Apart from a small amount of Melanesian labour imported for the beche-de-mer trade around Bowen, Towns was the major exploiter of blackbirded workers in Queensland prior to 1867. He was also well known for paying his Kanaka labourers in trinkets instead of cash at the end of their three-year working terms. This was despite the Polynesian Labourers Act of 1868 stipulating the workers should have been paid in coin.
Apart from a small amount of Melanesian labor imported for the beche-de-mer trade around Bowen, Towns was the major exploiter of blackbirded workers in Queensland prior to 1867. He was also well known for paying his Kanaka laborers in trinkets instead of cash at the end of their three-year working terms. This was despite the Polynesian Labourers Act of 1868 stipulating the workers should have been paid in coin.