Blackbirding (7 results)

Press release for the Exhibition. Discours / Speech by Mme Sally Mansfield, Consul General of Australia. No pagination, 28 PP (recto only) with b/w illustrations and 19 b/w photos in the section "Photos du Vernissage / Photos of the Launch", plus the poster for the exhibition. Clear plastic front, spiral bound. French text. Fine. 29.7 x 21. File with photocopies of pages published in "Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes", "Télé 7 Jours Nouvelle-Calédonie", "Challenge Magazine", "Le Gratuit". Loyalty Islanders and blackbirding to Queensland.

Chapter 19, Pacific Islanders Protection. 9 PP (A1 to B). Sitches removed. Ageing of paper, occasional foxing. Very good. A rare item. 27 x 18. Act of the British Parliament attempting to control the infamous practice of "Blackbirding".

(Brisbane: James C. Beal), 1885. F'scap folio. Stapled as issued. (22pp.). NOTE: The Queensland Government banned the importation of Pacific Island labour in 1885. Between 1883 and 1885, around 5,000 labourers from New Guinea and other islands were brought to Queensland under questionable circumstances.

Condition: very good. Sydney, Govt Printer 1869. Foolscap folio modern plain wrapper; drop title, 24pp. For the most part this details the murders on the blackbirding ship 'Young Australian' with some information on the seizure of the 'Daphne' by Palmer in the Rosario in Fiji. The captain and supercargo of the 'Young Australian' were sentenced to death and released after a couple of years in prison. Palmer was forced to pay reparations to the owner of the Daphne.

Condition: very good. Sydney, Govt Printer 1873. Foolscap, disbound in a modern plain wrapper; 16pp. Atrocity, massacre, mass murder - you choose. Seventy or more kidnapped men from the Solomons and Bougainville trying to break out of the hold of the Carl were shot from the deck and thrown, dead or alive, into the sea. Murray, owner of the Carl, when evidence of kidnapping during the second voyage began to surface, discovered religion and turned Queen's Evidence. The captain and members of the crew were tried in Sydney. Two were sentenced to death but of course not hung. Murray's father wrote to the Melbourne Herald that if anyone went to the gallows, his son should be the first. Murray disappeared from Sydney before the trial was finished and not much more is known about him. Collected here are sworn statements given by Murray and others to the Consul in Levuka and proceedings of a Naval Court held in Levuka before sending the prisoners to Sydney. Reading Murray's account I wonder that he wasn't strung up on the spot, for mealy-mouthed hypocrisy as well as murder. He must have had some persuasive skill not conveyed in the words themselves.

Sydney: Thomas Richards, 1871. F'scap folio. Wrapper. (220pp.). Includes extensive testimony from both sides of this debate and cites the case of the 'Young Australian', a black birding ship whose captain and owner were charged but then released. Captain George Palmer who seized the ship and freed the slaves was ordered by Sir Alfred Stephen to pay reparations as the ship was 'illegally' seized.

Condition: very good. London, House of Commons 1871. Foolscap, modern quarter calf; vi,212pp. A compendium of outrage, murder, slavery and kidnapping according to the index. Bully Hayes is arrested for kidnapping on page 141 and escaped by p.143. *This item might cost more to post than quoted by abe.