NSW PARK DROPS SLAVE TRADER’S NAME

Wazkam Emelda Davis covers the old name of Beowa National Park with the Aboriginal and Australian South Sea Islander flags. Photo Emelda Davis.

GEOFF VIVIAN

In the NSW south coast, the State Government has dropped the name of a notorious slave trader from a national park after extensive consultation with local Indigenous and South Sea Islander communities.

Wazkam Emelda Davis, who is chairwoman of the Australian South Sea Islanders, Port Jackson group, said Ben Boyd brought her ancestors to Australia as slaves.

“Benjamin Boyd was a celebrated entrepreneur and politician and he stole the first 200-odd South Sea Islanders from Vanuatu in Tanna Island, New Caledonia, and brought them to Eden to slave across his whaling and cotton industries alongside our Maori and Aboriginal families,” she said. “So he was found guilty of illegal trafficking then that trade was ceased. But at the same time the remnants of those families still exist and have been affected.”

Ms Davis said the park had now been renamed Beowa, or Killer Whale, an animal with huge signicance to local Aboriginal and Vanuatu cultures.