantations of Queensland, and as timber fellers in the "Cudgen scrub." Most of the original labourers were recruited from the Solomon Islands and New Hebrides (Vanuatu), though others were taken from the Loyalty Islands, Samoa, Kiribati and Tuvalu. Some were kidnapped (“blackbirded”) or otherwise induced into long-term indentured service. Of the more than 60,000 Islanders recruited from 1863, the majority were to be "repatriated" (that is, deported) by the Australian Government between 1906 and 1908 under the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901, legislation prompted by the White Australia Policy. Some were exempted on various grounds, including marriage to Australians.