Blackbirding refers to the recruitment of people through trickery and
kidnappings to work on plantations, particularly the sugar cane plantations of Queensland( Australia) and Fiji.cite web |url=http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/federation/pdfs/multiw.pdf |last=Willoughby |first=Emma |title=Our Federation Journey 1901 - 2001 |format=PDF |publisher=Museum Victoria |accessdate=2006-06-14] The practice occurred primarily between the 1860s and 1901. Those 'blackbirded' were recruited from the indigenous populations of nearby Pacific islands or northern Queensland. In the early days of the pearling industry in Broome, local Aboriginal people were blackbirded from the surrounding areas, including aboriginal people from desert areas.
The term may have been formed directly as a contraction of "blackbird catching"; "blackbird" was a slang term for the local indigenous people. It might also have derived from an earlier phrase, "blackbird shooting", which referred to recreational murder of
Australian Aboriginalpeople by early European settlers.cite web
date = 2002-10-05
title = Blackbirding
publisher = World Wide Words
Blackbirding in Australia
Queensland was a self-governing
British colonyin northeastern Australia until 1901 when it became a state of the Commonwealth of Australia. Over a period of 40 years, from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, native non-European labourers for the sugar cane fields of Queensland, were "recruited" from Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islandsand the Loyalty Islandsof New Caledonia. [cite web
date = 2002-07-04
title = Towards White Australia: The shadow of Mill and the spectre of slavery in the 1880s debates on Chinese immigration
publisher = 11th Biennial National Conference of the Australian Historical Association
accessdate =2006-06-14] The "recruitment" process almost always included an element of coercive recruitment (not unlike the
press-gangs once employed by the Royal Navyin England) and indentured servitude. Some 62,000 South Sea Islanderswere taken to Australia.
These people were referred to as Kanakas (the French equivalent "Canaques" still applies to the autochthonous
Melanesiansin New Caledonia) and came from the Western Pacific islands: from Melanesia, mainly the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, with a small number from the Polynesian and Micronesian islands such as Samoa, Kiribati, Tuvaluand Loyalty Islands. Many of the workers were effectively slaves, but since the Slavery Abolition Actmade slavery illegal, they were officially called "indentured labourers" or the like. Some Australian Aboriginalpeople, especially from Cape York Peninsula, were also kidnapped and transported south to work on the farms.
The methods of blackbirding varied. Some labourers were willing to be taken to Australia to work, while others were tricked or even forced. In some cases blackbirding ships (which made huge profits) would entice entire villages by luring them on board for trade or a religious service, and then setting sail. Many died during the voyage due to unsanitary conditions,Fact|date=February 2007 and also in the fields due to the hard manual labour. [ [http://www.premiers.qld.gov.au/About_the_department/publications/multicultural/Australian_South_Sea_Islander_Training_Package/history/australia/death/ Queensland Government, "Australian South Sea Islander Training Package"] ]
The question of how many Islanders were actually kidnapped or "blackbirded" is unknown and remains controversial. Official documents and accounts from the period often conflict with the oral tradition passed down to the descendants of workers. Stories of blatantly violent kidnapping tended to relate to the first 10–15 years of the trade. The majority of those abducted to Australia were repatriated between 1906-08 under the provisions of the "
Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901" [ [http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?sdID=86 Documenting Democracy ] ] ; but there are ~20,000 descendants of the blackbirded labourers living in Queensland coastal towns.
Blackbirding in Fiji
The blackbirding era began in
Fijiin 1864 when the first New Hebridean and Solomon Islandlabourers arrived in Fiji to work on cottonplantations. Cotton had become scarce, and potentially an extremely profitable business, when the American Civil War blocked most cotton exports from the southern United States. Since Fijians were not interested in regular sustained labour, the thousands of European planters who flocked to Fiji sought labour from the Melanesian islands.
Attempts were made by the British and
QueenslandGovernments to regulate this transportation of labour. Melanesian labourers were to be recruited for three years, paid three pounds per year, issued with basic clothing and given access to the company store for supplies. Despite this, most Melanesians were recruited by deceit, usually being enticed abroad ships with gifts and then locked up. The living and working conditions in Fiji were even worse than those suffered by the later Indian indentured labourers. In 1875, the chief medical officer in Fiji, Sir William MacGregor, listed a mortality rate of 540 out of every 1000 labourers. After the expiry of the three-year contract, the labourers were required to be transported back to their villages but most ship captains dropped them off at the first island they sighted off the Fiji waters. The British sent warships to enforce the law (Pacific Islanders' Protection Act of 1872) but only a small proportion of the culprits were prosecuted.
With the arrival of Indian indentured labourers in Fiji from 1879, the number of Melanesian labourers decreased but they were still being recruited and employed, off the plantations in sugar mills and ports, until the start of the
First World War. Most of the Melanesians recruited were males and after the recruitment ended, those who chose to stay in Fiji took Fijian wives and settled in areas around Suva. Their descendants still remain a distinct community but their language and culture cannot be distinguished from native Fijians.
Descendants of Solomon Islanders living at
Tamavua-i-Waiin Fiji received a High Court verdict in their favour on 1 February 2007. The court refused a claim by the Seventh-day Adventist Churchto force the islanders to vacate the land on which they had been living for seventy years.. [ [http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=56292 Solomon Islands descendants win land case] ] .
South Sea Islander
Impressment, the formal term for pressganging
* Docker, E. W., (1981), "The blackbirders : a brutal story of the Kanaka slave-trade", London, Angus & Robertson ISBN 0207140693
* Gravelle Kim, "A History of Fiji", Fiji Times Limited, Suva, 1979.
* [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
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
Look at other dictionaries:
Blackbirding — Black bird*ing, n. 1. The kidnaping of negroes or Polynesians to be sold as slaves. [Webster 1913 Suppl.] 2. The act or practice of collecting natives of the islands near Queensland for service on the Queensland sugar plantations. [Australia]… … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
Blackbirding — Das Blackbirding Schiff Daphne, das von der HMS Rosario in 1869 beschlagnahmt wurde Blackbirding (Schwarzvogel fangen) ist ein Wort, das im australischen Raum und auf den Inseln im Südpazifik für die Rekrutierung von Insulanern verwendet wird,… … Deutsch Wikipedia
Blackbirding — Blackbirder Les Blackbirders (de l anglais blackbird, en français merle noir) sont des aventuriers qui parcouraient le Pacifique au XIXe siècle dans le but de recruter, pour le travail forcé des autochtones afin de les faire travailler… … Wikipédia en Français
blackbirding — /blak berr ding/, n. (formerly) the act or practice of kidnapping persons, esp. Kanakas, and selling them abroad as slaves. [1870 75; BLACKBIRD + ING1] * * * ▪ slavery practice the 19th and early 20th century practice of enslaving (often by … Universalium
blackbirding — noun the kidnapping of Pacific Islanders or Kanakas for work on, or for sale to, plantations usually sugar plantations in Queensland, Australia. See Also: blackbirder … Wiktionary
blackbirding — /ˈblækbɜdɪŋ / (say blakberding) noun (in the 19th century) the practice of employers in Australia, British Columbia (Canada), and other areas of the south Pacific, as Fiji and Samoa, of recruiting Pacific islander people (known as Kanakas) as… … Australian English dictionary
blackbirding — /blak berr ding/, n. (formerly) the act or practice of kidnapping persons, esp. Kanakas, and selling them abroad as slaves. [1870 75; BLACKBIRD + ING1] … Useful english dictionary
Kanakas — were workers from various Pacific Islands employed under varying conditions in various British colonies, such as British Columbia (Canada), Fiji and Queensland (Australia) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They also worked in California and… … Wikipedia
Blackbirder — Les Blackbirders (de l anglais blackbird, en français merle noir) sont des aventuriers qui parcouraient le Pacifique au XIXe siècle dans le but de recruter, pour le travail forcé des autochtones afin de les faire travailler principalement… … Wikipédia en Français
New Caledonia — This article is about the overseas territory. For other uses, see New Caledonia (disambiguation). For other uses, see Caledonia. New Caledonia Nouvelle Calédonie … Wikipedia