The _fiat_ has gone forth from the Australian Commonwealth, and the
Kanaka labour trade, as far as the Australian Colonies are concerned,
has ceased to exist. For, during the month of November, 1906, the
Queensland Government began to deport to their various islands in the
Solomon and New Hebrides Groups, the last of the Melanesian native
labourers employed on the Queensland sugar plantations.
The Kanaka labour traffic, generally termed “black-birding,” began about
1863, when sugar and cotton planters found that natives of the South
Sea Islands could be secured at a much less cost than Chinese or Indian
coolies. The genesis of the traffic was a tragedy, and filled the world
with horror.
Three armed Peruvian ships, manned by gangs of cut-throats, appeared in
the South Pacific, and seized over four hundred unfortunate natives in
the old African slave-trading fashion, and carried them away to work the
guano deposits on the Chincha Islands. Not a score of them returned to
their island homes--the rest perished under the lash and brutality of
their cruel taskmasters.
Towards 1870 the demand for South Sea Islanders became very great. They
were wanted in the Sandwich Islands, in Tahiti and Samoa; for, naturally
enough, with their ample food supply, the natives of these islands do
not like plantation work, or if employed demand a high rate of pay.
Then, too, the Queensland and Fijian sugar planters joined in the
quest, and at one time there were over fifty vessels engaged in securing
Kanakas from the Gilbert Islands, the Solomon and New Hebrides Groups,
and the great islands near New Guinea.
At that time there was no Government supervision of the traffic. Any
irresponsible person could fit out a ship, and bring a cargo of human
beings into port--obtained by means fair or foul--and no questions were
asked.
Very soon came the news of the infamous story of the brig _Carl_ and
her fiendish owner, a Dr. Murray, who with half a dozen other scoundrels
committed the most awful crimes--shooting down in cold blood scores
of natives who refused to be coerced into “recruiting”. Some of these
ruffians went to the scaffold or to long terms of imprisonment; and
from that time the British Government in a maundering way set to work
to effect some sort of supervision of the British ships employed in the
“blackbirding” trade.
A fleet of five small gunboats (sailing vessels) were built in Sydney,
and were ordered to “overhaul and inspect every blackbirder,” and
ascertain if the “blackbirds” were really willing recruits, or had been
deported against their will, and were “to be sold as slaves”. And many
atrocious deeds came to light, with the result, as far as Queensland was
concerned, that every labour ship had to carry a Government agent, who
was supposed to see that no abuses occurred. Some of these Government
agents were conscientious men, and did their duty well; others were
mere tools of the greedy planters, and lent themselves to all sorts of
villainies to obtain “recruits” and get an _in camera_ bonus of twenty
pounds for every native they could entice on board.
Owing to my knowledge of Polynesian and Melane-sian dialects, I was
frequently employed as “recruiter” on many “blackbirders”--French
vessels from Noumea in New Caledonia, Hawaiian vessels from Honolulu,
and German and English vessels sailing from Samoa and Fiji, and in no
instance did I ever have any serious trouble with my “blackbirds” after
they were once on board the ship of which I was “recruiter”.
Let me now describe an ordinary cruise of a “blackbirder” vessel--an
honest ship with an honest skipper and crew, and, above all, a straight
“recruiter”--a man who takes his life in his hands when he steps out,
unarmed, from his boat, and seeks for “recruits” from a crowd of the
wildest savages imaginable.
Labour ships carry a double crew--one to work the ship, the other to man
the boats, of which there are usually four on ordinary-sized vessels.
They are whale-boats, specially adapted for surf work. The boats' crews
are invariably natives--Rotumah men, Samoans, or Savage Islanders. The
ship's working crew also are in most cases natives, and the captain and
officers are, of course, white men.
The 'tween decks are fitted to accommodate so many “blackbirds,” and, at
the present day, British labour ships are models of cleanliness, for the
Government supervision is very rigid; but in former days the hold of
a “blackbirder” often presented a horrid spectacle--the unfortunate
“recruits” being packed so closely together, and at night time the odour
from their steaming bodies was absolutely revolting as it ascended
from the open hatch, over which stood two sentries on the alert; for
sometimes the “blackbirds” would rise and attempt to murder the ship's
company. In many cases they did so successfully--especially when the
“blackbirds” came from the same island, or group of islands, and spoke
the same language. When there were, say, a hundred or two hundred
“recruits” from various islands, dissimilar in their language and
customs, there was no fear of such an event, and the captain and
officers and “recruiter” went to sleep with a feeling of security.
Let us now suppose that a “blackbirder” (obnoxious name to many
recruiters) from Samoa, Fiji, or Queensland, has reached one of the New
Hebrides, or Solomon Islands. Possibly she may anchor--if there is an
anchorage; but most likely she will “lie off and on,” and send away her
boats to the various villages.
On one occasion I “worked” the entire length of one side of the great
island of San Cristoval, visiting nearly every village from Cape
Recherché to Cape Surville. This took nearly three weeks, the ship
following the boats along the coast. We would leave the ship at
daylight, and pull in shore, landing wherever we saw a smoke signal, or
a village. When I had engaged, say, half a dozen recruits, I would send
them off on board, and continue on my way. At sunset I would return on
board, the boats would be hoisted up, and the ship either anchor, or
heave-to for the night. On this particular trip the boats were only
twice fired at, but no one man of my crews was hit.
The boats are known as “landing” and “covering” boats. The former is in
command of an officer and the recruiter, carries five hands (all armed)
and also the boxes of “trade” goods to be exhibited to the natives as
specimens of the rest of the goods on board, or perhaps some will be
immediately handed over as an “advance” to any native willing to
recruit as a labourer in Queensland or elsewhere for three years, at the
magnificent wage of six pounds per annum, generally paid in rubbishing
articles, worth about thirty shillings.
The “covering” boat is in charge of an officer, or reliable seaman. She
follows the “landing” boat at a short distance, and her duty is to cover
her retreat if the natives should attack the landing boat by at once
opening fire, and giving those in that boat a chance of pushing off
and getting out of danger, and also she sometimes receives on board the
“recruits” as they are engaged by the recruiter--if the latter has not
been knocked on the head or speared.
On nearing the beach, where the natives are waiting, the officer in the
landing-boat swings her round with his steer oar, and the crew back her
in, stern first, on to the beach. The recruiter then steps out, and the
crew carry the trade chests on shore; then the boat pushes off a
little, just enough to keep afloat, and obtrusive natives, who may mean
treachery, are not allowed to come too near the oars, or take hold of
the gunwale, Meanwhile the covering boat has drawn in close to the first
boat, and the crew, with their hands on their rifles, keep a keen watch
on the landing boat and the wretched recruiter.
The recruiter, if he is a wise man, will not display any arms openly. To
do so makes the savage natives either sulky or afraid, and I never let
them see mine, which I, however, always kept handy in a harmless-looking
canvas bag, which also contained some tobacco, cut up in small pieces,
to throw to the women and children--to put them in a good temper.
The recruiter opens his trade box, and then asks if there is any man
or woman who desires to become rich in three years by working on a
plantation in Fiji, Queensland, or Samoa.
If he can speak the language, and does not lose his nerve by being
surrounded by hundreds of ferocious and armed savages, and knowing that
at any instant he may be cut down from behind by a tomahawk, or speared,
or clubbed, he will get along all right, and soon find men willing to
recruit. Especially is this so if he is a man personally known to the
natives, and has a good reputation for treating his “blackbirds” well
on board the ship. The ship and her captain, too, enter largely into the
matter of a native making up his mind to “recruit,” or refuse to do so.
Sometimes there may be among the crowd of natives several who have
already been to Queensland, or elsewhere, and desire to return. These
may be desirable recruits, or, on the other hand, may be the reverse,
and have bad records. I usually tried to shunt these fellows from again
recruiting, as they often made mischief on board, would plan to capture
the ship, and such other diversions, but I always found them useful as
touts in gaining me new recruits, by offering these scamps a suitable
present for each man they brought me.
I always made it a practice never to recruit a married man, unless his
wife--or an alleged wife--came with him, nor would I take them if they
had young children--who would simply be made slaves of in their absence.
It required the utmost tact and discretion to get at the truth in many
cases, and very often on going on board after a day of toil and danger
I would be sound asleep, when a young couple would swim off--lovers who
had eloped--and beg me to take them away in the ship. This I would never
do until I had seen the local chief, and was assured that no objection
would be made to their leaving.
(When I was recruiting “black labour” for the French and German planters
in Samoa and Tahiti, I was, of course, sailing in ships of those
nationalities, and had no worrying Government agent to harass and
hinder me by his interference, for only ships under British colours were
compelled to carry “Government agents”.)
But I must return to the recruiter standing on the beach, surrounded by
a crowd of savages, exercising his patience and brains.
Perhaps at the end of an hour or so eight or ten men are recruited,
and told to either get into one of the boats or go off to the ship in
canoes. The business on shore is then finished, the harassed recruiter
wipes his perspiring brow, says farewell to the people, closes his trade
chest, and steps into his landing boat. The officer cries to the crew,
“Give way, lads,” and off goes the boat.
Then the covering boat comes into position astern of the landing boat,
for one never knew the moment that some enraged native on shore might,
for having been rejected as “undesirable,” take a snipe-shot at one of
the boats. Only two men pull in the covering boat--the rest of the crew
sit on the thwarts, with their rifles ready, facing aft, until the boats
are out of range.
That is what is the ordinary day's work among the Solomon, New Hebrides,
and other island groups of the Western Pacific. But very often it
was--and is now--very different. The recruiter may be at work, when
he is struck down treacherously from behind, and hundreds of
concealed savages rush out, bent on slaughter. Perhaps the eye of some
ever-watchful man in the covering boat has seen crouching figures in the
dense undergrowth of the shores of the bay, and at once fires his rifle,
and the recruiter jumps for his boat, and then there is a cracking
of Winchesters from the covering boat, and a responsive banging of
overloaded muskets from the shore.
Only once was I badly hurt when “recruiting”. I had visited a rather
big village, but could not secure a single recruit, and I had told the
officer to put off, as it was no use our wasting our time. I then
got into the boat and was stooping down to get a drink from the
water-beaker, when a sudden fusillade of muskets and arrows was opened
upon us from three sides, and I was struck on the right side of the neck
by a round iron bullet, which travelled round just under the skin,
and stopped under my left ear. Some of my crew were badly hit, one man
having his wrist broken by an iron bullet, and another received a heavy
lead bullet in the stomach, and three bamboo arrows in his chest, thigh
and shoulder. He was more afraid of the arrows than the really dangerous
wound in his stomach, for he thought they were poisoned, and that he
would die of lockjaw--like the lamented Commodore Goodenough, who was
shot to death with poisoned arrows at Nukapu in the Santa Cruz Group.
The skipper nicked out the bullet in my neck with his pen-knife, and
beyond two very unsightly scars on each side of my neck, I have nothing
of which to complain, and much to be thankful for; for had I been in
ever so little a more erect position, the ball would have broken my
neck--and some compositors in printing establishments earned a little
less money.