The first laborers imported into Queensland from the Pacific Islands arrived there in the year 1864. They were imported by Captain Towns, of Brisbane, for work on the cotton plantations. In 1847 certain pastoralists of New South Wales had requisitioned ships to procure natives from the islands for employment as shepherds and drovers. Two ships were employed, the brig Portania and the schooner Velocity, and their object was described as "trading for cannibals," and when the so-called cannibals could not be obtained by fair means they were to be taken by force. These two ships called first at the Loyalties and obtained 30 men, who were far from being cannibals and who certainly had not the least idea of the agreement under which they were supposed to serve, but thought they were out on a pleasure trip to see the world. They next procured men from the Gilberts and Kingsmills and then made for Rotuma, where the Loyalty Islanders absconded. An affray followed, during which the whites fired on the natives, and one native was killed and two whites. Thus early was that traffic begun which was to lead to the death of so many men, both white and brown.

In 1867 there were taken to Queensland, for a period of three years, 382 natives, but only 78 of them returned. From this year till the end of 1890 there was a constant stream of native laborers flowing to Queensland from the islands. Then for a few months the trade ceased, owing to legislation passed in 1885, but it was revived in the following year for a period of ten years. In 1901 provision was made for its complete suppression and all the natives were ordered to be deported by December 1906.

The trade has generally been called the "Polynesian labor trade" or the "Pacific Islands labor trade," and the laborers have been known as Polynesians or Kanakas, or occasionally as Papuans, but never once by their real name of Melanesians. The western Pacific has suffered from the fact of its late development and from the inhospitable character of its natives. The eastern Pacific, Polynesia proper, was well known to white people early in the nineteenth century and the hospitality of its natives was proverbial, whereas New Guinea and the islands of Melanesia, though close to Australia, long remained unexplored and unknown, the ferocity of the people being in a measure responsible for this. Accordingly everything was measured in white men's minds by Polynesia. Thus Dr. Codrington had a long fight to gain a hearing for the Melanesian languages and to convince people that they were real independent languages and not mere offshoots of Maori on the one side or of Samoan on the other. In effect he has triumphantly proved that Melanesian languages are really older than [217/218] Polynesian and represent a much more primitive method of speech, and that the Polynesian languages might possibly be described as much-worn specimens of Melanesian rather than the Melanesian as crude forms of Polynesian, and one would not be in error in saying that the key to the study of the Polynesian languages etymologically is found in the Melanesian languages.

It is curious, however, that these Melanesians in Queensland should have been described as Kanakas. Kanaka is an Hawaiian word meaning man, and is identical with the Maori tangata, so the Kanaka labor trade means really the trade in men. Possibly the use of the word is reminiscent of the labor trade carried on by the Spaniards from Lima for laborers in the mines. Numbers of their ships went kidnapping at the Sandwich Islands and at Samoa, and just as in Melanesia in later days the labor vessels were known as "men-buying" or "men-stealing" ships, so the Hawaiians probably named them "kanaka-stealers," but it is not certain how the Hawaiian word first came to be used in the trade in the western Pacific.

Polynesians as such were but little recruited for Queensland or Fiji. In 1894 Bishop Wilson reported on a number of Gilbert Islanders (Micronesians) who had just been recruited, and in the early years raids were made on the Polynesians of Uvea in the Loyalties and on the Micronesians of the Line Islands. The Rotuma people included in that early raid are Polynesians in geographical situation, but speak a Melanesian language. Beyond these instances Polynesians as such seem not to have been recruited at all. However, a few were recruited from Rennell, an outlying island in the Solomons, and likewise from Ongtong Java (Lord Howe Island), north of the Solomons, and from Tikopia. Most of these recruits died and the survivors were returned to their homes before completing their three years.

To call these Melanesians Papuans, as some of the labor-vessel captains did, or worse still, as some of the Presbyterian missionaries in the southern New Hebrides did, is really inexcusable from a linguistic point of view. Everyone in this part of the Pacific ought to know that the term Papuan is used to describe the peoples of New Guinea. The word Papua in itself is said to be a Malay word meaning frizzly or fuzzy and was applied by sea-going Malays to the frizzly-headed natives of New Guinea, they themselves of course having straight, long hair. So far, however, as the character of the hair goes, Melanesians might well be called Papuans. The Melanesian teachers in the Anglican Mission in Papua to-day are always called South Sea Islanders--a name imported from Queensland, whence they were obtained. All the legislation concerning the imported laborers in Queensland was under the heading of Pacific Islanders or Pacific island laborers.

[219] The labor trade may be summed up as having had three stages of development: (1) open kidnapping; (2) recruiting under conditions somewhat improved; (3) legitimate recruiting. Vessels of various sorts had been sailing in the Melanesian islands from about 1840--sandalwood traders, whalers, bêche-de-mer curers. Of these the whalers had perhaps been the least unsatisfactory, in that they at any rate did not murder the natives, though they certainly left terrible diseases behind them. The crews of two ships engaged in the sandalwood trade in 1842 shot down 26 men in one of the southern New Hebrides and suffocated others with smoke in a cave.

The regular and systematic exploitation of Melanesians as laborers in Queensland and Fiji did not begin before 1866-67. In the latter year Bishop Patteson wrote:

"Reports are rife of a semi-legalized slave-trading between the South Sea Islands and New Caledonia and Fiji. I am told that the government sanctions natives being brought upon agreement to work for pay, etc., and passage home in two years. We know the impossibility of making contracts with New Hebrides or Solomon Island natives. It is a mere sham, an evasion of some law passed, I dare say, without any dishonorable intention to procure colonial labor. I saw a letter in a Sydney paper which spoke
strongly and properly of the necessity of the most stringent rules to prevent the white settlers from injuring the colored men."

In 1868 Bishop Patteson speaks of the recruiting from Tanna for Fiji and expresses his fears that natives were being taken under false pretences owing to the impossibility of the recruiters understanding the Tanna language, while to talk of making a contract with them was absurd.

In 1869 it was found that the Noumea and Fiji vessels were using the Bishop's name in the Banks Group in order to entice people on board, pretending that they were his emissaries and accounting for his absence by saying that his ship had been wrecked, or that he had. broken his leg, or had gone to England and had sent them to fetch natives to him. As yet no force had been used, but the people feared the recruiters. Certain English-speaking natives were employed as recruiting agents, and some of these had learned their English with the Bishop. In regard to this the Bishop wrote:

"In most places where any of our young people happened to be on shore, they warned their companions against these men, but not always with success. This is a sad business, and very discreditable to the persons employed in it, for they must know that they can not control the masters of the vessels engaged in the trade. They may pass laws as to the treatment the natives are to receive on the plantations, but they know that the whole
thing is dishonest. The natives don't intend or know anything about any service or labor; they don't know that they will have to work hard. They are brought away under false pretences, else why tell lies to induce them to go on board? I dare say that many young fellows go on board without [219/220] much persuasion. Many causes may be at work to induce them to do so, e. g., sickness in the island, quarrels, love of excitement, the spirit of enterprise, but if they knew what they were taken for I don't think they would go."

The premium offered by the planters, £10 to £12 per head, was quite sufficient to tempt some shipmasters to obtain colored labor by foul means, if fair proved impossible. Accordingly in 1869 and 1870 we begin to read of wholesale kidnapping and of outrageous acts of violence. Two cases were reported and the captains of naval vessels seized the schooners Daphne and Challenge on charges of slavery. However, their zeal for righteousness cost them dearly; the courts acquitted the accused, and the naval commanders were indicted by the owners of the vessels for detention and unlawful seizure, and a bill of £900 for damages was sent to one of them. It is recorded of the Challenge that she decoyed natives of the Torres Islands into the hold by means of gifts, beads, and trinkets; then the hatches were put on and a boat placed over the hatchway. The natives began to cut a hole in the ship's side and eventually were allowed to jump overboard when the ship was 7 miles off the shore. Later on, the schooner Helen was boarded by officers and was found to have no clearance and no license, but the fear of the courts had made the naval captains careful and, though the illegality was plain, all that was done was to make the master of the Helen sign a statement of the illegality of the proceedings and then the vessel was allowed to proceed. At Vanua Lava, in the Banks Group, two natives were knocked down into the hold and were carried to Fiji, and the captain was convicted on a charge of assault and sentenced to three years' imprisonment, but the charge of slavery failed.

The most notorious case, however, was that of the brig Carl, which left Melbourne in 1871 to recruit for Fiji. When in the New Hebrides she was overhauled by H. M. S. Rosario and everything seemed to be quite in order and all straightforward, whereas an awful tragedy had happened on her a few days previously. In addition to the English crew there were a number of "passengers" on board, and one of these, a Melbourne doctor, was part owner of the ship. At Paama they dressed up one man as a missionary and endeavored to obtain recruits on the plea that they represented the Bishop. As canoes came round the ship the captain and crew threw pig iron into them and sank them; then the "passengers" lowered the boats and picked up the struggling natives; those who resisted were hit with clubs or with pieces of iron. In other places they lowered a boat on top of the canoes and sank them and then picked up the swimmers. The slaves were all stowed under hatches and an armed guard placed over them. The murder-lust seems to have maddened the white men and (inflamed probably with drink) they imagined that the slaves were about to mutiny and overpower them. Someone fired a shot at the crowd [220/221] below and then the madness broke forth and everyone on deck started shooting and kept it up all night long. In the morning they made an armed reconnaissance and found that the whole place was a shambles; some 50 had been killed outright and blood was flowing everywhere; 16 were badly wounded and 10 slightly. The dead were thrown overboard and the legs and arms of the badly wounded were tied and they too went overboard. The doctor is described as a "monster in human shape," the instigator and ringleader of the atrocities; however, he turned Queen's evidence and so got off scot-free, while the master and one of the crew were sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted.

In the same year a ship called the Marion Rennie was the scene of a terrible massacre. She had kidnapped men all over Melanesia, among them being Itei of Sa'a, who had paddled out to the ship and was captured, and Amasia of Fuaga near Ataa Bay, north Malaita. Itei was baptized by me in 1896 and Amasia after returning from Fiji with a Fijian wife and a son Inia, now a teacher in the Melanesian Mission, settled at Qai near Cape Astrolabe and shortly afterwards was killed at Ngore Fou on a trumped-up charge of witchcraft. The natives on the Marion Rennie mutinied and killed their white captors and then were left drifting helplessly about at sea. The Tanna men on board fraternized with the Solomon Islanders and killed and ate the natives of the other islands. Eventually a man-of-war fell in with the ship and conveyed her to Fiji.

Four Fijians who had been crew on another ship returned without their white masters, and told a story of how they had been attacked by natives of Anuda, Cherry Island, near Tikopia, and the white men murdered. The Rosario investigated the case and decided that there was no truth in it; probably the crew had themselves murdered the whites.

At the island of Florida, in the Solomons, canoes were decoyed under the stern of the recruiting ship and then boats were lowered on top of them and the struggling natives captured in the water; those who resisted had their heads chopped off with a long knife. The ships that did this sort of thing were purchasing tortoise-shell and were in league with the head-hunters of the western Solomons. Desire for trade caused the canoes to put out to the ships, which fairly swarmed in these years, brigs, schooners, ketches, recruiting mainly for Fiji. Some of them had no official license to recruit, some had painted out their names, others had no customs clearance from their last port. In some cases the men in the canoes were lassoed round the neck from the ship and were then hauled on board. In other cases the ship was painted to resemble the Southern Cross and a man in a black coat went on shore and invited the natives to go on board and see the Bishop. Four or five years of this recruiting had practically depopulated some [221/222] of the Banks Islands, and to make it worse women had been taken as well as men, thus opening up an infinite possibility of wrong-doing and confusion.

Queensland had legislated in 1868, by the "Polynesian laborers act," with a view to prevent kidnapping, and the shipmasters had to enter into a bond of £500 that they would observe the provisions of the act. Also, the employers of labor entered into a bond of £10 per laborer to provide for return passages; this amount was afterwards lowered to £5. The act of 1868 also provided a form which was to be read in the presence of any natives who desired to recruit and was to be signed by the resident missionary of the place, or by a European resident or a chief interpreter, to the effect that the native was recruited for a term of 3 years or 39 moons with wages at £6 per annum and with clothes and rations provided, and with supervision by the Queensland government in his sphere of labor. Nothing is stated in this act about the official government agent who accompanied the ship to supervise the recruiting, although both the Queensland and the Fijian ships seem to have carried them then. The Queensland act of 1880 provides for the due appointment of fit and proper persons to be government agents to accompany the recruiting vessels.

The Imperial Government, in the "Pacific Islanders protection act" of 1872, definitely provided against any repetition of the Daphne case, wherein naval officers had been sued for damages, by ordering that no officer or local authority should be held responsible, either civilly or criminally, in respect of the seizure or detention of any vessel suspected of kidnapping, and the act of 1875 provided for the appointment of a high commissioner for the Pacific.

In the act of 1884 a set of regulations was laid down for the trade which might be regarded as ideal; firearms and drink were not to be supplied to the natives; only such firearms were to be carried as were required for the ship's use; the ships were to be painted a distinguishing color, light slate with a black streak 6 inches wide running fore and aft, and were to carry a black ball at the masthead when recruiting. All laborers were to be recruited in the presence of the government agent, and two Europeans, not counting the agent, were to accompany every boat when ashore recruiting. If an islander deserted after being recruited he was not to be taken by force or intimidated. Women were not to be taken without their husbands or without the consent of their chiefs. All interpreters employed in the trade were to be paid fixed wages and all bonuses and commissions thus ceased. All laborers returned were to be landed at their own "passages" unless they themselves expressly desired to be landed elsewhere. The government agent was given very summary powers, and if the regulations were faithfully carried out the recruiting would be unexceptionable.

[223] The stopping of the practice of giving commissions and the paying of fixed wages to all concerned must have had a very salutary effect, but like the rest of the regulations it was easily evaded, as was shown in the case of the William Manson. This vessel in 1894 entered into an agreement with Qaisulia, the chief of Adagege, one of the artificial islets off the northeast coast of Malaita, whereby he was to receive a boat in payment for ten men recruited. Qaisulia and his braves violently seized a number of bush natives for his masters on the William Manson. The evidence as to the kidnapping was conclusive, but the white men concerned in it were acquitted and the judges characterized the acquittal as a miscarriage of justice. The value of the regulation ordering the government agent to supervise the recruiting and of the stipulation that at least two white men accompany the boats is seen in the contrast presented by the recruiting for Noumea, where one hears even now of the French boats going ashore manned by natives only and of cases of violence continually recurring.

The recruiting of women was always a source of trouble in the islands. Any native for the nonce might pose as a chief and give his permission for a woman to leave, provided it were made worth his while, and in most of the Melanesian islands it is difficult to find out who is the chief, since there are practically no paramount chiefs. However, the spirit of the regulation was honest enough, for white men always regard it as a sine qua non that there must be of necessity regular chiefs in every place. One has frequently known cases where a man has persuaded a woman to recruit with him, posing as his wife, or vice versa, and no one in authority on shore was questioned as to their real status. On returning the pair were in difficulties and violence and bloodshed ensued. Their only chance of safety would be to land in a foreign place on the plea of visiting relations.

Before English was well known in the Pacific the spirit of the regulations as to making recruits understand the terms of their engagement was undoubtedly difficult to carry out. Indeed, even the very letter of it was at times completely evaded. Pacific Islanders have no term corresponding to our word year, and cases are known where recruits were carefully schooled to hold up three fingers and say "three yam," i. e., three harvests, yams being planted only once a year.

In 1884 certain Queensland ships went recruiting in the islands off New Guinea, and several cases of actual kidnapping occurred, and many gross and violent murders of natives took place. The interpreters acted as unscrupulous and uncontrolled recruiting agents and were rewarded according to, or were promised compensations corresponding with, the number of recruits obtained. According to the evidence given, men were recruited by these ships in complete ignorance of what was expected of them; some thought they were going for "three moons," others "to go to white men's country and walk about," [223/224] others "to go and work on the ship," or "to sail about." And doubtless, even in Melanesia itself, the actual signing of the recruits was in many cases a mere farce. Men filed by the government agent and merely touched the tip of the pen he held in his hand, thus in the parlance of the trade "marking paper," and often with no explanation whatever as to the matters involved. However, in time these abuses came to an end, owing to an extended knowledge among the natives of what were the processes involved.

In later years the regulation that interpreters must be carried on the ships involved a good deal of heart-burning among the islanders, and also necessarily entailed the production of a set of first-rate humbugs as interpreters, men who were cordially detested by the shore people and who by virtue of their position on the ship gave themselves tremendous airs when ashore, and who were in consequence a menace to their various neighborhoods. In the later days of the trade, apart from the special provisions of the act, there was really no need for the employment of these interpreters, as there were people in every part who understood English.

The practice grew up of recruits being obtained by means of a present given to their friends. This was thoroughly in accord with native ideas and was known in the native tongue everywhere as buying. Even Bishop Patteson had to do the same thing when he wanted to obtain boys as scholars, and the Mission has always followed his practice when dealing with people in Heathen districts.

Recruiting ships were said by the natives to buy their men and in the Solomons were always known as the "ships that buy men," but in the New Hebrides and Banks Group, where deeds of violence had been more common, they were known as "thief ships." The giving of a present when recruiting was connived at by the authorities, though in itself it would probably have been held to be contrary to the spirit of the regulations. So long as this present consisted of harmless things like tobacco and pipes and fish-hooks and print and axes and knives, no exception could possibly have been taken to the practice. In later years gold was frequently given, even as much as £2 or £3 being paid for a recruit. So firmly established was the practice that if the pay were not given for a recruit, or if it were reserved to be handed over to him in Queensland, or if a man ran away and got on board by stealth, and no pay were sent on shore for him, he was said by the people to have been stolen, and angry feelings were aroused and reprisals were sure to be made later on. (The English words sell and pay and even buy are frequently rendered by a single word in the Melanesian tongues.) Before the annexation of the Solomon Islands men were frequently bought with rifles. This of course was contrary to the regulations, but undoubtedly cases of gun-running were constantly occurring in the Solomons and in the New Hebrides.

[225] Many a native went to Queensland with the express determination to get a rifle on the expiration of his agreement. No one in Queensland was allowed to sell rifles to a Kanaka, and yet they purchased them by the thousands. Snider carbines and Tower rifles abounded in the islands. The Samoan vessels were reputed to be the worst offenders with regard to the furnishing of rifles, one being given for every recruit, and another being brought back by the recruit on his return. All vessels leaving Queensland for the islands were examined by the customs officials and were searched for contraband goods, and the returning laborers were forced to adopt devious means of secreting their guns and ammunition.

The regulation box given to returns when they were paid off was a huge affair, 36 by 18 inches, and sometimes these were fitted with false bottoms and carbines were stowed in them, the barrel being cut short or the stock being taken off. Innocent-looking boxes of Queensland plants were found to have earth on the top and a layer of cartridges underneath. During the Government inspection rifles were sunk in the water butts or stowed away in the sheep pens or even lowered over the side into the sea. The native crews would always stow away the rifles for a fee, concealing them on the ship or up aloft, or even under the ballast. These crews were mostly Tanna men or Loyalty Islanders, hardened ruffians, most of them grown old in the trade.

When the Ivanhoe was wrecked in Florida the commissioner had reason to think that the returns had a number of rifles on board, but a search of the ship revealed nothing. He then went ashore and after digging about in various places on the beach came across a whole consignment of rifles buried in the sand. Should the ship's company be likely to refuse to allow a return to land his rifle in public, a friend would come out in a canoe by night and the rifle would be lowered over the side. It was a common practice for returns to bring back charges of dynamite with fuse and cap all fixed ready for firing. These were used for dynamiting shoals of fish. Such charges of dynamite have been found stowed away under the ballast next to the vessel's skin. What wonder, then, that vessels like the Sybil and others have been lost at sea when carrying returned laborers.

All boats going ashore to recruit were armed. The native crew had rifles slung under canvas covers on the sides of the boat and the white men carried revolvers and had rifles also. The regulations were that no boat should go ashore to recruit unless accompanied by a covering boat. The recruiting boat contained the white recruiter, who was generally the ship's boatswain or second mate, and two natives; the covering boat had two white men, one of them the government agent, and three natives. In the recruiter's boat was the trade box, and at times murderous attacks were made by the shore people to gain possession of this box. These boats always landed stern first, so as to [225/226] be able to get away quickly in the event of a quarrel on shore. They turned round just outside the breakers and then backed in. This is an operation requiring considerable skill, but most of the native crews had served a long apprenticeship and were very skilful boatmen. The boats were double-ended and were steered with a long steer-oar run through a strop.

The governor-in-council reserved the right of forbidding recruiting in any certain part. For many years but little recruiting was done at Santa Cruz; the kidnapping there in the early years had been the direct cause of the murder of Bishop Patteson, and his death and the death of Commodore Goodenough, coupled with the known hostile character of the people, caused the labor ships to give Santa Cruz a wide berth. Moreover, in the other islands men were comparatively easy to obtain. However, one or two adventurous spirits tried recruiting at Santa Cruz and obtained men from the neighborhood of Graciosa Bay and also in considerable numbers from the Reef Islands. In the year 1888 there was an abnormal mortality among these Santa Cruz recruits in Queensland and it was decided to forbid recruiting there altogether. The poor things frequently died of nostalgia on their way to Queensland; they never learned enough English to enable them to communicate their needs, either to the whites or to men of their own color. No one besides themselves could talk their language, so that their lot in Queensland was indeed a hard one. Yet these laborers were so profitable to the state that in 1893 the regulation forbidding recruiting at Santa Cruz was rescinded and more of the people were taken to the plantations, but with the same sad result. In one special case, the island of Tongoa in the New Hebrides, the native chiefs requested that their island be exempt; this was done, but their young men paddled over to the next island and recruited there.

There can be no question that the labor trade has contributed very largely to the depopulation of the islands. We have the witness of Bishop Patteson, in 1871, that all the Banks Islands, with the exception of Mota and part of Vanua Lava, were depopulated. Of Mae, in the New Hebrides, he wrote:

"Nothing can be more deplorable than the state of the island--I counted in all about 48 people in the village where of old certainly 300 were to be seen. Noumea, Fiji, Brisbane, Tanna, is in everybody's mouth, muskets in everyone's hand, and many more in the houses."

A very small percentage of these men ever returned home and many who did return brought contagious diseases. The possession of rifles also was an important factor in hastening the decrease of the population everywhere. Doubtless in most cases a spear is a far more deadly weapon in the hands of a Melanesian than a Snider carbine, for any shot at a moderate distance, but as a rule a native seldom risks a shot from far off and prefers fairly to scorch his enemy with the powder of the cartridge, sticking the barrel right up against him.

[227] Stories are told of men of Malaita wrapping up old pin-fire rifle cartridges in a bamboo, binding the whole with string, and exploding the cartridge by striking the pin with a stone or a billet of wood. It had got to such a pass on Malaita in later years that for a man to be without a rifle was certain death; every able-bodied man carried a gun. Ramofolo, the chief of Fuaga, an artificial islet by Ataa Cove, Malaita, had a Winchester which he informed me he had taken from a bush chief after he had stalked and killed him in order to obtain it. At Su'u Malou, near Aio, on the east coast of Malaita, we landed once in the presence of a great crowd of armed men, and it was only after they had searched our boat and seen for themselves that there was no weapon on board that they believed our statement that we did not carry firearms. Their test of being a man was the possession of a rifle.

Queensland was a veritable refuge for wrong-doers in the islands; murderers, sorcerers, adulterers, wife-stealers, thieves, discontented wives, rebellious children, all hailed the coming of a labor-vessel as a chance to be freed from the likelihood of punishment or from the irksomeness of home restrictions. However, even a residence of 30 years did not always avail to protect against home vengeance for wrongdoing, either actual or imaginary, as was seen in the case of Amasia of Qai, Malaita, who was shot on a charge (probably false) of witchcraft committed many long years before. Amasia was quite the Fijian when he returned; he wore his hair and his sulu in the Fijian style and had notices posted up in his house in Fijian forbidding people to eat areca nut there, and none of the people of the place could read. One used to hear of cases where men were landed elsewhere than at their own homes, owing to a fear of reprisals for some act of wrong-doing which they had committed and which had led to their recruiting. In due time the news of their return reached their home and their friends paid them a visit which would result in a request that they return home, and all would be overlooked. If the man were persuaded he and the woman he had stolen would return with the party and probably the two would be murdered on the road or at the landing-place.

The acquiring of possessions abroad seldom proved of any benefit to the native on his return. The native law everywhere in the Pacific is that on returning a voyager shares with his neighbors all that he has acquired. This is absolutely de rigueur and the man quite expects it and thinks it natural, and when his turn comes will claim a share in someone else's things. In Sa'a a return was not allowed to open his boxes till the chief gave him permission; then so much was stipulated as the chief's share and had to be given before any apportioning was done. In one case the chief claimed the boxes after they were emptied.

The trade in later years was carried on under respectable conditions, and might seem to have justified the claims of those who extolled it as a great instrument of moral and physical good to the natives. The laborers were employed under good conditions in Queensland, were well [227/228] fed, well housed, and well protected from exploitation; their hours of labor were not too long, they were well cared for when they were sick, and practically it was their labor that built up the sugar industry of Queensland. Their value as laborers is evinced by the fact that in later years the planters paid the shipowners £20 to £25 per head for all laborers recruited, and also paid the Government a capitation fee of £3 per head, and deposited £5 per head to cover the cost of the return passage. Regular food and regular employment under decent conditions made fine men of them physically, and the returns always compared favorably in physical appearance with the home men. But there is no question that the Queensland return, except those who had been at some mission school, was as a rule a person to be avoided; he had learned something of the white man's ways and had a certain amount of the externals of civilization, but the old-time respect for authority had all vanished and its place was taken by a bold, rough style of address which did not differentiate between a high commissioner or a bishop and a recruiter of a labor vessel. All alike were hailed by him as mate and all would be asked for tobacco. In effect he had lost the charm of the natural state.

Bishop Patteson stated in 1871 that these returns bore a bad character among their own people and were the ringleaders in wrong-doing. The general average of morality among the natives seems to have been lowered by their Queensland experiences. Those who went away undoubtedly improved in their physical condition, yet this was a poor compensation for the loss of their old Heathen surroundings with the air of mystery, and the time-honored etiquette and good manners belonging to them, and with nothing whatever to replace the loss, no new set of rules learned, no new motive provided for their lives, no new code of morals taught, no new outlook given, no new measure of mankind impressed upon them by their residence in Queensland other than that of physical prowess and the mere gaining of money or the eating of food of a different character. The returns from Fiji were often improved by their stay in civilization, and this was mainly owing to the fact that they had either been employed as house servants in good families or had merely changed one set of native conditions for another--living on a plantation and learning Fijian or mixing almost entirely with natives and learning but little English. Practically they still were natives instead of being bad copies of a certain class of whites.

A very great number of lives have been lost in and owing to the labor trade. The death of Bishop Patteson is an instance of the terrible result that may follow when men are determined to make money by acts of treachery to humanity or in defiance of the ordinary laws of hospitality. Peaceful traders have been assaulted, missionaries have been killed, the boats of labor vessels have been attacked and the men in them killed. All these facts can be directly traced to [228/229] some connection with the labor trade, to wrongs done to natives in Queensland, to judicial punishment for crime committed, to the abduction or the recruiting of a man's relations, to their deaths or prolonged absences away from home and in the white man's country. In addition to these a desire to gain glory and reputation, the death of a chief or of some favorite child, any one of these may be the motive that leads to an attack upon a white man; many sudden and seemingly unprovoked attacks on a labor vessel's boats were caused by the mere fact of their recruiting women.

Bishop Patteson was quite of the opinion that Melanesian natives as a general rule would respect whites and would not treacherously make attacks on them, but allowances have to be made for the requirements of the Heathen superstition and for the peculiar workings of the native mind and to the feelings of revenge. But Melanesians generally give short shrift to shipwrecked people and to strangers who come among them in a helpless plight. In 1867 a crew of English sailors from a whaleboat landed at Maanaoba, an island on the northeast coast of Malaita. They had deserted from their ship in the Kingsmill Islands and had been drifting for weeks. Only one of the crew, a boy named Renton, was allowed to survive; the rest were killed. A chief called Kabau saved Renton and took him across to the mainland, where he lived for eight years. Ships passed in the interval, but he could not communicate with them; however, a labor vessel, the Bobtail Nag, anchored near and he was able to send off to her a message scrawled on a board, a fragment of a canoe. This piece of wood is preserved in the Brisbane Museum. Large presents were given and Renton was rescued.

The accusation of treachery so often brought against Melanesians has a certain amount of foundation from our point of view. Attacks have been made by natives on white men merely to satisfy a blood lust or for purposes of robbery, as in the case of the massacre on board of the Young Dick at Singerango, Malaita; but it is indisputable that the white man's behavior to natives in Melanesia has tended to cause an atmosphere of distrust and dislike, and in most cases is at the bottom of every attack by the natives. The man Rade, who chopped the recruiter of the Young Dick at Mapo, southeast Malaita, is reported to have done so with a view to killing him in revenge for the death of the Mapo chief in Fiji, but Rade informed me that the man was making indecent proposals to women; possibly both versions of the matter are correct. The massacre of the crew of the Dancing Wave, in Florida, in 1876, was probably caused by a feeling of anger on the part of natives who had been sent home without any payment of their wages, owing to the estate on which they were working having passed into the hands of mortgagees. When due regard is had to the circumstances connected with the inception of the trade, one can not wonder at the amount of bloodshed and crime which it produced.

[230] Before the establishment of local government in the Solomons British ships of war were employed in punishing any attacks made upon whites. After the death of Bishop Patteson, H. M. S. Rosario went to Nukapu to inquire into the causes of his murder. The natives fired on the ship's boats and the fire was returned both by rifles and by the ship's guns, but without intending to kill anyone. A party was landed and the native village was burned to teach the savages to respect white men. A sailor who was wounded by an arrow afterwards died of tetanus. The whole incident was unfortunate in that it embittered the people and made the reopening of Santa Cruz all the harder for the Mission. The natives of course thought the shooting was connected with punishment for the death of the Bishop. At Raga, New Hebrides, the paymaster of the Rosario was attacked and twice clubbed. Shots were fired from the ship in revenge and four villages were burned, the idea being that a salutary lesson was being taught to the natives, and in that the innocent suffered along with the guilty the commander argued that owners of the burned property would have to get their compensation out of the guilty ones, as if the act would not have incensed them all, and a hatred for the whites as a whole would result in consequence of their burned homes, while they themselves rejoiced over the fact that no life had been taken among them!

The indiscriminate shooting of shells and burning of villages never impressed the natives; the only thing they understand in the way of reprisals is the actual taking of life. Time and again ships of war fired shells into the bush, some of them entering the very houses, but due notice had been given and everybody had decamped. At Mapo one of the shells fired into the bush on the hills was dug out of the earth and was let into the ground and used as a seat. To fire shells thus into the bush was certainly an exhibition of power, but the native measured matters otherwise, and it was not long before the power of naval ships was despised, since they never actually killed anyone as a punishment for these attacks on the labor-trade vessels.

The last legislation on the labor trade to Queensland was the commonwealth act called the "Pacific Island laborers' act, 1901." No Melanesians were to enter Queensland after March 31, 1904, and on December 31, 1906, all agreements were to end and the final deportation was to begin. Exemptions were granted to any who had been five years in Queensland before September 1, 1884, or who had been in Australia before September 1, 1879, or who had resided in Australia for 20 years previous to December 31, 1906. Also, exemption was granted to natives who were registered owners of freehold in Queensland or were married to women not natives of the Pacific Islands, or were suffering from bodily infirmity or were of extreme age.

The Melanesian Mission never felt it its duty to follow the natives of these islands to Queensland. Bishop Patteson in 1871 was planning a [230/231] visit to Fiji for the express purpose of devoting himself to the laborers there; but his death quite put Fiji out of the Mission's thoughts. In 1876 Rev. Edward Wogale went to Fiji and started teaching there, but stayed only a year or two and no one succeeded him. Bishop John Selwyn visited Fiji in 1880 and made arrangements for teaching some of the laborers on Sundays. Dr. Comins and Luke Masuraa visited Fiji in 1894 and obtained some excellent teachers who eventually were responsible for the opening of mission work in the Lau district of north Malaita. It was not until the first year of Bishop Wilson's episcopate that any of the authorities visited Queensland with the definite idea of seeing to the Christian teaching of the Melanesians there. The church in Queensland as a whole did practically nothing for them, and with the exception of Mrs. Robinson's excellent school at Mackay and Mrs. Clayton's at Bundaberg, whatever teaching was given to the Melanesian laborers was undenominational and much of it was in the hands of the Queensland Kanaka Mission, the officials of which were Plymouth Brethren. In 1896 Rev. P. T. Williams went to Queensland to organize work there for the Melanesian Mission among the laborers on the Isis, and Mr. Pritt was also at work on the Herbert River (called by the Melanesians the Albert River).

The return from Queensland of so great a number of Kanakas, 9,000 in all, was likely to have varied results. The actual Christian element among them would be sure to affect the Christian life in the Mission villages. The Heathen element was likely to be a cause of ferment and excitement and to give considerable trouble, both to their fellows and also to the whites. There were some who, in their ignorance of native life, looked for a great material advance in the status of the people of the islands, owing to the return of so many thousands of men who had been taught regular habits of industry; others feared that a great outbreak of crime might follow and that endless feuds and desolating hatreds would be stirred up, and that murders would be rife. The missionaries themselves were glad that the trade had ceased, but knew that a great unsettlement of conditions would follow the repatriation.

The work of landing the returns was very well done and all were landed at their own proper "passages," as the landing-places were termed. Where possible they were encouraged to attend the Christian schools. The government station at Tulagi was open to any who feared to return to their own homes. However, the leavening effect on the island people as a whole has been practically nil. Even those who had been most industrious in Queensland made but little attempt to improve the agricultural methods of their countrymen. For months after landing none of them, of course, did any work. The conditions were so totally different, the restraint of the plantation life was relaxed, all competition had ceased, and all that was now required was to get enough food for the day's needs. Besides, to a man who had [231/232] been accustomed for years to a regular diet of beef and bread or biscuit and sweet potatoes three times a day, the haphazard style of feeding which the islanders follow was certain to prove upsetting. If work was to be done in Queensland style, then a great deal more food must be forthcoming; of yams and taro for planting there never is an abundance, and though a man might have returned with a good round sum in gold, yet this would profit him but little if he wanted to use it to give himself a start in buying stuff to plant. The large colony of returns at Fiu on Malaita had the greatest difficulty for years to get enough food to supply their bodily needs.

Sewing-machines and gramophones might have been bought up cheaply a week or two after the returns had landed. In some cases sewing-machines were actually abandoned on the beach, for no one cared to carry them slung on a pole into the interior over razor-back ridges and up the bed of swollen mountain torrents. Brown boots and bowler hats and starched shirts and collars and ties were seen adorning the persons of all and sundry in the neighborhood when the trade boxes of the returns had been opened. Babies that were brought ashore in all the glory of woolen socks and bonnets and white clothes were rolling about naked by nightfall.

The pure Heathen amongst the returns proved generally a menace to their neighborhoods by opening up old feuds and awakening feelings of malice and wickedness. Some of them in fact rejoiced in their reputation as "bad fellow alonga Queensland" and boasted of their proficiency in evil ways and stated their determination to cause trouble. The Christians among them, in proportion to their zeal and earnestness, aided the mission work, but in many cases they felt completely at sea, owing to their having learned their Christianity through the medium of English and not through their own tongue, and unless they were sincere and well instructed, their tendency was to hold aloof or gradually to absent themselves from the services of the Church.

On the whole it may be said that the results of the repatriation have caused unrest and lawlessness and increased difficulty in carrying on any work whatever. The returns expected to buy goods in the traders' stores at Queensland prices; they demanded Queensland rates of pay, and both traders and missionaries were faced with labor troubles, and crude socialistic ideas circulated freely everywhere. In fine, while as a result of the repatriation, but few murders, comparatively speaking, were committed and but little suffering or hardship was entailed, yet the main result was unrest and disturbance, difficulty and confusion.

Project Canterbury