Research Guides: HIST 296: Human Trafficking and Nuclear Testing in the Pacific: Blackbirding

Introduction

There is a long history of human trafficking in the Pacific, going back to the earliest interactions between Europeans and Pacific Islanders, when individuals from within the Pacific were transported to foreign lands to be displayed as "objects of curiosity." During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, larger-scale trafficking occurred in the form of "blackbirding," in which Pacific Islanders were either coerced or outright kidnapped and transported to other lands to work as slaves or poorly-paid laborers. Although the practice of blackbirding ceased in the early 20th century, the displacements it caused remain a current topic within the Pacific. The history of blackbirding has been extensively documented -- this link leads to search results in our library catalog for a very basic keyword search on the topic of "Blackbirding Pacific." The sources listed on this page provide a sampling of the types of resources on this subject, and are not a comprehensive listing of all sources.

Selected books

The White Pacific by Gerald Horne
ISBN: 9780824831219
Publication Date: 2007-05-31
Reconstructs the history of blackbirding in Australia, Fiji and Hawaii.
Violence and Colonial Dialogue by Tracey Banivanua Mar
ISBN: 9780824865467
Publication Date: 2006-12-31
During the post-abolition period a trade in cheap and often cost-neutral labor flourished in the western Pacific. For more than forty years, it supplied tens of thousands of indentured laborers to the sugar industry of northeastern Australia.

Academic articles

Immigration, 'blackbirding', labour recruiting? The Hawaiian experience 1855-1887 by Bennett, J.A.
Publication Date: 1976
Details the role Hawai'i played in blackbirding.

Audio resources

'Sugar slaves' descendant MP calls for South Sea Islander apology
"The first South Sea Islander elected to an Australian parliament is expected to lead a renewed push for an official apology to South Sea Islanders for decades of 'blackbirding'.
Tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders were kidnapped to work on Queensland cane farms in the late 1800s and their descendants have faced adversity ever since.
Now a One Nation MP from North Queensland has brought their plight to Parliament." Quoted from the website of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Selected films

Sugar slaves by Connolly, Sharon, et al.
Call Number: DVD 12627
Publication Date: 1995
"Australia's slave trade is an untold story. Few people know that the Australian sugar industry was founded on the sweat of men and women enticed or kidnapped from the islands of the South Pacific. Sugar Slaves is the story of that human traffic, euphemistally known as 'blackbirding.' Between 1863 and 1904 about 60,000 islanders were transported to the colony of Queensland, where they toiled to create the sugar plantations of the far north. Then, after the introduction of a White Australia policy, most were deported. A few thousand were permitted to remain and today north Queensland is home to 20,000 of their descendants."--from film container

Primary source documents

Pacific "slave trade" documents, 1863-1882 by Great Britain. Foreign Office.
Call Number: MANUSCRIPT P00007
Publication Date: 1863-1882

Image collections

The above image was found using the database TROVE, using a keyword search for Queensland plantation laborers. Shot in the 1890s, it is titled "Kanaka labourers on a Queensland pineapple plantation" and is housed at the National Library of Australia. The online search engine Digtal Pasifik is also a good source for a variety of material, including images, radio broadcasts and magazine articles.

Contemporary newspaper accounts

There are numerous 19th and early 20th century newspaper accounts which speak openly of blackbirding in the Pacific -- the above comes from an article in the New Zealand paper The Colonist, published on November 29, 1894, and was found in the Papers Past database. The three databases below can all be searched using the simple keyword blackbirding -- note that there is at times a marked difference in tone between papers published in the United States (including Hawai'i) and those published in either Australia or New Zealand.

Chronicling America
Find full-text articles from historic Hawai'i and U.S. newspapers, between 1777 and 1963.

Papers Past
The National Library of New Zealand hosts this site, which includes New Zealand papers from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Note there is a very different tone in New Zealand papers regarding blackbirding, as opposed to those published in the United States.
TROVE
Hosted by the National Library of Australia, TROVE searches across a vast array of digital content produced by numerous Australian institutions. Digitized newspapers cover the years from 1803 to 1954.