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{{short description|Coerced labour, mainly in the southeast Pacific}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
[[File:Seizure of blackbirder Daphne.jpg|thumb|300px|In 1869, {{HMS|Rosario|1860|6}} seized the blackbirding schooner {{ship||Daphne|1849|2|wl=no}} and freed its passengers, who were bound for Queensland, Australia.<ref>Emma Christopher, Cassandra Pybus and Marcus Buford Rediker (2007). ''Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World'', University of California Press, pp. 188–190. {{ISBN|0-520-25206-3}}.</ref>]]
{{Slavery}}
'''Blackbirding''' is the [[coercion]] and/or deception of people or [[kidnapping]] to work as [[slaves]] or poorly paid labourers in countries distant from their native land. The practice took place on a large scale with the taking of people indigenous to the numerous islands in the Pacific Ocean during the 19th and 20th centuries. These blackbirded people were called [[Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)|Kanakas]] or [[South Sea Islanders]]. They were taken from places such as [[Papua New Guinea]], the [[Solomon Islands]], [[Vanuatu]], [[Niue]], [[Easter Island]], the [[Gilbert Islands]], [[Tuvalu]] and the islands of the [[Bismarck Archipelago]] amongst others.
The owners, captains, and crews of the ships involved in the acquisition of these labourers were termed ''blackbirders''. The demand for this kind of cheap labour principally came from European colonists in [[New South Wales]], [[Queensland]], [[Samoa]], [[New Caledonia]], [[Fiji]], [[Tahiti]], [[Hawaii]], and [[New Zealand]], as well as plantations in [[Peru]], [[Mexico]], and [[Guatemala]]. Labouring on [[sugar cane]], cotton, and coffee plantations in these lands was the main usage of blackbirded labour, but they were also exploited in other industries. Blackbirding ships began operations in the Pacific from the 1840s which continued into the 1930s. Blackbirders from the Americas sought workers for their [[hacienda]]s and to mine the [[guano]] deposits on the [[Chincha Islands]],<ref name="Maude1981">{{cite book |last1=Maude |first1=H.E. |title=Slavers in Paradise |date=1981 |publisher=ANU Press |url=https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114682 |access-date=4 July 2019 |archive-date=4 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190704112614/https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114682 |url-status=live }}</ref> while the blackbirding trade organised by colonists in places like Queensland, Fiji, and New Caledonia used the labourers at plantations, particularly those producing sugar cane.<ref name="Willoughby">{{cite web|url= http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/federation/pdfs/multiw.pdf |last= Willoughby |first= Emma |title= Our Federation Journey 1901–2001 |publisher= Museum Victoria |access-date= 14 June 2006 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060625205722/http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/federation/pdfs/multiw.pdf |archive-date= 25 June 2006 |df= dmy }}</ref><ref>Reid Mortensen, (2009), [http://www.paclii.org/journals/fJSPL/vol04/7.shtml "Slaving In Australian Courts: Blackbirding Cases, 1869–1871"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110518003829/http://www.paclii.org/journals/fJSPL/vol04/7.shtml |date=18 May 2011 }}, ''Journal of South Pacific Law'', 13:1, accessed 7 October 2010</ref>
Examples of blackbirding outside the South Pacific include the early days of the [[Pearling in Western Australia|pearling industry in Western Australia]] at [[Nickol Bay]] and [[Broome, Western Australia|Broome]], where [[Aboriginal Australians]] were blackbirded from the surrounding areas.<ref name="col18">{{cite news |title=Reconciling the dark history of slavery and murder in Australian pearling, points to a brighter future |first=Ben |last=Collins |date=2018-09-09 |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |website=ABC News |url=https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-09/slavery-in-australian-pearling/10217488 |access-date=2020-03-06 |archive-date=15 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200215080623/https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-09/slavery-in-australian-pearling/10217488 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Chinese people|Chinese]] men were blackbirded from [[Amoy]] in the 1840s and 50s to work as unskilled labourers in the pearling, gold and farming industries.<ref name="Trove (National Library of Australia)">{{cite web |title=ASIATIC LABOUR |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12962992 |website=The Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=16 August 2023 |location=New South Wales, Australia |pages=4 |language=English |date=2 December 1854}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=O'Connell |first1=Ronan |title=Indigenous and Asian slaves were the lifeblood of Western Australia's early pearl industry |url=https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3117690/indigenous-and-asian-slaves-were-lifeblood?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=3117690 |access-date=16 August 2023 |work=SCMP |date=16 January 2021}}</ref>
Practices similar to blackbirding continue to the present day. One example is the kidnapping and coercion, often at gunpoint, of indigenous peoples in [[Central America]] to work as plantation labourers in the region. They are subjected to poor living conditions, are exposed to heavy [[pesticide]] loads, and do hard labour for very little pay.<ref>{{cite book|first1= J. Timmons|last1=Roberts|first2=Nikki Demetria|last2=Thanos|title=Trouble in Paradise: Globalization and Environmental Crises in Latin America|page= vii|publisher=Routledge, London and New York|year=2003}}</ref>
==
{{see also|Slavery in Australia}}
=== New South Wales ===
The first major blackbirding operation in the Pacific was conducted out of [[Twofold Bay]] in [[New South Wales]]. A shipload of 65 [[Melanesians|Melanesian]] labourers arrived in [[Boydtown, New South Wales|Boyd Town]] on 16 April 1847 on board ''Velocity'', a vessel under the command of Captain Kirsopp and chartered by [[Benjamin Boyd]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31751641 |title=Exports |newspaper=[[Sydney Chronicle]] |date=21 April 1847 |access-date=1 May 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003138/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/31751641 |url-status=live }}</ref> Boyd was a Scottish colonist who wanted cheap labourers to work at his large pastoral leaseholds in the colony of [[New South Wales]]. He financed two more procurements of South Sea Islanders, 70 of which arrived in [[Sydney]] in September 1847, and another 57 in October of that same year.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article226516651 |title=Sydney bews |newspaper=[[The Port Phillip Patriot and Morning Advertiser]] |date=1 October 1847 |access-date=1 May 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003105/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/226516651 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37130286 |title=Shipping intelligence |newspaper=[[The Australian (1824 newspaper)|The Australian]] |date=22 October 1847 |access-date=1 May 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003106/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37130286 |url-status=live }}</ref> Many of these Islanders soon absconded from their workplaces and were observed starving and destitute on the streets of Sydney.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48544997 |title=The "Phantom" from Sydney |newspaper=[[South Australian Register]] |date=11 December 1847 |access-date=1 May 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003105/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48544997 |url-status=live }}</ref> Reports of violence, kidnap and murder used during the recruitment of these labourers surfaced in 1848 with a closed-door enquiry choosing not to take any action against Boyd or Kirsopp.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59765205 |title=The alleged murder at Rotumah |newspaper=[[Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer]] |date=1 July 1848 |access-date=1 May 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003108/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59765205 |url-status=live }}</ref> The experiment of exploiting Melanesian labour was discontinued in Australia until [[Robert Towns]] recommenced the practice in [[Queensland]] when he fitted out the schooner ''Don Juan'' and, in August 1863, despatched her on a recruiting voyage under the command of Captain Greuber.<ref name="EVS">{{cite web| last = E. V. Stevens |title= A brief history of the South Sea Islands Labour Traffic and the vessels engaged in it. (Paper read at the meeting of the Historical Society of Queensland, Inc.)|publisher= The University of Queensland|page=|date = 23 March 1950|url= https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:212739/s18378366_1950_4_3_361.pdf | accessdate=19 March 2024}}</ref>
=== Queensland{{anchor|Australia}} ===
[[File:Groupe de Kanakas dans une exploitation de canne à sucre du Queensland.jpg|thumb|[[Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)|Kanaka workers]] in a sugar cane plantation in Queensland, late 19th century.]]
The Queensland labour trade in [[South Sea Islanders]], or [[Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)|Kanakas]] as they were commonly termed, was in operation from 1863 to 1908, a period of 45 years. Some 55,000 to 62,500 were brought to Australia,<ref name="AHRC">Tracey Flanagan, Meredith Wilkie, and Susanna Iuliano. [http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/forum/Erace/south_sea.html "Australian South Sea Islanders: A Century of Race Discrimination under Australian Law"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110314080249/http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/forum/Erace/south_sea.html |date=14 March 2011 }}, Australian Human Rights Commission.</ref> most being recruited or blackbirded from islands in [[Melanesia]], such as the [[New Hebrides]] (now [[Vanuatu]]), the [[Solomon Islands]] and the islands around [[New Guinea]]. Although the process of acquiring these indentured labourers varied from violent kidnapping at gunpoint to relatively acceptable negotiation, most of the people affiliated with the trade were regarded as blackbirders.<ref name="HNL">{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22275598 |title=General news |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |date=9 November 1907 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=32 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003143/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22275598 |url-status=live }}</ref> The majority of those taken were male and around one quarter were under the age of sixteen.<ref>{{Citation | author1=Corris, Peter | title=Passage, port and plantation: a history of Solomon Islands labour migration, 1870–1914 | date=2013-12-13 | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/188267294 | access-date=5 July 2019 | type=Thesis | archive-date=27 July 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727000253/https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/188267294 | url-status=live }}</ref> In total, approximately 15,000 Kanakas died while working in Queensland, a figure which does not include those who died in transit or who were killed in the recruitment process. This represents a mortality rate of at least 30%, which is high considering most were only on three year contracts.<ref>{{cite news |last1=McKinnon |first1=Alex |title=Blackbirds, Australia had a slave trade? |newspaper=[[The Monthly]] |date=July 2019|page=44}}</ref> It is also similar to the estimated 33% death rate of enslaved Africans in the first three years of being taken to America.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ray |first1=K.M. |title=Life Expectancy and Mortality rates |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/life-expectancy-and-mortality-rates |website=Encyclopedia.com |publisher=Gale Library of Daily Life: Slavery in America |access-date=5 July 2019 |archive-date=5 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190705070912/https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/life-expectancy-and-mortality-rates |url-status=live }}</ref>
==== Robert Towns and the first shipments ====
[[File:Robert Towns (c. 1794–1873).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Robert Towns]]]]
In 1863, [[Robert Towns]], a British [[sandalwood]] and [[whaling]] merchant residing in [[Sydney]], wanted to profit from the world-wide cotton shortage due to the [[American Civil War]]. He bought a property he named [[Veresdale, Queensland|Townsvale]] on the [[Logan River]] south of [[Brisbane]], and planted {{convert|400|acres|order=flip}} of [[cotton]].<ref name="EVS"/> Towns wanted cheap labour to harvest and prepare the cotton and decided to import Melanesian labour from the [[Loyalty Islands Province|Loyalty Islands]] and the [[Vanuatu|New Hebrides]]. Captain Grueber together with labour recruiter [[Henry Ross Lewin]] aboard ''Don Juan'', brought 67 [[South Sea Islanders]] to the port of [[Brisbane]] on 17 August 1863.<ref name="EVS"/><ref>{{cite news |url= https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28620819 |title=Brisbane: arrival Don Juan from South Sea Islands |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=22 August 1863 |access-date=12 May 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003104/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28620819 |url-status=live }}</ref> Towns specifically wanted adolescent males. Recruitment and kidnapping were reportedly employed in obtaining these boys.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3165212 |title=The slave trade in Queensland |newspaper=[[The Courier (Brisbane)|The Courier]] |date=22 August 1863 |access-date=12 May 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=22 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201222032034/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3165212 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation | author1=Towns, Robert | title=South Sea Island immigration for cotton culture : a letter to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary of Queensland | date=1863 | url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-497822142 | access-date=17 May 2019 | archive-date=24 December 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003111/https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-497822142/view | url-status=live }}</ref> Over the following two years, Towns imported around 400 more [[Melanesians]] to Townsvale on one to three year terms of labour. They came on ''Uncle Tom'' (Captain Archer Smith) and ''Black Dog'' (Captain Linklater). In 1865, Towns obtained large land leases in [[Far North Queensland]] and funded the establishment of the port of [[Townsville]]. He organised the first importation of South Sea Islander labour to that port in 1866. They came aboard ''Blue Bell'' under Captain Edwards.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1271899 |title=Cleveland bay |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=28 July 1866 |access-date=12 May 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove |archive-date=22 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201222025630/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1271899 |url-status=live }}</ref> Towns paid his [[Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)|Kanaka]] labourers in trinkets instead of cash at the end of their working terms. His agent claimed that blackbirded labourers were "savages who did not know the use of money" and therefore did not deserve cash wages.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1300671 |title=A fair thing for the Polynesians |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=20 March 1871 |access-date=1 June 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove}}</ref> Apart from a small amount of Melanesian labour imported for the [[sea cucumber|beche-de-mer]] trade around [[Bowen, Queensland|Bowen]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1275424 |title=Bowen |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=13 October 1866 |access-date=12 May 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003110/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1275424 |url-status=live }}</ref> Robert Towns was the primary exploiter of blackbirded labour up until 1867, when Captain Whish, formerly an officer in H.M. Light Dragoons and subsequently the owner of a plantation near Brisbane was a leading exploiter of Melanesian labour.<ref name="EVS"/> [[Louis Hope|Captain Louis Hope]] applied Melenesian labour to his twenty acres of sugar cane at [[Ormiston, Queensland]], and later on his farm near the [[Coomera River]].<ref name="EVS"/> By 1868 the extent of the cultivation of sugar cane exceeded that of cotton; which increased the demand for labour. Licences for recruiting ship were issued by Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, as well as Fiji.<ref name="EVS"/>
==== Expansion of labour recruitment for Queensland ====
The high demand for very cheap labour in the sugar and pastoral industries of [[Queensland]], resulted in Towns' main labour recruiter, Henry Ross Lewin, and another recruiter by the name of John Crossley opening their services to other land-owners. In 1867, ''King Oscar'', ''Spunkie'', ''Fanny Nicholson'' and ''Prima Donna'' returned with close to 1,000 Kanakas who were offloaded in the ports of [[Brisbane]], [[Bowen, Queensland|Bowen]] and [[Mackay, Queensland|Mackay]]. This influx, together with information that the recently arrived labourers were being sold for £2 each and that kidnapping was at least partially used during recruitment, raised fears of a burgeoning new slave trade.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20315933 |title=Revival of the slave trade in Queensland |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |date=9 November 1867 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003106/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/20315933 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60849109 |title=South Sea Islands |newspaper=[[Empire (newspaper)|The Empire]] |date=31 December 1867 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=8 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030419/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60849109 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13159936 |title=Brisbane |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=18 November 1867 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003107/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13159936 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article30577579 |title=Slavery in Queensland |newspaper=[[Queanbeyan Age]] |date=15 February 1868 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003107/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/30577579 |url-status=live }}</ref> These fears were realised when French officials in [[New Caledonia]] complained that Crossley had stolen half the inhabitants of a village in [[Lifou]], and in 1868 a scandal evolved when Captain McEachern of ''Syren'' anchored in Brisbane with 24 dead islander recruits and reports that the remaining ninety on board were taken by force and deception. Despite the controversy, no action was taken against McEachern or Crossley.<ref name="Docker">{{cite book |last1=Docker |first1=Edward W. |title=The Blackbirders |url=https://archive.org/details/blackbirdersrecr0000dock |url-access=registration |date=1970 |publisher=Angus and Robertson|isbn=9780207120381 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20320362 |title=The South Sea Islander traffic |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |date=5 September 1868 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=9 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003108/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/20320362 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Many members of the Queensland government were already either invested in the labour trade or had Kanakas actively working on their land holdings. Therefore, the 1868 legislation on the trade in the form of the Polynesian Labourers Act of the Queensland parliament,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.textqueensland.com.au/item/journal/85aec34daf2e3b652ba7b434c1f11f36/pdf/1 |title=Polynesian Laborers Act 1868 |newspaper=Queensland Government Gazette |volume=IX |number=47 |date=4 March 1868 |page=217 |access-date=2021-01-09 |via=Text Queensland |archive-date=18 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210718075442/https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_218064/Queensland_Gov_Gazette_1868_v9.pdf?Expires=1626594967&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJKNBJ4MJBJNC6NLQ&Signature=Zu7TdvIKaF723zMTUcKEBvsDDsnt3CDFi02H67FROAC9uVLo8YzGvFYE9jc8sP14i0JR61P3NfTT3UI2fIjdA-h~foLRirkdsPXkDerX3ULTSz3ul5ssub6svZ~oEbibNmndz2btv0onIp90NfACtMwBEvlfVnnRHSX8GLfEvLkqa473fpVgfH6VwH4o4qpbyB7eN-YwZruCgZpqbBZFBlcDVldKc~ZKPaeIx1ITpXxPE8m4ru8Ft5RwrNa327XGXnhKvmlSxD0ZA-H~OK23dfSnPiCZpHpCU2L2k1kMxwoTmeZJ48bXG-UvTlFKzdzFx~3HdJNJnkaqaZzCefPafQ__ |url-status=live }}</ref> that was brought in due to ''Syren'' debacle, requiring every ship to be licensed and carry a government agent to observe the recruitment process, was poor in protections and even more poorly enforced.<ref name="Docker" /> Government agents were often corrupted by bonuses paid for labourers 'recruited,' or blinded by alcohol, and did little or nothing to prevent sea-captains from tricking islanders on-board or otherwise engaging in kidnapping with violence.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> The Act also stipulated that the Kanakas were to be contracted for no more than 3 years and be paid £18 for their work. This was an extremely low wage that was only paid at the end of their three years of work. Additionally, a system whereby the Islanders were heavily influenced to buy overpriced goods of poor quality at designated shops before they returned home, robbed them further.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hope |first1=James L.A. |title=In Quest of Coolies |date=1872 |publisher=Henry S. King & Co. |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/inquestofcoolies00jamerich/page/n7}}</ref> The Act, instead of protecting the South Sea Islanders, actually gave legitimacy to a kind of slavery in Queensland.<ref name="Palmer">{{cite book |last1=Palmer |first1=George |title=Kidnapping in the South Seas |date=1871 |publisher=Edmonston and Douglas |location=Edinburgh |url=https://archive.org/details/kidnappinginsou02palmgoog/page/n11}}</ref>
==== The Kanaka trade in the 1870s ====
[[File:Kanakas early 1870s.png|thumb|upright=1.3|Adolescent South Sea Islanders on a [[Herbert River]] plantation in the early 1870s]]
Recruiting of [[South Sea Islanders]] soon became an established industry with labour vessels from across eastern Australia obtaining Kanakas for both the [[Queensland]] and [[Fiji]] markets. Captains of such ships would get paid about 5 shillings per recruit in "head money" incentives, while the owners of the ships would sell the Kanakas from anywhere between £4 and £20 per head.<ref name="Wawn" /> The Kanakas who were transported on ''Bobtail Nag'' had metal discs imprinted with a letter of the alphabet hung around their neck making for easy identification.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65763501 |title=Trip of the Bobtail Nag |newspaper=[[The Capricornian]] |date=18 August 1877 |access-date=8 July 2019 |page=10 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003119/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65763501 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Maryborough, Queensland|Maryborough]] and [[Brisbane]] became important centres for the trade with vessels such as ''Spunkie'', ''Jason'' and ''Lyttona'' making frequent recruiting journeys out of these ports. Reports of blackbirding, kidnap and violence were made against these vessels with Captain Winship of ''Lyttona'' being accused of kidnapping and importing Kanaka boys aged between 12 and 15 years for the plantations of [[George Raff]] at [[Caboolture]]. The [[Queensland Governor]] made enquiries and "found that there were a few islanders between fourteen and sixteen years of age, but that they, like all the others who accompanied them, had engaged without any pressure and were perfectly happy and contented".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1319635 |title=The Polynesian boys per Lyttona |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=14 June 1873 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003108/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1319635 |url-status=live }}</ref> It was alleged by missionaries in the [[New Hebrides]] that one crew member of ''Spunkie'' murdered two recruits by shooting them, but the immigration agent Charles James Nichols who was on board the vessel denied this occurred.<ref name=":0" /> Charges of kidnap were made against Captain John Coath of ''Jason''.<ref name=":0">{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1300662 |title=Removal of South Sea Islanders by British vessels |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=20 March 1871 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003110/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1300662 |url-status=live }}</ref> Only Captain Coath was brought to trial and, despite being found guilty, he was soon pardoned and allowed to re-enter the recruiting trade.<ref name="Docker" /> Up to 45 of the Kanakas brought in by Coath died on plantations around the [[Mary River (Queensland)|Mary River]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1291566 |title=The Courier |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=21 December 1871 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003146/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1291566 |url-status=live }}</ref> Meanwhile, the famous recruiter Henry Ross Lewin was charged with the rape of a pubescent Islander girl. Despite strong evidence, Lewin was acquitted and the girl was later sold in Brisbane for £20.<ref name="Docker" />
By the 1870s, South Sea Islanders were being put to work not only in cane-fields along the Queensland coast but were also widely used as shepherds upon the large [[sheep station]]s in the interior and as pearl divers in the [[Torres Strait]]. They were taken as far west as [[Hughenden, Queensland|Hughenden]], [[Normanton, Queensland|Normanton]] and [[Blackall, Queensland|Blackall]]. In 1876, several Islanders died, one by [[scurvy]], on the 800 km journey they were required to make from [[Rockhampton]] to [[Bowen Downs Station]]. No police report was made and the overseer in charge was only fined £10.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18342421 |title=Tambo |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |date=13 May 1876 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=3 (The Queenslander) |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003159/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18342421 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Whipping]] of the Islander labourers was found to be occurring across a number of districts including at the [[Minnie Downs, Queensland|Ravensbourne]] sheep station, and at the coastal sugar plantations of [[Tinana South, Queensland|Nerada]] and [[Magnolia, Queensland|Magnolia]] owned by Hugh Monckton and [[William Feilding (British Army officer, born 1836)|Colonel William Feilding]] respectively.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1393235 |title=The Brisbane Courier |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=24 November 1876 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003135/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1393235 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148510496 |title=Extracts from the Evidence taken by the Select Committee on Polynesian Labor. |newspaper=[[Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay And Burnett Advertiser]] |issue=1920 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=2 December 1876 |accessdate=5 June 2023 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Rossow |first1=Linda |title=The Sugar Men |url=https://lionelfrederickpaul.wordpress.com/chapter-1-the-sugar-men/ |website=lionelfrederickpaul.wordpress.com |date=24 December 2012 |access-date=5 June 2023}}</ref> Fatal conflict with the landholders was at times evident, for instance a group of South Sea Islanders murdered Mr Gibbie and Mr Bell, owners of [[Mount Coolon, Queensland|Conway station]]. One, possibly two of the labourers were shot by Gibbie, while the others were captured by [[Native Police]], one dying while in their custody.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18715377 |title=The murder of Messrs. Gibbie and Bell |newspaper=[[The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser]] |date=6 August 1868 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003141/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18715377 |url-status=live }}</ref> When the owners of the properties went bankrupt, the Islanders would often either be abandoned<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1323464 |title=Polynesian laborers on northern stations |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=22 July 1871 |access-date=8 July 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003137/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1323464 |url-status=live }}</ref> or sold as part of the estate to a new owner.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article882751 |title=Transferring Kanakas |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=27 May 1879 |access-date=8 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003134/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/882751 |url-status=live }}</ref> In the Torres Strait, Kanakas were left at isolated pearl fisheries such as the Warrior Reefs for years with little hope of being returned home.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198574602 |title=Seizure of the Woodbine and Christina |newspaper=[[The Age]] |date=20 February 1873 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003145/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/198574602 |url-status=live }}</ref> In this region, three ships used to procure pearl-shells and beche-de-mer, including ''Challenge'' were owned by [[James Merriman (politician)|James Merriman]] who held the position of [[Mayor of Sydney]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28410585 |title=In the Vice-Admiralty Court |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=29 September 1873 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030419/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28410585 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Poor conditions at the sugar plantations led to regular outbreaks of disease and death. The [[Maryborough, Queensland|Maryborough]] plantations and the labour vessels operating out of that port became notorious for high mortality rates of Kanakas. During the [[measles]] epidemic of 1875, ships such as ''Jason'' arrived with Islanders either dead or infected with the disease.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article122070627 |title=Latest intelligence |newspaper=[[Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser]] |date=22 May 1875 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030420/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122070627 |url-status=live }}</ref> There were 30 deaths recorded of measles, followed by dysentery.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article169490635 |title=Maryborough |newspaper=[[Telegraph (Brisbane)|The Telegraph]] |date=30 November 1875 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003137/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/169490635 |url-status=live }}</ref> From 1875 to 1880, at least 443 Kanakas died in the Maryborough region from gastrointestinal and pulmonary disease at a rate 10 times above average. The [[Yengarie Sugar Refinery Ruins|Yengarie]], [[Yerra|Yarra Yarra]] and Irrawarra plantations belonging to Robert Cran were particularly bad. An investigation revealed that the Islanders were overworked, underfed, not provided with medical assistance and that the water supply was a stagnant drainage pond.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article174848907 |title=Parliamentary paper |newspaper=[[Telegraph (Brisbane)|The Telegraph]] |date=26 July 1880 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003136/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/174848907 |url-status=live }}</ref> At the port of [[Mackay, Queensland|Mackay]], the labour schooner ''Isabella'' arrived with half the Kanakas recruited dying on the voyage from [[dysentery]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27272097 |title=The last days of Polynesian labor |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |date=3 August 1872 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030419/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27272097 |url-status=live }}</ref> while Captain [[John Mackay (Australian pioneer)|John Mackay]] (after whom the city of [[Mackay, Queensland|Mackay]] is named), arrived at [[Rockhampton]] in ''Flora'' with a cargo of Kanakas, of which a considerable number were in a dead or dying condition.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51782896 |title=Correspondence |newspaper=[[Rockhampton Bulletin]] |date=4 December 1875 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003207/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/51782896 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65738231 |title=Cruise of the Flora |newspaper=[[The Capricornian]] |date=11 December 1875 |access-date=7 July 2019 |page=799 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030421/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65738231 |url-status=live }}</ref>
As the blackbirding activities increased and the detrimental results became more understood, resistance by the Islanders to this recruitment system grew. Labour vessels were regularly repelled from landing at many islands by local people. Recruiter, Henry Ross Lewin, was killed at [[Tanna (island)|Tanna Island]], the crew of ''May Queen'' were killed at [[Pentecost Island]], while the captain and crew of ''Dancing Wave'' were killed at the [[Nggela Islands]]. Blackbirders would sometimes make their vessels look like missionary ships, deceiving then kidnapping local Islanders. This led to violence against the missionaries themselves, the best example being the killing of Anglican missionary [[John Coleridge Patteson]] in 1871 at [[Nukapu]]. A few days before his death, one of the local men had been killed and five others abducted by crew of ''Margaret Chessel'' who pretended to be missionaries.<ref name="kolshus">{{cite journal | doi=10.1080/00223344.2010.530813 | volume=45 | issue=3 | title=Reassessing the death of Bishop John Coleridge Patteson | year=2010 | journal=The Journal of Pacific History | pages=331–355 | last1=Kolshus | first1=Thorgeir | last2=Hovdhaugen | first2=Even | s2cid=153548723 | url=https://zenodo.org/record/998068 | access-date=25 June 2019 | archive-date=27 July 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727014325/https://zenodo.org/record/998068 | url-status=live }}</ref> Patteson may also have been killed due to his desire to take the Islanders' children to a distant mission school and that he had disrupted the local patriarchal hierarchy.<ref name="kolshus"/> At other islands blackbirding vessels, such as ''Mystery'' under Captain Kilgour, attacked villages, shooting the residents and burning their houses.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13435657 |title=Queensland |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=29 May 1879 |access-date=8 July 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003224/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13435657 |url-status=live }}</ref> Ships of the [[Royal Navy]] were also called upon to investigate the deeds and deliver appropriate punishment upon islands involved in killings of blackbirding crews and missionaries. For example, [[HMS Rosario (1860)|HMS Rosario]] in 1871 whilst investigating the Bishop Patteson murder and other conflicts between islanders, settlers and missionaries as the Commander describes in his book.<ref>See for example: Commander AH Markham [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006206545 ''Cruise of the Rosario amongst the New Hebrides and Santa Cruz Islands''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030417/https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006206545 |date=17 April 2022 }} London : Low, Marston, Low & Searle, 1873 pp76-79 and pp199-206.</ref> And later {{HMS|Beagle|1872|6}} under Captain de Houghton and {{HMS|Wolverine|1863|6}} under Commodore [[John Wilson (Royal Navy officer)|John Crawford Wilson]] conducted several missions in the late 1870s that involved [[Naval gunfire support|naval bombardment]] of villages, raids by marines, burning of houses, destruction of crops and the hanging of an Islander from the [[yardarms]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199365910 |title=Punishment of the South Sea Island massacres |newspaper=[[The Age]] |date=4 July 1879 |access-date=8 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003222/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/199365910 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article143272264 |title=South Sea Island outrages |newspaper=[[The Australasian]] |date=1 December 1877 |access-date=8 July 2019 |page=23 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003221/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/143272264 |url-status=live }}</ref> One of these expeditions involved the assistance of the armed crew of the blackbirding vessel ''Sybil'' commanded by Captain Satini.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1376920 |title=Cruise of the May Queen |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=29 November 1878 |access-date=8 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003256/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1376920 |url-status=live }}</ref> Furthermore, two [[South Sea Islanders]] were hanged in [[Maryborough, Queensland|Maryborough]] for the rape and attempted murder of a white woman, these being the first legal executions in that town.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article122574634 |title=Execution of two South Sea Islanders |newspaper=[[Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser]] |date=24 May 1877 |access-date=8 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003302/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122574634 |url-status=live }}</ref>
=== The ''Pacific Islanders Protection Act'' 1872 & 1875 of the United Kingdom ===
In 1872, the United Kingdom passed legislation in an attempt to control the coercive labour recruitment practices in the South Pacific Ocean: the ''Pacific Islanders Protection Act'' 1872 (the principal Act), which was amended by the ''Pacific Islanders Protection Act'' 1875. The principal Act provided for the Governor of one of the Australian colonies to have the authority to licence British vessels in the South Pacific Ocean to carry "native labourers". The 1875 Act amended that licensing system and stated that any "British vessel may, under the principal Act, be detained, seized, and brought in for adjudication by any officer, all goods and effects found on board such vessel may also be detained, seized, and brought in for adjudication by such officer, either with or without such vessel" with the "High Court of Admiralty of England and every Vice-Admiralty Court in Her Majesty's dominions out of the United Kingdom shall have jurisdiction to try and condemn as forfeited to Her Majesty or restore any vessel, goods, and effects alleged to be detained or seized in pursuance of the principal Act or of this Act".<ref name="PIPA">{{cite web |last=(Imperial). |title=Pacific Islanders Protection Act, ss. 6-11 |date=1875 |url=http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/pacific-islanders-protection-act-1875 |access-date=20 January 2015}}</ref>{{refn|Other acts on the same subject: ''Pacific Island Labourers Act'' 1880; ''Pearl-Shell and Bêche-de-mer Fishery Act'' 1881; ''Native Labourers Protection Act'' 1884.|group=Note}} The 1875 Act also provided authority for "Her Majesty to exercise power and jurisdiction over Her subjects within any islands and places in the Pacific Ocean not being within Her Majesty's dominions, nor within the jurisdiction of any civilized power, in the same and as ample a manner as if such power or jurisdiction had been acquired by the cession or conquest of territory",<ref name="PIPA"/> although the 1875 Act did not specify any Pacific islands to which this authority was to be applied.
The 1872 & 1875 Acts were intended to work in conjunction with the ''British Slave Trade Act'' 1839 to provide the authority to arrest blackbirding ships, and charge their captains and owners with slavery charges. However, this approach to suppressing blackbirding was not successful.
In 1869, a vessel of the [[Royal Navy]] based at the [[Australia Station]] in [[Sydney]], was sent suppress the blackbirding trade. {{HMS|Rosario|1860|6}}, under Captain George Palmer, managed to intercept a blackbirding ship loaded with Islanders at [[Fiji]]. {{ship||Daphne|1849|2}} under command of Captain Daggett and licensed in [[Queensland]] to [[Henry Ross Lewin]], was described by Palmer as being fitted out "like an African slaver".<ref name="RLRN">{{cite journal |author1=Hunt, Doug|title= Hunting the Blackbirder: Ross Lewin and the Royal Navy|url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/40346570|date= June 2007|volume= 42|issue=1|journal= The Journal of Pacific History|pages=37–53|jstor= 40346570}}</ref> Even though there was a government agent on board, the Kanakas on board the ''Daphne'' appeared in poor condition and, having no understanding of English and no interpreter, had little idea of why they were being transported.<ref name="RLRN"/> Palmer seized the ship, freed the Kanakas and arrested both Captain Daggett and the ship's owner Thomas Pritchard for slavery. Daggett and Pritchard were taken to [[Sydney]] to be tried but all charges were quickly dismissed and the prisoners discharged. Furthermore, Sir [[Alfred Stephen]], the Chief Justice of the [[New South Wales Supreme Court]] found that Captain Palmer had illegally seized ''Daphne'' and ordered him to pay reparations to Daggett and Pritchard. No evidence or statements were taken from the Islanders. This decision, which overrode the obvious humanitarian actions of a senior officer of the [[Royal Navy]], gave further legitimacy to the blackbirding trade out of Queensland and allowed it to flourish.<ref name="Palmer" /> It also constrained the actions by naval commanders when dealing with incidents on the high seas and also crimes against the many missionaries working on the islands.<ref>See for example: Commander AH Markham [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006206545 Cruise of the Rosario amongst the New Hebrides and Santa Cruz Islands] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030417/https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006206545 |date=17 April 2022 }} London : Low, Marston, Low & Searle, 1873 pp51-53 and pp76-79</ref>
=== Early 1880s: resistance to the blackbirders intensifies ===
The violence and death surrounding the Queensland blackbirding trade intensified in the early 1880s. Local communities in the [[New Hebrides]] and the [[Solomon Islands]] had increased access to modern firearms which made their resistance to the blackbirders more robust. Well known vessels that experienced mortality amongst their crews while attempting to recruit Islanders included ''Esperanza'' at [[Simbo]], ''Pearl'' at [[Rendova Island]], ''May Queen'' at [[Ambae Island]], ''Stormbird'' at [[Tanna (island)|Tanna]], ''Janet Stewart'' at [[Malaita]] and ''Isabella'' at [[Espiritu Santo]] amongst others.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238305901 |title=The recent outrages in the South Sea Islands |newspaper=[[The Sydney Daily Telegraph]] |date=4 March 1881 |access-date=9 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030452/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/238305901 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201983672 |title=Another South Sea massacre |newspaper=[[The Age]] |date=13 December 1881 |access-date=9 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030420/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201983672 |url-status=live }}</ref> Officers of [[Royal Navy]] warships attempting punitive action were not exempt as targets with Lieutenant Bower and five crew of {{HMS|Sandfly|1872|6}} being killed in the [[Nggela Islands]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13477810 |title=Massacre of Lieutenant Bower and five seamen of H.M.S. Sandfly |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=2 December 1880 |access-date=9 July 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030419/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13477810 |url-status=live }}</ref> and Lieutenant Luckcraft of {{HMS|Cormorant|1877|6}} being shot dead at [[Espiritu Santo]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202524676 |title=Murder in the South Sea Islands |newspaper=[[The Age]] |date=31 March 1882 |access-date=9 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003226/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/202524676 |url-status=live }}</ref> Numerous punitive expeditions were carried out by Royal Navy warships based at the [[Australia Station]]. {{HMS|Emerald|1876|6}} under Captain [[William Henry Maxwell (Royal Navy)|William Maxwell]] went on an extensive [[punitive expedition]], [[shell (projectile)|shelling]] and destroying about 33 villages,<ref name="SF">{{cite web| last = | first = |title= Burn, J G, fl 1881 : Diary kept aboard HMS Emerald during the time spent in the Solomon Islands|publisher= National Library of New Zealand|page=|date = 25 August 1881|url= https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23215356?search%5Bi%5D%5Bname_authority_id%5D=-247464&search%5Bpath%5D=items | accessdate=24 March 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article103813346 |title=Punishing the South Sea Islanders |newspaper=[[The Goulburn Herald and Chronicle]] |date=2 February 1881 |access-date=12 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003320/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/103813346 |url-status=live }}</ref> while [[Royal Marines|marines]] of {{HMS|Cormorant|1877|6}} executed various Islanders suspected of killing white men.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201989240 |title=Punishment of the Sandfly murderers |newspaper=[[The Age]] |date=28 September 1881 |access-date=12 July 2019 |page=1 (Supplement to The Age) |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030420/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201989240 |url-status=live }}</ref> Captain Dawson of {{HMS|Miranda|1879|6}} led a mission to [[Ambae Island]], killing a chief suspected of murdering blackbirders,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201991915 |title=The May Queen outrage |newspaper=[[The Age]] |date=8 September 1881 |access-date=12 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003243/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201991915 |url-status=live }}</ref> while {{HMS|Diamond|1874|6}} went on a "savage-hunting expedition" throughout the [[Solomon Islands]] which resulted in no casualties on either side.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238477465 |title=Cruise of H.M.S. Diamond |newspaper=[[The Sydney Daily Telegraph]] |date=4 September 1882 |access-date=12 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030421/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/238477465 |url-status=live }}</ref> At [[Ambrym]], the marines of {{HMS|Dart|1882|6}} under Commander Moore, raided and burned down a village in retaliation for the killing of Captain Belbin of the blackbirding ship ''Borough Belle''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111024907 |title=The Outrage at Ambrym |newspaper=[[The Evening News (Sydney)|Evening News]] |date=22 August 1883 |access-date=12 July 2019 |page=8 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030421/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/111024907 |url-status=live }}</ref> Likewise, {{HMS|Undine|1881|6}} patrolled the islands, protecting the crews of blackbirding vessels such as ''Ceara'' from mutinies of the labour recruits.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3436515 |title=Outrages in the South Sea Islands |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=26 November 1884 |access-date=12 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030420/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3436515 |url-status=live }}</ref>
==== ''The Age'' 1882 slave trade exposé ====
In 1882, the [[Melbourne]] newspaper ''[[The Age]]'' published an eight-part [[Exposé (journalism)|series]] written by journalist and future physician [[George Ernest Morrison|George E. Morrison]], who had sailed, undercover, for the [[New Hebrides]], while posing as crew of the brigantine [[slave ship]], ''Lavinia'', as it made cargo of [[Kanakas]]. "A Cruise in a Queensland Slaver. By a Medical Student" was written in a tone of wonder, expressing "only the mildest criticism"; six months later, Morrison "revised his original assessment", describing details of ''Lavinia''{{'s}} blackbirding operation, and sharply denouncing the slave trade in Queensland. His articles, letters to the editor, and ''The Age'' editorials, led to expanded government intervention.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kroeger |first1=Brooke |title=Undercover Reporting: The Truth About Deception |date=Aug 31, 2012 |publisher=Northwestern University Press |page=33 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ys61DGpIc9EC&pg=PA33 |access-date=9 January 2020 |isbn=9780810163515 |archive-date=27 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727111804/https://books.google.com/books?id=ys61DGpIc9EC&pg=PA33 |url-status=live }}</ref>
==== Mid 1880s: Shifting of recruitment from the New Guinea islands ====
The usual recruiting grounds of the [[New Hebrides]] and [[Solomon Islands]] became too dangerous and too expensive to obtain labour from. However, the well-populated islands around [[New Guinea]] were soon targeted for recruiting as these people were less aware of the blackbirding system and had less access to firearms. A new rush for labour from these islands began, with [[James Burns (Australian shipowner)|James Burns]] and [[Robert Philp]] of [[Burns Philp|Burns Philp & Co.]] purchasing several well-known blackbirding ships to quickly exploit the human resource in this region.<ref name="Docker" /> Plantation owners such as Robert Cran also bought vessels and made contact with missionaries like Samuel MacFarlane in the New Guinea area to help facilitate the acquisition of cheap workers.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3409039 |title=New Guinea labourers |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=23 December 1882 |access-date=12 July 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030455/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3409039 |url-status=live }}</ref> Kidnapping, forced recruitment, killings, false payment and the enslavement of children was again the typical practice. Captain William T. Wawn, a famous blackbirder working for the [[Burns Philp]] company on the ship ''Lizzie'', freely acknowledged in his memoirs that he took boatloads of young boys with no information given about contracts, pay or the nature of the work.<ref name="Wawn" /> Up to 530 boys were recruited per month from these islands, most of whom were transported to the new large company plantations in [[Far North Queensland]], such as the [[Victoria Plantation, Queensland|Victoria Plantation]] owned by [[CSR Limited|CSR]]. This phase of the trade was very profitable, with Burns Philp selling each recruit for around £23.<ref name="Docker" /> Many of them could not speak any English and died on these plantations at a rate of up to 1 in every 5<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19792718 |title=General News |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |date=11 August 1883 |access-date=12 July 2019 |page=34 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003229/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19792718 |url-status=live }}</ref> from disease, violence and neglect.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article83677544 |title=Sickening Tragedy amongst Kanakas on the Lower Herbert |newspaper=[[Queensland Figaro]] |date=30 June 1883 |access-date=15 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030421/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83677544 |url-status=live }}</ref>
In April 1883, the [[Premier of Queensland]], [[Thomas McIlwraith]] attempted to annex [[New Guinea]] to be part of Queensland. This was rejected by the British [[Chief secretary (British Empire)|Colonial Secretary]] mostly because of fears that it would expose even more of its inhabitants to be forcibly taken to work and possibly die in Queensland. The large influx of New Guinea labourers also sparked concern from [[white supremacist]] anti-immigration groups, which led to the election in late 1883 of [[Samuel Griffith]] on an anti-Kanaka policy platform.<ref name="Docker" /> Griffith quickly banned recruitment from the New Guinea islands and spearheaded a number of high-profile criminal cases against blackbirding crews operating in the area. The crew of ''Alfred Vittery'' were charged with the murder of [[South Sea Islanders]], while Captain Joseph Davies of ''Stanley'', Captain Millman of ''Jessie Kelly'', Captain Loutit of ''Ethel'' as well as the owners of ''Forest King'' were all charged with kidnapping. All of these cases, despite strong evidence against them, resulted in acquittal.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article217728593 |title=Queensland news |newspaper=[[Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser]] |date=13 December 1884 |access-date=15 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417030427/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/217728593 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52027849 |title=Our Brisbane letter |newspaper=[[Morning Bulletin]] |date=8 April 1884 |access-date=15 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article174675292 |title=Vice-Admiralty Court |newspaper=[[Telegraph (Brisbane)|The Telegraph]] |date=23 October 1884 |access-date=15 July 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove}}</ref> Charges of neglect resulting in death against plantation managers were also made. For example, Mr Melhuish of the [[Yeppoon]] Sugar Plantation was tried, but even though he was found responsible, the judge involved imposed only the minimum £5 fine and wished it could be an even lesser amount.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article67866826 |title=Rockhampton Police Court |newspaper=[[The Capricornian]] |date=29 November 1884 |access-date=15 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003234/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/67866826 |url-status=live }}</ref> During a riot at the [[Mackay, Queensland|Mackay]] [[horse racing|racetrack]], several [[South Sea Islanders]] were beaten to death by mounted white men wielding [[stirrup]] irons. Only one man, George Goyner, was convicted and received a minor punishment of two months imprisonment.<ref name="Finger" />
==== The ''Hopeful'' case, Royal Commission and planter compensation ====
In 1884, in one specific case, a significant judicial punishment was imposed on the blackbirders. This was in regards to the crew of ''Hopeful'' vessel which was owned by [[Burns Philp]]. Captain Lewis Shaw and four crew were charged and convicted of [[kidnapping]] people from the [[Bismarck Archipelago]], while the recruiter Neil McNeil and the [[boatswain]] were charged and convicted of murdering a number of Islanders. The kidnappers received jail terms of 7 to 10 years, while McNeil and the boatswain were sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Despite evidence showing that at least 38 Islanders had been killed by ''Hopeful''{{'s}} crew, all the prisoners (except for one who died in jail) were released in 1890 in response to a massive public petition signed by 28,000 Queenslanders.<ref name="Finger">{{Citation | author1=Finger, Jarvis | title=A cavalcade of Queensland's crimes and criminals : scoundrels, scallwags & psychopaths : the colonial years and beyond 1859–1920 | date=2012 | publisher=Boolarong Press | isbn=978-1-922109-05-7 }}</ref> This case sparked a Royal Commission into the recruitment of Islanders from which the [[Premier of Queensland]] concluded that it was no better than the African slave trade,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111182566 |title=South Sea Labor Traffic |newspaper=[[The Evening News (Sydney)|Evening News]] |date=16 April 1885 |access-date=15 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003251/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/111182566 |url-status=live }}</ref> and in 1885 the vessel S.S. ''Victoria'' was commissioned by the [[Government of Queensland]] to return 450 New Guinea Islanders to their homelands.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article138099307 |title=departure of South Sea Islanders from Brisbane |newspaper=[[The Australasian]] |date=13 June 1885 |access-date=15 July 2019 |page=29 |via=Trove}}</ref> Just like the global slave trade, the plantation owners, instead of being held criminally responsible, were financially compensated by the government for the loss of these returned workers.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52015247 |title=The Kanaka trade |newspaper=[[Morning Bulletin]] |date=20 March 1888 |access-date=15 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove}}</ref>
Fourteen sugar companies and individual planters including [[CSR Limited|The Colonial Sugar Refining Company]] and David Adolphus Louis, took the Queensland Government to court to demand financial recompense and were collectively awarded £18,500.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19803734 |title=Pacific Islanders' Compensation Court. |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |volume=XXIX |issue=545 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=6 March 1886 |accessdate=15 December 2021 |page=368 |via=National Library of Australia}}
</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19804004 |title=Pacific Islanders' Compensation Court. |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |volume=XXIX |issue=546 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=13 March 1886 |accessdate=15 December 2021 |page=419 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> This is despite consistent evidence given in court of each plantation recording labourer death rates of up to 60% over the term of their servitude.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4494246 |title=PACIFIC ISLANDERS COMPENSATION COURT. |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |volume=XLI |issue=8,770 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=23 February 1886 |accessdate=15 December 2021 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
==== The later years of recruiting ====
Forceful recruitment of South Sea Islanders persisted in the New Guinea region, as well as in the Solomons and the New Hebrides islands, as did the high death rates of these labourers at Queensland plantations.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article6072983 |title=Mortality amongst South Sea Islanders |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |date=28 March 1885 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=10 |via=Trove}}</ref> At the [[Yeppoon]] Sugar Company, deliberate poisonings of Kanakas also occurred<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article54888736 |title=Untitled |newspaper=[[Morning Bulletin]] |date=1 March 1886 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003317/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/54888736 |url-status=live }}</ref> and when this plantation was later put up for sale, the Islander labourers were included as part of the estate.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19811259 |title=Classified Advertising |newspaper=[[The Queenslander]] |date=9 February 1889 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=278 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003242/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19811259 |url-status=live }}</ref> Resistance and conflict also continued. For instance, at [[Malaita]] six crew members of the recruiting vessel ''Young Dick'' were killed together with about six islanders in a skirmish,<ref name="YD">{{cite web| last = S. Ablott|title= Schooner 'Young Dick'|publisher= Burton upon Stather Heritage Group|page=|date = 1 May 2014|url= https://burtonstatherheritage.org/shipping/76-young-dick| accessdate=19 March 2024}}</ref><ref name="YDM">{{cite web |url=http://www.solomonencyclopaedia.net/biogs/E000353b.htm|title=Young Dick Massacre, Malaita, 1886 |access-date=24 March 2014 |publisher=Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia 1893-1978 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article216255135 |title=Desperate Conflict with South Sea Islanders |newspaper=[[Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser]] |date=3 June 1886 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref> The boat crew of the labour recruiting schooner ''Mystery'' were killed in November 1878 at [[Longana]], a district on the island of [[Ambae]], [[Vanuatu]] (New Hebrides).<ref name="MM">{{cite journal |author= Gilding, Michael |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/25168490 |title= The Massacre of the Mystery: A Case Study in Contact Relations |journal= The Journal of Pacific History|volume=17 |date=April 1982|issue= 2 |pages=66–85 |doi= 10.1080/00223348208572437 |jstor= 25168490 }}</ref> Then in 1888 at [[Paama]] a large gun battle between the residents and the crew of ''Eliza Mary'' occurred.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146795440 |title=The schooner Eliza Mary |newspaper=[[Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser]] |date=30 November 1888 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref> This ship later sank during a [[cyclone]] causing the drowning deaths of 47 Kanakas.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article125081637 |title=Hurricane in the South Sea Islands |newspaper=[[Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser]] |date=5 April 1890 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove}}</ref> The policy of extensive [[punitive expedition]]s carried out by the [[Royal Navy]] against the Islanders persisted as well. The official report of the lengthy mission of {{HMS|Diamond|1874|6}} which bombarded and burnt numerous villages<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13608961 |title=Cruise of H.M.S. Diamond |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=13 January 1886 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003312/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13608961 |url-status=live }}</ref> in 1885 was kept secret.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198354121 |title=Punishment of natives in the South Seas |newspaper=[[The Leader (Melbourne)|The Leader]] |date=18 September 1886 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=32 |via=Trove}}</ref> {{HMS|Opal|1875|6}} also bombarded numerous villages in punitive expeditions<ref>{{cite news|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108116453|title=Reprisals in the South Seas |newspaper=[[Evening News (Sydney)|Evening News]] |date=26 December 1888 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref> which elicited condemnation from some sections of the media.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article185520265 |title=Shot and Shell in the South Seas |newspaper=The Telegraph |date=16 February 1889 |access-date=17 July 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove}}</ref>
Legislation was passed to end the South Sea Islander labour trade in 1890 but it was not effectively enforced and it was officially recommenced in 1892. Reports such as those by [[Joe Melvin]], an investigative journalist who in 1892 joined the crew of Queensland blackbirding ship ''Helena'' and found no instances of intimidation or misrepresentation and concluded that the Islanders recruited did so "willingly and cannily",<ref>Peter Corris, [http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/melvin-joseph-dalgarno-7556/text13185 'Melvin, Joseph Dalgarno (1852–1909)'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150109134729/http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/melvin-joseph-dalgarno-7556/text13185 |date=9 January 2015 }}, ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 9 January 2015</ref> helped the plantation owners secure the resumption of the trade. ''Helena'' under Captain A.R. Reynolds, transported Islanders to and from [[Bundaberg]] and in this region there was a very large mortality rate of Kanakas in 1892 and 1893. South Sea Islanders made up 50% of all deaths in this period even though they only made up 20% of the total population in the Bundaberg area.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article217678282 |title=Excessive Kanaka mortality |newspaper=[[Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser]] |date=29 July 1893 |access-date=20 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref> The deaths were due to the hard manual labour and diseases such as [[dysentery]], [[influenza]] and [[tuberculosis]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article183121557 |title=Phthisis in Queensland |newspaper=[[The Week (Brisbane)]] |date=8 December 1893 |access-date=20 July 2019 |page=10 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003300/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/183121557 |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:StateLibQld 1 110068 Para (ship).jpg|thumb|The ''Para'', Captain John Ronald Mackay at the Solomon Islands in 1894]]
In the 1890s, other important recruiting vessels were ''Para'', ''Lochiel'', ''Nautilus'', ''Rio Loge'', ''Roderick Dhu'' and ''William Manson''. Joseph Vos, a well known blackbirder for many years and the captain of ''William Manson'', would use [[phonograph]]ic recordings and enlarged photographs of relatives of Islanders to induce recruits on board his vessel. Vos and his crew were involved in killings, stealing women and setting fire to villages and were charged with [[kidnapping]].<ref name="Docker" /> However, they were found not guilty and released.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article183705866 |title=Charge of Kidnapping |newspaper=[[The Week (Brisbane)|The Week]] |date=29 March 1895 |access-date=20 July 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003318/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/183705866 |url-status=live }}</ref> ''Roderick Dhu'', a vessel owned by the sugar magnate Robert Cran, was another ship regularly involved in blackbirding investigations and conflict with Islanders. In 1890, it was involved in the shooting of people at [[Ambae Island]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146757519 |title=Roderick Dhu enquiry |newspaper=[[Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser]] |date=27 November 1890 |access-date=20 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003324/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146757519 |url-status=live }}</ref> and evidence of kidnapping by the crew was later published.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3545110 |title=The Polynesian labour trade |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=18 July 1892 |access-date=20 July 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove}}</ref> In 1893, conflict with Islanders at [[Espiritu Santo]] resulted in the death of a crew member of ''Roderick Dhu''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article53624666 |title=Murdered by South Sea Islanders |newspaper=[[South Australian Register]] |date=24 November 1893 |access-date=20 July 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove}}</ref>
==== Repatriation ====
In 1901, the government of the newly federated British colonies of Australia legislated the "Regulation, Restriction and Prohibition of the Introduction of Labourers from the Pacific Islands" bill, better known as the [[Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901]]. This Act, which was part of a larger [[White Australia policy]], made it illegal to import [[South Sea Islanders]] after March 1904 and mandated for the forcible deportation of all Islanders from Australia after 1906.<ref name="Docker" /> Strong lobbying from Islander residents in Australia forced some exemptions to be made, for example, those who were married to an Australian, who owned land or who had been living for 20 years in Australia were exempt from compulsory repatriation. However, many Islanders were not made aware of these exemptions. Around 4000 to 7500 were deported in the period 1906 to 1908, while approximately 1600 remained in Australia.<ref name="Docker" /> The [[Burns Philp]] company won the contract to deport the Islanders and those taken back to the [[Solomon Islands]] were distributed to their home islands by vessels of Lever's Pacific Plantations company. Deported Solomon Islanders who were unable to go to their villages of origin or who were born in Australia, were often put to work in plantations in these islands.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19482038 |title=The Solomon Islands |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=13 December 1906 |access-date=20 July 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove}}</ref> In some localities, serious conflict between these workers and white colonists in the Solomon Islands ensued.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14922217 |title=Island murders |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=20 June 1908 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=13 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003253/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/14922217 |url-status=live }}</ref> Around 350 of the South Sea Islanders banished from Queensland were transferred to plantations in [[Fiji]].<ref name="REPATRIATION OF KANAKAS">{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238104721 |title=Repatriation of Kanakas |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)|The Daily Telegraph]] |date=27 March 1908 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003330/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/238104721 |url-status=live}}</ref> At least 27 of these died while being transported.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238042462 |title=Fiji |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)|The Daily Telegraph]] |date=24 May 1907 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=8 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003318/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/238042462 |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:Cultural2013a.jpg|thumb|South Sea Islander community taking part in the traditional parade of nations during the 2013 Rockhampton Cultural Festival, Queensland.]]
Today, the descendants of those who remained are officially referred to as Australian [[South Sea Islanders]]. A 1992 census of Australian South Sea Islanders reported around 10,000 descendants living in Queensland.<ref name="AHRC"/> In the 2016 census, 6830 people in Queensland declared that they were descendants of [[South Sea Islander]] labourers.<ref>{{cite web |title=Queensland's Australian South Sea Islander population, census 2016 |url=http://www.qgso.qld.gov.au/products/reports/qld-australian-south-sea-islander-pop-c16/index.php |access-date=20 July 2019 |archive-date=20 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720043616/http://www.qgso.qld.gov.au/products/reports/qld-australian-south-sea-islander-pop-c16/index.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
==== Seasonal workers in the 21st century ====
In 2012, the Australian government introduced a seasonal worker scheme under the 416 and 403 visas to bring in Pacific Islander labour to work in the agricultural industry performing tasks such as picking fruit. By 2018, around 17,320 Islanders, mostly from [[Vanuatu]], [[Fiji]] and [[Tonga]], had been employed with the majority being placed on farms in [[Queensland]]. Workers under this programme have often been subject to working long hours in extreme temperatures and being forced to live in squalid conditions. Poor access to clean water, adequate food and medical assistance has resulted in several deaths.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Field |first1=Emma |title=Farm deaths: Seasonal worker program claims 12 lives |url=https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/farm-deaths-seasonal-worker-program-claims-12-lives/news-story/4477cf6717cf9be893570537760c130e |access-date=18 August 2019 |work=The Weekly Times |date=13 December 2017 |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003303/https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=WTWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.weeklytimesnow.com.au%2Fnews%2Fnational%2Ffarm-deaths-seasonal-worker-program-claims-12-lives%2Fnews-story%2F4477cf6717cf9be893570537760c130e&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&nk=96c02c5c6b82023240050be62cb65b1a-1608769983 |url-status=live }} This article can only be accessed via [[paywall]].</ref> These reports, together with allegations of workers receiving as little as $10 a week after rent and transport deductions,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hermant |first1=Norman |title=Seasonal farm workers receiving less than $10 a week after deductions, investigation reveals |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-25/seasonal-farm-workers-receiving-as-little-as-$9-a-week/7196844 |access-date=18 August 2019 |work=ABC News |date=26 February 2016 |archive-date=16 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191116152932/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-25/seasonal-farm-workers-receiving-as-little-as-$9-a-week/7196844 |url-status=live }}</ref> resulted in the "Harvest Trail Inquiry" into the conditions of migrant horticultural workers. This inquiry confirmed widespread exploitation, intimidation and underpayment of workers with at least 55% of employers being non-compliant in regard to payments and conditions. It found many workers were contracted under a "piece rate" of pay with no written agreement and no minimum hourly rate (as is typical for Australian seasonal agricultural workers). Even though some wages were recovered and a number of employers and contractors were fined, the inquiry found that much more regulation was needed. Despite this report, the government expanded the programme in 2018 with the Pacific Labour Scheme which includes three-year contracts.<ref>{{cite web |title=Harvest Trail Inquiry |url=https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/helping-the-community/campaigns/national-campaigns/harvest-trail-inquiry |website=Fair Work Ombudsman |access-date=23 August 2019 |archive-date=18 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190818061120/https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/helping-the-community/campaigns/national-campaigns/harvest-trail-inquiry |url-status=live }}</ref> Strong parallels have been drawn with the working conditions observed under this programme to those of blackbirded Pacific Islander labourers in the 19th Century.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Doherty |first1=Ben |title=Hungry, poor, exploited: alarm over Australia's import of farm workers |url=https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/aug/03/hungry-poor-exploited-alarm-over-australias-import-of-farm-workers |access-date=18 August 2019 |work=The Guardian |date=3 August 2017 |archive-date=18 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190818061102/https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/aug/03/hungry-poor-exploited-alarm-over-australias-import-of-farm-workers |url-status=live }}</ref>
The introduction of the ''Modern Slavery Act 2018''<ref>{{cite web | publisher=Australian Government | website=Federal Register of Legislation | title=Modern Slavery Act 2018 | date=10 December 2018 | url=https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C2018A00153 | language=rw | access-date=6 January 2022 | archive-date=6 January 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106041900/https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C2018A00153 | url-status=live }}</ref> into Australian law was partly based upon concerns of slavery being evident in the Queensland agricultural sector.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Locke |first1=Sarina |title=Modern slavery to be targeted in new laws recommended by Australian parliamentary committee |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-12-07/parliament-moves-to-stamp-out-modern-slavery-tabling-report/9234784 |access-date=23 August 2019 |work=ABC News |archive-date=9 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200109115502/https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-12-07/parliament-moves-to-stamp-out-modern-slavery-tabling-report/9234784 |url-status=live }}</ref> Some commentators have also drawn parallels between blackbirding and the early 21st-century recruitment of labour under the (unconnected) [[457 visa]] scheme.<ref>Connell, John. (2010). ''From Blackbirds to Guestworkers in the South Pacific. Plus ça Change...?'' The Economic and Labour Relations Review. 20. 111–121.</ref>
==={{anchor |blackbirding-in-wa}} Western Australia ===
The early days of the [[Pearling in Western Australia|pearling industry in Western Australia]] at [[Nickol Bay]] and [[Broome, Western Australia|Broome]], saw [[Aboriginal Australians]] blackbirded from the surrounding areas.<ref name="austgov1">{{cite web|url=http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/pearling/|title=Australia's pearling industry|work=Australian Government Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts|access-date=2006-09-29|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061007052115/http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/pearling/|archive-date=2006-10-07}}</ref> After settlement the Aborigines were used as slave labour in the emerging commercial industry.<ref name=ebroom.com>{{cite web|url=http://ebroome.com/history/|title=Early Years|work=ebroome.com|access-date=2006-09-29 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060717104253/http://ebroome.com/history/ <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 2006-07-17}}</ref>
During the early 1870s, [[Francis Cadell (explorer)|Francis Cadell]] became involved in [[whaling]], [[Trade|trading]], [[pearl hunting|pearling]] and blackbirding in [[North-West Australia]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244747431 |title=Captain Cadell |newspaper=[[The Herald (Melbourne)|The Herald]] |date=29 August 1879 |access-date=2 August 2021 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref> Cadell and others became notorious for their coercion, capture and sale of [[Aboriginal people]] as slaves.<ref name="Hook 2004">{{Cite web |last1=Hook |first1=Fiona |last2=McDonald |first2=Eddie |last3=Paterson |first3=Alistair |last4=Souter |first4=Corioli |last5=Veitch |first5=Bruce |name-list-style=amp |year=2004 |title=Cultural Heritage Assessment and Management Plan; Proposed Gorgon Development |url=https://www.epa.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/PER_documentation/1496-ERMP-EIS-Technical%20Appendices%20E1-E3.pdf |pages=19–20, 63–64 |url-status=live |access-date=2021-08-03 |via=Environmental Protection Authority of WA|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802233239/https://www.epa.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/PER_documentation/1496-ERMP-EIS-Technical%20Appendices%20E1-E3.pdf |archive-date=2 August 2021 }}</ref> The slaves were often detained temporarily at camps known as ''[[barracoon]]s'' on [[Barrow Island (Western Australia)|Barrow Island]], {{convert|30|nmi|km}} offshore.<ref name="Hook 2004"/> In 1875 magistrate Robert Fairbairn was sent to investigate pearling conditions at [[Shark Bay]], following reports that people, described as [[Malay race|Malays]], employed by Cadell and [[Charles Edward Broadhurst|Charles Broadhurst]] were unpaid, unable to return home and some had starved to death. Fairbairn held that Cadell had not paid 10 Malays from the time they were engaged at [[Batavia, Dutch East Indies|Batavia]] in 1874 and he was required to pay the 10 Malays plus an additional 4 months wages as amends for the lack of food, totaling £198. 14s. 4d. They received just £16. 16s. from the sale of Cadell's property at Shark Bay as Cadell had left the Colony of Western Australia some months previously.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66302453 |title=Our nor-west settlements |newspaper=[[The Inquirer and Commercial News]] |date=1 March 1876 |access-date=2 August 2021 |page=4 |via=Trove}}</ref> Broadhurst was also found to have underpaid 18 Malays totaling £183. 4s. 2d. however the judgement was set aside by the [[Supreme Court of Western Australia|Supreme Court]] on the technicality that Broadhurst had not been given proper notice of the claim.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article109902766 |title=Supreme Court: Ex parte Broadhurst in re Fairburn |newspaper=[[The Herald (Fremantle)|The Herald]] |date=15 January 1876 |access-date=3 August 2021 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref>
== Fiji ==
[[File:Melanesian Cultural Area.png|thumb|Map of [[Melanesia]]]]
=== Before annexation (1865 to 1874)===
The blackbirding era began in [[Fiji]] on 5 July 1865 when [[Ben Pease]] received the first licence to transport 40 labourers from the [[New Hebrides]] to [[Fiji]]<ref>{{Citation | author1=Dunbabin, Thomas | title=Slavers of the South Seas | date=1935 | publisher=Angus & Robertson | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/26811254 | access-date=23 August 2019 | archive-date=27 July 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727000909/https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/26811254 | url-status=live }}</ref> in order to work on cotton plantations. The [[American Civil War]] had cut off the supply of cotton to the international market and cultivation of this [[cash crop]] in Fiji was potentially an extremely profitable business. Thousands of Anglo-American and Anglo-Australian planters flocked to Fiji to establish plantations and the demand for cheap labour boomed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.janesoceania.com/oceania_blackbirding1/index.htm |title=The Story of Blackbirding in the South Seas – Part 2 |author=Jane Resture |publisher=Janesoceania.com |access-date=9 December 2013 |archive-date=7 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307005454/http://www.janesoceania.com/oceania_blackbirding1/index.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Transportation of [[Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)|Kanaka]] labour to Fiji continued up until 1911 when it became prohibited by law. A probable total of around 45,000 Islanders were taken to work in Fiji during this 46-year period with approximately a quarter of these dying while under their term of labour.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}
[[File:Only known photograph of William Henry Bully Hayes.jpg|right|170px|thumb|Blackbirding sea Captain William Henry [[Bully Hayes]].]]
Albert Ross Hovell, son of the noted explorer [[William Hilton Hovell]], was a prominent blackbirder in the early years of the Fijian labour market.<ref>{{cite web |title=Albert Ross Hovell |url=https://australianroyalty.net.au/individual.php?pid=I71998&ged=purnellmccord.ged |website=Australian Royalty |access-date=24 August 2019 |archive-date=7 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200107131443/https://australianroyalty.net.au/individual.php?pid=I71998&ged=purnellmccord.ged |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1867 he was captain of ''Sea Witch'', recruiting men and boys from [[Tanna (island)|Tanna]] and [[Lifou]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166799820 |title=Notes from Fiji |newspaper=[[The Sydney Mail|Sydney Mail]] |date=31 August 1867 |access-date=24 August 2019 |page=8 |via=Trove}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13186400 |title=Deputation of South Sea Islanders |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=8 May 1869 |access-date=24 August 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003310/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13186400 |url-status=live }}</ref> The following year, Hovell was in command of ''Young Australian'' which was involved in an infamous voyage resulting in charges of murder and slavery being laid. After being recruited, at least three Islanders were shot dead aboard the vessel and the rest sold in [[Levuka]] for £1,200. Hovell and his [[supercargo]], Hugo Levinger, were arrested in Sydney in 1869, found guilty by jury and sentenced to death. This was later commuted to life imprisonment but both were discharged from prison only after a couple of years.<ref name="Docker" />
In 1868 the Acting British Consul in Fiji, [[John Bates Thurston]], brought only minor regulations upon the trade through the introduction of a licensing system for the labour vessels. Melanesian labourers were generally recruited for a term of three years at a rate of three pounds per year and issued with basic clothing and rations. The payment was half of that offered in [[Queensland]] and like that colony was only given at the end of the three-year term usually in the form of poor quality goods rather than cash. Most Melanesians were recruited by combination of deceit and violence, and then locked up in the ship's hold to prevent escape. They were sold in Fiji to the colonists at a rate of £3 to £6 per head for males and £10 to £20 for females. After the expiry of the three-year contract, the government required captains to transport the surviving labourers back to their villages, but many were disembarked at places distant from their homelands.<ref name="Docker" />
A notorious incident of the blackbirding trade was the 1871 voyage of the [[brig]] ''Carl'', organised by Dr James Patrick Murray,<ref name="G. Elmslie, 1979">R. G. Elmslie, 'The Colonial Career of James Patrick Murray', ''Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery'', (1979) 49(1):154-62</ref> to recruit labourers to work in the plantations of Fiji. Murray had his men reverse their collars and carry black books, so to appear to be church [[missionaries]]. When islanders were enticed to a religious service, Murray and his men would produce guns and force the islanders onto boats. During the voyage Murray and his crew shot about 60 islanders. He was never brought to trial for his actions, as he was given immunity in return for giving evidence against his crew members.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="G. Elmslie, 1979"/> The captain of ''Carl'', Joseph Armstrong, along with the mate Charles Dowden were sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment.<ref name="G. Elmslie, 1979"/><ref>''Sydney Morning Herald'', 20–23 Nov 1872, 1 March 1873</ref>
Some Islanders brought to Fiji against their will demonstrated desperate actions to escape from their situation. Some groups managed to overpower the crews of smaller vessels to take command of these ships and attempt to sail back to their home islands.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13162832 |title=Notes from Fiji — slavery |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=5 March 1868 |access-date=30 August 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003314/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13162832 |url-status=live }}</ref> For example, in late 1871, Islanders aboard ''Peri'' being transported to a plantation on a smaller Fijian island, freed themselves, killed most of the crew and took charge of the vessel. Unfortunately, the ship was low in supplies and was blown westward into the open ocean where they spent two months adrift. Eventually, ''Peri'' was spotted by Captain [[John Moresby]] aboard {{HMS|Basilisk|1848|6}} near to [[Hinchinbrook Island]] off the coast of [[Queensland]]. Only thirteen of the original eighty kidnapped Islanders were alive and able to be rescued.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Moresby |first1=John |title=New Guinea & Polynesia. Discoveries & surveys in New Guinea and the D'Entrecasteaux Islands; a cruise in Polynesia and visits to the pearl-shelling stations in Torres Straits of H. M. S. Basilisk |date=1876 |publisher=J.Murray |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/newguineapolyne00moregoog/page/n34}}</ref>
Labour vessels involved in this period of blackbirding for the Fijian market also included ''Donald McLean'' under the command of captain McLeod, and ''Flirt'' under captain McKenzie who often took people from [[Erromango]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13206660 |title=Traffic in South Sea Islanders |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=9 June 1870 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove}}</ref> Captain Martin of ''Wild Duck'' stole people from [[Espiritu Santo]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1335782 |title=Removal of South Sea Islanders by British Vessels to Fiji and Queensland |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=20 February 1871 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003259/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1335782 |url-status=live }}</ref> while other ships such as ''Lapwing'', ''Kate Grant'', ''Harriet Armytage'' and ''Frolic'' also participated in the kidnapping trade. The famous blackbirder, [[Bully Hayes]] kidnapped Islanders for the Fiji market in his [[Sydney]]-registered [[schooner]], ''Atlantic''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1329963 |title=South Sea Islanders redressing their grievances |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=24 September 1870 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003339/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1329963 |url-status=live }}</ref> Many captains engaged in violent means to obtain the labourers. The crews of ''Margaret Chessel'', ''Maria Douglass'' and ''Marion Renny'' were involved in fatal conflict with various Islanders. Captain Finlay McLever of ''Nukulau'' was arrested and tried in court for kidnapping and assault but was discharged due to a legal technicality.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13244584 |title=Fiji |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=8 September 1871 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003303/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13244584 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article30583464 |title=Colonial extracts |newspaper=[[Queanbeyan Age]] |date=14 November 1872 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003348/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/30583464 |url-status=live }}</ref>
The passing of the Pacific Islanders Protection Act in 1872 by the British government was meant to improve the conditions for the Islanders but instead it legitimised the labour trade and the treatment of the blackbirded Islanders upon the Fiji plantations remained appalling. In his 1873 report, the British Consul to Fiji, Edward March, outlined how the labourers were treated as slaves. They were given insufficient food, subjected to regular beatings and sold on to other colonists. If they became rebellious they were either imprisoned by their owners or sentenced by magistrates (who were also plantation owners) to heavy labour. The planters were allowed to inflict punishment and restrain the Islanders as they saw fit and young girls were openly bartered for and sold into [[sexual slavery]]. Many workers were not paid and those who survived and were able to return to their home islands were regarded as lucky.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article63229330 |title=Fiji |newspaper=[[Empire (newspaper)|The Empire]] |date=16 April 1873 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref>
===After annexation (1875 to 1911)===
The British annexed Fiji in October 1874 and the labour trade in Pacific Islanders continued as before. In 1875, the year of the catastrophic [[measles]] epidemic, the chief medical officer in Fiji, Sir [[William MacGregor]], listed a mortality rate of 540 out of every 1,000 Islander labourers.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gravelle |first1=Kim |title=Fiji's Times, A History of Fiji |date=1979 |publisher=Fiji Times |location=Suva}}</ref> The [[Governor of Fiji]], [[Arthur Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Baron Stanmore|Sir Arthur Gordon]], endorsed not only the procuring of Kanaka labour but became an active organiser in the plan to expand it to include mass importation of indentured [[coolie]] workers from India.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article220461923 |title=Fiji |newspaper=[[Weekly Times]] |date=26 August 1876 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove}}</ref> The establishment of the [[Western Pacific High Commission]] in 1877, which was based in Fiji, further legitimised the trade by imposing British authority upon most people living in Melanesia.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}
Violence and kidnapping persisted with Captain Haddock of ''Marion Renny'' shooting people at [[Makira]] and burning their villages.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5920478 |title=Cruise of a labour vessel in the South Seas |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |date=7 February 1878 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003314/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5920478 |url-status=live }}</ref> Captain John Daly of ''Heather Belle'' was convicted of kidnapping and jailed but was soon allowed to leave Fiji and return to [[Sydney]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article67362593 |title=Correspondence |newspaper=[[The Capricornian]] |date=1 March 1879 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove}}</ref> Many deaths continued to occur upon the blackbirding vessels bound for Fiji, with perhaps the worst example from this period being that which occurred on ''Stanley''. This vessel was chartered by the colonial British government in Fiji to conduct six recruiting voyages for the Fiji labour market. Captain James Lynch was in command and on one of these voyages he ordered 150 recruits to be locked in the ship's hold during an extended period of stormy weather. By the time the ship arrived in [[Levuka]], around fifty Islanders had died from suffocation and neglect. A further ten who were hospitalised were expected to die. Captain Lynch and the crew of ''Stanley'' faced no recriminations for this disaster and were soon at sea again recruiting for the government.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148529264 |title=Shipping Intelligence |newspaper=[[Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser]] |date=30 November 1878 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003314/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/148529264 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article133857475 |title=Death of fifty Polynesian labourers |newspaper=[[Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate]] |date=27 January 1880 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003315/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/133857475 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13458204 |title=Clearances.—April 16 |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=17 April 1880 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003309/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13458204 |url-status=live }}</ref>
This conflict together with competition for Pacific Islander labour from [[Queensland]] made recruiting sufficient workers for the Fiji plantations difficult. Beginning in 1879 with the arrival of [[Leonidas (ship)|''Leonidas'']], the transport of [[Indian indenture system|Indian indentured labourers]] to Fiji commenced. However, this [[coolie]] labour was more expensive and the market for blackbirded Islander workers remained strong for much of the 1880s. In 1882, the search for new sources of Islander labour expanded firstly to the [[Line Islands]] and then to [[New Britain]] and [[New Ireland (island)|New Ireland]]. The very high death rate of Line Islanders taken for the Fiji market quickly forced the prohibition of taking people from there. Although the death rates of recruits from New Britain and New Ireland were also high, the trade in humans from these islands was allowed to continue. The [[CSR Limited|Colonial Sugar Refining Company]] made major investments in the Fijian sugar industry around this time with much of the labour being provided by workers from [[New Britain]]. Many of the recruits taken from this island on the labour vessel ''Lord of Isles'' were put to work on the CSR sugar mill at [[Nausori]]. The Fijian labour report for the years 1878 to 1882 revealed that 18 vessels were engaged in the trade, recruiting 7,137 Islanders with 1270 or nearly 20% of these dying while in Fiji. Fijian registered ships involved in the trade at this stage included ''Winifred'', ''Meg Merrilies'', ''Dauntless'' and ''Ovalau''.<ref name="Docker" /><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139485125 |title=Local & general |newspaper=[[Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate]] |date=24 April 1882 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003407/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/139485125 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3417888 |title=Coloured labour |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=10 May 1883 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003331/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3417888 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article6052696 |title=Fiji |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |date=5 July 1884 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003313/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6052696 |url-status=live }}</ref>
By 1890, the number of Melanesian labourers declined in preference to imported Indian indentured workers, but they were still being recruited and employed in such places as sugar mills and ports. In 1901, Islanders continued to be sold in Fiji for £15 per head and it was only in 1902 that a system of paying monthly cash wages directly to the workers was proposed.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19087773 |title=A visitor from Fiji |newspaper=[[The Brisbane Courier]] |date=27 May 1901 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=9 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003310/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19087773 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14464379 |title=News from Fiji |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=22 May 1902 |access-date=31 August 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref> When Islander labourers were expelled from Queensland in 1906, around 350 were transferred to the plantations in Fiji.<ref name="REPATRIATION OF KANAKAS"/> After the system of recruitment ended in 1911, those who remained in Fiji settled in areas like the region around [[Suva]]. Their multi-cultural descendants identify as a distinct community but, to outsiders, their language and culture cannot be distinguished from native Fijians. Descendants of Solomon Islanders have filed land claims to assert their right to traditional settlements in Fiji. A group living at Tamavua-i-Wai in Fiji received a [[High Court of Fiji|High Court]] verdict in their favour on 1 February 2007. The court refused a claim by the [[Seventh-day Adventist Church]] to force the islanders to vacate the land on which they had been living for seventy years.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=56292 |title=Solomon Islands descendants win land case |publisher=Fijitimes.com |date=2 February 2007 |access-date=9 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120213112117/http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=56292 |archive-date=13 February 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
== French Polynesia ==
In 1863, British capitalist William Stewart set up the Tahiti Cotton and Coffee Plantation Company at Atimaono on the south-west coast of [[Tahiti]]. Initially Stewart used imported Chinese [[coolie]] labour but soon shifted to blackbirded Polynesian labour to work the plantation. [[Bully Hayes]], an [[United States of America|American]] ship-captain who achieved notoriety for his activities in the Pacific from the 1850s to the 1870s, arrived in [[Papeete]], [[Tahiti]] in December 1868 on his ship ''Rona'' with 150 men from [[Niue]]. Hayes offered them for sale as [[indentured labourers]].<ref name="ReferenceA">
James A. Michener & A. Grove Day, "Bully Hayes, South Sea Buccaneer", in ''Rascals in Paradise'', London: Secker & Warburg 1957.</ref> The French Governor of Tahiti, who was invested in the company, used government ships such as ''Lucene'' to recruit South Sea Islanders for Stewart. These people were unloaded in a "half-naked and wholly starved" condition and on arrival at the plantation they were treated as slaves. Captain Blackett of the vessel ''Moaroa'', was also chartered by Stewart to acquire labourers. In 1869, Blackett bought 150 [[Gilbert Islands|Gilbert Islanders]] from another blackbirding ship for £5 per head. On transferring them to ''Moaroa'', the islanders, including another 150 already imprisoned on the vessel, rebelled killing Blackett and some of the crew. The remaining crew managed to isolate the islanders to a part of the ship and then used explosives to blow them up. Close to 200 people were killed in this incident with ''Moaroa'' still able to offload about 60 surviving labourers at Tahiti.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ramsden |first1=Eric |title=William Stewart and the introduction of Chinese labour in Tahiti |journal=Journal of the Polynesian Society |date=1946 |url=http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document//Volume_55_1946/Volume_55%2C_No._3/William_Stewart_and_the_introduction_of_Chinese_labour_in_Tahiti%2C_1864-74%2C_by_Eric_Ramsden%2C_p_187-214/p1 |access-date=2 July 2019 |archive-date=28 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200928140250/http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_55_1946/Volume_55%2C_No._3/William_Stewart_and_the_introduction_of_Chinese_labour_in_Tahiti%2C_1864-74%2C_by_Eric_Ramsden%2C_p_187-214/p1 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107131264 |title=Tragedy in the South Seas |newspaper=[[The Evening News (Sydney)|Evening News]] |date=8 February 1870 |access-date=2 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove}}</ref>
Conditions at the Atimaono plantation were appalling with long hours, heavy labour, poor food and inadequate shelter being provided. Harsh punishment was meted out to those who did not work and sickness was prevalent. The mortality rate for one group of blackbirded labourers at Atimaono was around 80%.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article63229407 |title=Polynesian slavery |newspaper=[[Empire (newspaper)|The Empire]] |date=18 April 1873 |access-date=2 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003332/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/63229407 |url-status=live }}</ref> William Stewart died in 1873 and the Tahiti Cotton and Coffee Plantation Company went bankrupt a year later.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}
Another notorious blackbirder was a fellow countryman of [[Bully Hayes]], who was also given the nickname "Bully". Captain "Bully" Proctor procured workers for the [[New Caledonia]]n nickel mines, and who was well known in the 1870s to 1890s, in Noumea, and [[Samoa]].<ref name="PIM1948-1">{{cite web | last= | first= | work= XVIII(6) Pacific Islands Monthly | title= "Bully Proctor" - The Story of the Notorious American Blackbirder | date= 19 January 1948 | url= https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-316595078/view?partId=nla.obj-316633537#page/n48/mode/1up | accessdate= 30 September 2021 | archive-date= 29 September 2021 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210929231456/https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-316595078/view?partId=nla.obj-316633537#page/n48/mode/1up | url-status= live }}</ref> He was master of the ''Ika Vula'' and the ''Ernestine''. He was also known as "Captain One Leg", and would put fear into people by firing his pistol into his wooden leg.<ref name="PIM1948-1"/> He boasted of murdering 15 people, and was notorious for shooting the husband of [[Vanuatu|New Hebridean]] woman who Proctor was sexually abusing.<ref name="PIM1948-1"/> After an incident on [[Futuna (Wallis and Futuna)|Futuna]] in 1876 when he assaulted 2 missionaries, he was subdued and removed from the island.<ref name="PIM1948-9">{{cite web | last= | first= | work= XIX(2) Pacific Islands Monthly | title= "Bully" Proctor – Blackbirder who wished to be King of Futuna | date= 1 September 1948 | url= https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-317351453/view?partId=nla.obj-317372612#page/n47/mode/1up | accessdate= 30 September 2021 | archive-date= 29 September 2021 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210929235719/https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-317351453/view?partId=nla.obj-317372612#page/n47/mode/1up | url-status= live }}</ref>
== Hawaiian Islands ==
The sugar industry in the [[Hawaiian Islands]] was expanding rapidly during the early 1870s and despite over 50% of all male able-bodied [[Native Hawaiians]] being utilised as workers on these plantations, there were an insufficient number to keep up with production. From 1868 to 1872, around 200 people from places such as [[Tahiti]], the [[Caroline Islands]], and the [[Line Islands]] were recruited to work on the Hawaiian plantations owned by European colonists. Most of these people died and the operation was considered a failure.<ref name="Bennett">{{cite journal |last1=Bennett |first1=J.A. |title=Immigration, blackbirding, labour recruiting? The Hawaiian experience 1877–1887. |journal=Journal of Pacific History |date=1976 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=3–27|doi=10.1080/00223347608572288 }}</ref> However, in 1877 British officials in Hawaii planned a more organised system of Pacific Islander recruitment. Captain H.W. Mist of the [[Royal Navy]] was employed to arrange a large shipment of Islanders to be recruited for Hawaii. Mist bought the vessel ''Stormbird'' in [[Sydney]] and appointed another ex-navy officer, Captain George Jackson, to conduct the expedition. On this first voyage, ''Stormbird'' recruited 85 people from [[Rotuma]], [[Nonouti]], [[Maiana]] and [[Tabiteuea]]. Jackson called in at [[Pohnpei]] on the way to Hawaii where he chained up a local headman and shot another trying to attempt a rescue.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13425438 |title=Cruise of the Stormbird |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=17 July 1878 |access-date=2 August 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003318/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13425438 |url-status=live }}</ref> During the voyage, Jackson had attempted to kidnap at gunpoint a number of young women from [[Maiana]] but was interrupted by the presence of another ship.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article143312248 |title=Alleged kidnapping by the Stormbird |newspaper=[[The Australasian]] |date=15 June 1878 |access-date=2 August 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove}}</ref>
''Stormbird'' made around another five recruiting voyages involving further violence and kidnapping, mostly sailing to the [[Gilbert Islands]]. On one occasion, the government agent aboard the vessel, Henry Freeman, bought a boatload of Gilbert Islanders from another blackbirding vessel named the ''Sea Waif''. By 1880 the labour trade to Hawaii expanded to the [[Vanuatu|New Hebrides]]. Captain Cadigan of ''Pomare'' took people from these islands via night raids, armed attacks and firing cannon at canoes. The death rates of the recruits on board ''Pomare'' as they were transported to [[Hawaii]] were as high as 20%. Captain Tierney of the labour vessel ''Hazard'' was paid by the Planters' Labour and Supply Company of Hawaii $15 per recruit and consequently used much deception in obtaining a profitable quota of human cargo. Other ships involved were ''Kaluna'', ''Elsinore'', ''Hawaii'', ''Nickolaus'', ''Mana'' and ''Allie Rowe''. ''Allie Rowe'' undertook the last recruiting voyage to the Pacific Islands for the Hawaiian plantations in 1887. This vessel, commanded by Captain Phillips, proceeded illegally without a license and Phillips was also later charged and convicted of kidnap in relation to this final voyage.<ref name="Bennett" />
From 1868 until the year 1887 when the recruiting of Pacific Islanders to Hawaii was largely replaced with the more cost effective Japanese immigration scheme, some 2,600 Islanders were recruited. From 1880 to 1883 these people were protected by strong government measures which included an appointed Protector of Pacific Islanders, routine checks of worker conditions and the ability of the labourers to take employers to court for maltreatment. These workers, usually on 3 year contracts, were also paid cash wages at the end of each month which amounted from £10 to £16 per annum. In spite of these conditions during these years, the mortality rate of the workers was still over 10% for each year. Outside of these years, where protections were less, the death rate was much higher.<ref name="Bennett" />
When recruiting ended in 1887, 650 Pacific Islander workers remained or were left abandoned in Hawaii and by 1895 this number had reduced to less than 400.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article61266918 |title=Japanese on the Sugar Plantations |newspaper=[[Clarence and Richmond Examiner]] |date=12 January 1895 |access-date=2 August 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003317/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/61266918 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1904, 220 mostly Gilbert Islanders continued to live in poverty at [[Honolulu]] and at [[Maui]]. These people were gathered together and repatriated in that same year to the [[Gilbert Islands]] where they faced further destitution in a land they had been absent from for twenty years.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article237819776 |title=Kidnapped South Sea Islanders |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)|The Daily Telegraph]] |date=26 January 1904 |access-date=2 August 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove}}</ref>
== New Caledonia ==
[[File:Nouvelle-Calédonie-NOUMÉA-Emigrants-Néo-Hébridais-Ed.jpg|thumb|[[New Hebrides]] workers in [[Noumea]].]]
Blackbirding and recruitment of [[South Sea Islanders]] as labourers to the French colony of [[New Caledonia]] began in 1865 and lasted until the 1930s. Around 15,000 people were transported during this period, the vast majority coming from the [[New Hebrides]]. In 1865 the French colonial government contracted [[sandalwood]] merchant Andrew Henry to bring 33 people from [[Erromango]]. Henry had previously been involved in sending labourers to [[Queensland]] for the cotton plantations of [[Robert Towns]]. Another recruiter, John Higginson, entered the trade in 1868, and by 1870, around 720 Islanders had been brought to labour in New Caledonia. A mining boom in 1873 saw a large increase in labour demand and many more ships became involved in the blackbirding trade with 900 Islanders being recruited in 1874 alone. Apart from some early government controls in the 1860s, the recruitment of Islanders was highly unregulated and open to abuse. Children as young as six years old could be legally recruited on lengthy contracts of up to twelve years. These children could also be legally paid at only half the rate of adults and given only half the required rations. Somewhere between a quarter and half of all the Islanders transported and forced to labour at New Caledonia were children.<ref name="Shineberg">{{cite book|last1=Shineberg|first1=Dorothy|title=The People Trade|date=1999|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|location=Honolulu|author-link=Dorothy Shineberg}}</ref>
The blackbirded labourers in New Caledonia worked in the plantation, mining, pastoral, domestic servant and sailing industries. Approximately 33% of these workers died while in New Caledonia and around half of those who survived did not receive any payment for their toil. They were often not returned to their islands of origin and of those who were, about a third died in the first year of returning from poor health acquired from working in terrible conditions at New Caledonia. The labourers were subjected to inadequate food, poor shelter and harsh punishments whilst in New Caledonia. They could be imprisoned for not working to their employer's satisfaction, where the colonial government exploited them further as unpaid prison labour. They were also sold-on and transferred to other colonists upon the death or bankruptcy of their original employer. Well-known blackbirding vessels involved in the labour trade to New Caledonia were ''Aoba'', ''Annette'', ''Venus'', ''Aurora'', ''Ika Vuka'', ''Idaho'', ''Ambroua'' and ''Effie Meikle''. Captains and recruiters notorious for kidnap and blackbirding for the New Caledonia market included James Toutant Proctor, "Black Tom", Jean-Louis Villedieu, Martial Briault, Charles Peterson Stuart, Walter Champion, Gabriel Madezo and Captain H. McKenzie. The company Joubert & Carter run by Didier Numa Joubert and Douglas Carter owned many of the blackbirding vessels in the early years of trade. Recruiting to New Caledonia continued well into the 20th Century but at a much lower rate and less violent manner. It was only brought to an end in the 1930s with the approach of World War II.<ref name="Shineberg" />
== Mexico and Guatemala ==
In the late 1880s, a worldwide boom in coffee demand fuelled the expansion of coffee growing in many regions including the south-west of [[Mexico]] and in neighbouring [[Guatemala]]. This expansion resulted in local labour shortages for the European plantation owners and managers in these areas. William Forsyth, an Englishman with expert knowledge on tropical plantations, promoted a scheme of recruiting people from the [[Gilbert Islands]] to counteract the shortage of workers in Mexico and Guatemala. In 1890, Captain Luttrell of the vessel ''Helen W. Almy'' was chartered and sent out to the Pacific where he recruited 300 Gilbert Islanders. They were offloaded in Mexico and sent to work at a coffee plantation near [[Tapachula]] owned by an American named John Magee. By 1894, despite supposedly having a three-year contract, none had been returned home and only 58 were still living.<ref name="McCreery">{{cite journal |last1=McCreery |first1=David |title=The cargo of the Montserrat: Gilbertese labour in Guatemalan coffee |journal=The Americas |date=1993 |volume=49 |pages=271–295 |jstor=1007028 |doi=10.2307/1007028 |s2cid=147185814 }}</ref>
In 1891, the barque ''Tahiti'' under command of Captain Ferguson was assigned to bring another load of Gilbert Islanders to Tapachula. This ship acquired around 370 islanders including about 100 children. While bringing its human cargo to the Americas, ''Tahiti'' suffered storm damage and was forced to anchor in [[Drakes Bay]] north of San Francisco. Amid accusations of slavery and blackbirding, Ferguson transferred command of the ship to another officer and abandoned the islanders in what amounted to a floating prison. Repairs were delayed for months and in early 1892, ''Tahiti'' was found capsized with all but a few survivors drowned.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kroeger |first1=Brooke |title=Undercover Reporting |date=2012 |publisher=Northwestern University Press |pages=35–38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ys61DGpIc9EC |isbn=9780810163515 |access-date=9 January 2020 |archive-date=27 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727112114/https://books.google.com/books?id=ys61DGpIc9EC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article236055803 |title=The loss of the Tahiti |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)|The Daily Telegraph]] |date=7 January 1892 |access-date=3 July 2019 |page=4 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003400/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/236055803 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Despite this tragedy another ship, ''Montserrat'', was fitted out to contract more Gilbert Islanders, this time for coffee plantations in [[Guatemala]]. Ferguson was again employed, but this time as recruiter not as captain. A journalist aboard ''Montserrat'' described the recruiting of islanders as clear slavery and even though Royal Navy officers had boarded the vessel for inspection, an understanding existed whereby the authorities intentionally refused to detain the crew of ''Montserrat''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3044381 |title=The labour traffic in the South Sea Islands |newspaper=[[The West Australian]] |date=20 January 1893 |access-date=3 July 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003357/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3044381 |url-status=live }}</ref> ''Montserrat'' sailed to Guatemala with around 470 islanders and once disembarked they were sold for $100 each and force marched 70 miles to the plantations in the highlands. Overwork and disease killed around 200 of them.<ref name="McCreery" />
Approximately 1,200 Gilbert Islanders were recruited in three shiploads for the Mexican and Guatemalan coffee plantations. Only 250 survived, most of these being returned to their homeland in two voyages in 1896 and 1908. This represented a mortality rate of 80%.<ref name="McCreery" />
== Peru ==
[[File:Map OC-Polynesia.PNG|thumb|Geographic definition of Polynesia, surrounded by a light pink line]]
For several months between 1862 and 1863, crews on Peruvian ships combed the islands of [[Polynesia]], from [[Easter Island]] in the eastern Pacific to the Gilbert Islands (now [[Kiribati]]) in the west, seeking workers to fill an extreme labour shortage in Peru. Joseph Charles Byrne, an Irish speculator, received financial backing to import [[South Sea Islanders]] as [[indentured]] workers. Byrne's ship, ''Adelante'', set forth across the Pacific and at [[Tongareva atoll|Tongareva]] in the [[Northern Cook Islands]] he was able to acquire 253 recruits of which more than half were women and children. ''Adelante'' returned to the Peruvian port of [[Callao]] where the human cargo were sold off and sent to work as plantation labourers and [[domestic worker|domestic servants]]. A considerable profit was made by the scheme's financiers and almost immediately other speculators and ship owners set out to make money on Polynesian labour.<ref name="Maude1981"/>
=== Easter Island mass-kidnapping ===
At the end of 1862, eight Peruvian ships organised under Captain Marutani of ''Rosa y Carmen'' conducted an armed operation at [[Easter Island]] where, over several days, the combined crews systematically surrounded villages and captured as many of the Islanders as possible. In these raids and others like them that occurred at Easter Island during this period, 1407 people were taken for the Peruvian labour trade. This represented a third of the island's population. In the following months, ''Rosa y Carmen'' together with about 30 other vessels involved in recruiting for Peru, kidnapped or deceptively obtained people throughout Polynesia. Captain Marutani's vessel alone took people from [[Niue]], [[Samoa]] and [[Tokelau]], as well as those that he kidnapped from Easter Island.<ref name="Maude1981"/>
=== 'Ata mass-kidnapping ===
[[File:Cpt Thomas James McGrath.jpg|thumb|upright|Captain T.J. McGrath, master of ''Grecian'']]
In June 1863 about 350 people were living on [['Ata]], an atoll in [[Tonga]]. Captain Thomas James McGrath of the Tasmanian whaler ''Grecian'', having decided that the new [[History of slavery|slave trade]] was more profitable than whaling, went to the atoll and invited the islanders on board for trading. However, once almost half of the population was on board, he ordered the ship's compartments locked, and the ship departed. These 144 people never returned to their homes. ''Grecian'' met with a Peruvian slave vessel, ''General Prim'', and the islanders were transferred to this ship which transported them to [[Callao]]. Due to new government regulations in Peru against the blackbirding trade, the islanders were not allowed to disembark and remained aboard for many weeks while their repatriation was organised. Finally on 2 October 1863, by which time many of the imprisoned [['Ata]] people had died or were dying from neglect and disease, a vessel was organised to take them back. However, this ship dumped the Tongans on uninhabited [[Cocos Island]]. A month later the Peruvian warship ''Tumbes'' went to rescue the remaining 38 survivors and took them to the Peruvian port of [[Paita]], where they probably died.<ref name="Maude1981"/>
=== Deception at Tuvalu ===
The Rev. A. W. Murray, the earliest European missionary in Tuvalu,<ref>Murray A.W., 1876. ''Forty Years' Mission Work''. London: Nisbet</ref> described the practices of blackbirders in the [[Tuvalu|Ellice Islands]]. He said they promised islanders that they would be taught about God while working in coconut oil production, but the slavers' intended destination was the [[Chincha Islands]] in Peru. Rev. Murray reported that in 1863, about 180 people<ref>the figure of 171 taken from Funafuti is given by Laumua Kofe, Palagi and Pastors, ''Tuvalu: A History'', Ch. 15, Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific and Government of Tuvalu, 1983</ref> were taken from [[Funafuti]] and about 200 were taken from [[Nukulaelae]],<ref>the figure of 250 taken from Nukulaelae is given by Laumua Kofe, Palagi and Pastors, ''Tuvalu: A History'', Ch. 15, U.S.P./Tuvalu (1983)</ref> leaving fewer than 100 of the 300 recorded in 1861 as living on Nukulaelae.<ref>W.F. Newton, ''The Early Population of the Ellice Islands'', 76(2) (1967) ''The Journal of the Polynesian Society,'' 197–204.</ref><ref>the figure of 250 taken from Nukulaelae is stated by Richard Bedford, Barrie Macdonald & Doug Monro, ''Population Estimates for Kiribati and Tuvalu'' (1980) 89(1) Journal of the Polynesian Society 199</ref> On Funafuti and Nukulaelae, the resident traders facilitated the recruiting of the islanders by the "blackbirders".<ref name="Doug Munro 1987">Doug Munro, ''The Lives and Times of Resident Traders in Tuvalu: An Exercise in History from Below'', (1987) 10(2) Pacific Studies 73</ref>
=== Extreme death rate ===
The Peruvian labour trade in Polynesians was short-lived, only lasting from 1862 to 1863. In this period an estimated 3,634 Polynesians were recruited. Over 2,000 died from disease, starvation or neglect either aboard the blackbirding ships or at the places of labour they were sent to. The Peruvian government shut down the operation in 1863 and ordered the repatriation of those who survived. A [[smallpox]] and [[dysentery]] outbreak in [[Peru]] accompanied this operation resulting in the death of a further 1,030 Polynesian labourers. Some of the islanders survived long enough to bring these [[contagious disease]]s to their home islands causing local epidemics and additional mortality. By 1866, only around 250 of those recruited had survived with about 100 of these remaining in Peru. The death rate was therefore 93%.<ref name="Maude1981"/>
== Samoa ==
In the late 1850s, German merchant [[Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy]], established a trading company based at [[Apia]] on the island of [[Upolu]] in [[Samoa]]. His company, J.C. Godeffroy & Sohn, was able to obtain large tracts of land from the indigenous population at times of civil unrest by selling firearms and exacerbating factional conflict. By 1872, the company owned over 100,000 acres on Upolu and greatly expanded their cotton and other agricultural plantations on the island. Cheap labour was required to work these plantations and the blackbirding operations of the Germans expanded at this time. After initially utilising people from [[Niue]], the company sent labour vessels to the [[Gilbert Islands]] and the [[Nomoi Islands]], exploiting food shortages there to recruit numerous people for their plantations in Samoa. Men, women and children of all ages were taken, separated and sent to work in harsh conditions with many succumbing to illness and poor diet.<ref name="Samoa">{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article237132067 |title=The Germans in Samoa |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)|The Daily Telegraph]] |date=8 May 1885 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003325/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/237132067 |url-status=live }}</ref>
In 1880 the company became known as Deutsche Handels und Plantagen Gesellschaft (DHPG) and had further expanded their Samoan plantations. Labour recruitment at this stage turned to [[New Britain]], [[New Ireland (island)|New Ireland]] and the [[Solomon Islands]]. The German blackbirding vessel, ''Upolu'', became well known in the area and was involved in several conflicts with islanders while recruiting.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12702774 |title=Affairs in the New Hebrides |newspaper=[[The Mercury (Hobart)|The Mercury]] |date=28 August 1890 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003313/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12702774 |url-status=live }}</ref> Imported Chinese workers eventually became more favourable but labour recruiting from Melanesian islands continued until at least the transfer of power from the Germans to New Zealand at the start of World War I.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28117312 |title=Products of Samoa |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=1 September 1914 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003317/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28117312 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Large British and American plantations which owned blackbirding vessels or exploited blackbirded labour also existed in colonial Samoa. The W & A McArthur Company representing Anglo-Australian interests was one of these<ref name="Samoa" /> and recruiting vessels such as ''Ubea'', ''Florida'' and ''Maria'' were based in Samoa.<ref name="Wawn">{{cite book |last1=Wawn |first1=William T. |title=The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade |date=1893 |publisher=Swan Sonnenschein |location=London |url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924030075091?ref=ol#page/n8/mode/2up}}</ref> In 1880, the crew of the British blackbirding ship, ''Mary Anderson'', was involved in shooting recruits on board,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article133858239 |title=A murderous madman |newspaper=[[Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate]] |date=2 February 1880 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003345/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/133858239 |url-status=live }}</ref> while in 1894 ''Aele'' was involved in recruiting starving Gilbert Islanders.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28259523 |title=Affairs in Samoa |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=1 May 1894 |access-date=5 July 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003312/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28259523 |url-status=live }}</ref>
== United States ==
=== Reverse underground railroad blackbirding ===
Since colonial times in the United States, the [[Reverse Underground Railroad]] existed to capture free [[African Americans|African-Americans]] and fugitive slaves and sell them into slavery, being particularly prevalent in the 19th century after the [[Atlantic slave trade]] was outlawed. [[New York City]] and [[Philadelphia]] were particularly prominent places for these kidnappers to work, causing fear of being kidnapped by anyone to become prevalent.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bell |first1=Richard |title=Counterfeit Kin: Kidnappers of Color, the Reverse Underground Railroad, and the Origins of Practical Abolition |url=http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=da822a84-6674-44f6-a849-ea211241de0a%40sessionmgr4008 |website=EBSCOHost |access-date=17 December 2018 |archive-date=24 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224003420/https://shib.idm.umd.edu/shibboleth-idp/profile/SAML2/POST/SSO?execution=e1s1 |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Representation in popular culture==
American author [[Jack London]] recounted in his memoir, ''[[The Cruise of the Snark]]'' (1907), an incident at [[Langa Langa Lagoon]] Malaita, [[Solomon Islands]], when the local islanders attacked a "recruiting" ship:
{{blockquote|... still bore the tomahawk marks where the [[Malaita]]ns at Langa Langa several months before broke in for the trove of rifles and ammunition locked therein, after bloodily slaughtering Jansen's predecessor, Captain Mackenzie. The burning of the vessel was somehow prevented by the black crew, but this was so unprecedented that the owner feared some complicity between them and the attacking party. However, it could not be proved, and we sailed with the majority of this same crew. The present skipper smilingly warned us that the same tribe still required two more heads from the Minota, to square up for deaths on the Ysabel plantation. (p 387)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/logofsnark00londrich/logofsnark00londrich_djvu.txt |title=The Log of the Stark |access-date=9 April 2011}}</ref>}}
In another passage from the same book, he wrote:
{{blockquote|Three fruitless days were spent at Su'u. The Minota got no recruits from the bush and the bushmen got no heads from the Minota. (p 270)}}''Georges Baudoux's'' ''Jean M'Baraï the Trepang Fisherman'', a semi-fictional novella, relates the brutal history of the Kanaka trade and highlights 19th century imperial connections between the French and British Pacific.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Georges Badoux's Jean M'Barai The Trepang Fisherman|last=Speedy|first=Karin|date=2015|publisher=UTS ePRESS|isbn=9780994503916|language=en|doi=10.5130/978-0-9945039-1-6|url=https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/books/georges-baudouxs-jean-mbarai-trepang-fisherman|access-date=24 February 2021|archive-date=6 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190806231103/https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/books/georges-baudouxs-jean-mbarai-trepang-fisherman|url-status=live}}</ref> Translated from the original French by Karin Speedy in 2015, it offers a French/New Caledonian perspective on blackbirding in the Pacific, first published in 1919.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Speedy|first=Karin|url=https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/39698|title=Georges Baudoux's Jean M'Barai The Trepang Fisherman|date=2015|publisher=UTS ePRESS|hdl=20.500.12657/39698 |isbn=978-0-9945039-1-6|language=English|access-date=9 February 2022|archive-date=9 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220209083533/https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/39698|url-status=live}}</ref>
Artist [[Jasmine Togo-Brisby]] makes art about blackbirding. She is a fourth-generation descendant of slaves who were kidnapped from [[Vanuatu]] in 1863. She is currently based in New Zealand, her exhibitions include ''Bitter Sweet'' at [[Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery|Te Uru]] in 2016, and ''Birds of Passage'' at the [[King Edward Technical College|Dunedin School of Art]] gallery in 2019.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Jasmine Togo-Brisby: Bitter Sweet - Te Uru|url=https://www.teuru.org.nz/index.cfm/whats-on/calendar/jasmine-togo-brisby-bitter-sweet/|access-date=2022-02-09|website=Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery|archive-date=9 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220209163740/https://www.teuru.org.nz/index.cfm/whats-on/calendar/jasmine-togo-brisby-bitter-sweet/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-06-13|title=Resident artist explores slave ancestry|url=https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/resident-artist-explores-slave-ancestry|access-date=2022-02-09|website=Otago Daily Times Online News|language=en|archive-date=9 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220209082737/https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/resident-artist-explores-slave-ancestry|url-status=live}}</ref>
== See also ==
* [[Coolie]]
* [[Reverse Underground Railroad]], sometimes known as "blackbirding"
* [[Roundup (history)]]
* [[Shanghaiing]]
* [[Kafala system|Kafala]]
==Notes==
{{reflist|group=Note}}
== References ==<!--<nowiki>
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the <ref> and </ref> tags, and the template below. </nowiki>-->
{{reflist}}
== Bibliography ==
* Affeldt, Stefanie. (2014). ''Consuming Whiteness. Australian Racism and the 'White Sugar' Campaign''. Berlin [et al.]: Lit. {{ISBN|978-3-643-90569-7}}.
* Corris, Peter. (1973). ''Passage, Port and Plantation: A History of the Solomon Islands Labour Migration, 1870–1914.'' Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-522-84050-6}}.
* Docker, E. W. (1981). ''The Blackbirders: A Brutal Story of the Kanaka Slave-Trade''. London: Angus & Robertson. {{ISBN|0-207-14069-3}}
* Gravelle, Kim. (1979). ''A History of Fiji''. Suva: Fiji Times Limited.
* Horne, Gerald. (2007). ''The White Pacific: US Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War''. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8248-3147-9}}
* Maude, H. E. (1981). ''Slavers in Paradise: The Peruvian Slave Trade in Polynesia, 1862–1864'' Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies. {{ASIN|B01HC0W8FU}}
* Shineberg, Dorothy (1999) ''The People Trade: Pacific Island Labourers and New Caledonia, 1865–1930'' (Pacific Islands Monographs Series) {{ISBN|978-0824821777}}
* "{{cite web| last = E. V. Stevens |title= A brief history of the South Sea Islands Labour Traffic and the vessels engaged in it. (Paper read at the meeting of the Historical Society of Queensland, Inc.)|publisher= The University of Queensland|page=|date = 23 March 1950|url= https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:212739/s18378366_1950_4_3_361.pdf | accessdate=19 March 2024}}
==Further reading ==
*{{cite web | title=Scott Morrison's 'no slavery' comment prompts descendants to invite him to sugar cane regions | website=ABC News |publisher =Australian Broadcasting Corporation | date=12 June 2020 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-12/call-for-scott-morrison-visit-bundaberg-to-learn-about-slavery/12347686 | first=Kallee |last=Buchanan}}
* {{cite web | title=Blackbirds: Australia's hidden slave trade history|first=Alex|last=McKinnon | website=The Monthly | date=2 July 2019 | url=https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2019/july/1561989600/alex-mckinnon/blackbirds-australia-s-hidden-slave-trade-history}}
*{{cite web |title =On this island people don't go to the beach alone. They're haunted by the blackbirding trade|url =http://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-21/blackbirding-legacy-haunts-tanna-vanuatu/11764586|website =ABC Radio |publisher =Australian Broadcasting Corporation |date =21 February 2020 |first=Fiona |last =Pepper}} – Blackbirding on the island of Tanna, in Vanuatu
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060813174211/http://www.premiers.qld.gov.au/About_the_department/publications/multicultural/Australian_South_Sea_Islander_Training_Package/history/identity/ Background and history of the South Sea Islanders] – Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet
* {{cite web | title=The Kanakas and the Cane Fields | website=Our Pacific Ocean | date=22 October 1908 | url=http://www.ourpacificocean.com/kanakas/}}
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