1 For a full treatment of the early years of indentured labour from India, see Mary Cumpston’s Indians Overseas in British Territories, 1834–1854 (London, 1953).
2.
2 The consequences of this mass importation of labourers by colonial governments bequeathed considerable social problems to newly independent nations. In Fiji, where Indian indentured labourers were imported until 1920, their descendants account for 43 per cent of the island’s population yet the constitution enshrines native Fijians’ political ascendancy. See Donald Denoon, ed., Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders (Cambridge, CUP, 1997), pp. 415–19.
3.
3 Edward Wybergh Docker, The Blackbirders: the recruiting of South Seas labour for Queensland, 1863–1907 (Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1970), p. 276-276.
4.
4 An outbreak of undisguised slavery occurred between 1862 and 1864 from mainly eastern Polynesian islands to supply workers for Peruvian plantations and guano mines which provoked an international outcry. See H. E. Maude’s excellent study, Slavers in Paradise: the Peruvian labour trade in Polynesia, 1862–1864 (Suva, Fiji, Institute of Pacific Studies, 1981).
5.
5 Recruiting agents would even advertise. This from a Queensland newspaper, 29 April 1867, reprinted in the Colonial Intelligencer, May 1870: ‘Henry Ross Lewin … begs to inform his friends and the public that he intends immediately visiting the South Sea Islands and will be happy to receive orders for the importation of natives to work on cotton and sugar plantations … Terms £7 each man.’ Quoted in O. W. Parnaby, Britain and the Labor Trade in the Southwest Pacific (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1964), note p. 57-57.
6.
6 Docker, op. cit., p. 53. ‘Kanaka’ simply means ‘man’ in a number of Polynesian dialects. Later it was used by westerners to distinguish whites from Islanders and much resented accordingly.
7.
7 For example, the William Manson, commanded by Captain William Voss, which sailed in the final years of the Queensland trade in 1894, was prosecuted for just such abuses. The captain asserted that he had done ‘no more than was common to all labour vessels’.
8.
8 Philip A. Snow, introduction to Captain George Palmer, Kidnapping in the South Seas (Folkestone and London, Dawsons, 1971), p. x-x.
9.
9 Docker, op. cit., p. 52.
10.
10 Acts 5 Geo. IV. c. 113 of 1834 and Art. 4 of 6 & 7 Vict. c. 98 of 1839 (Slave Trade Consolidation Act).
11.
11 FO to CO, 25 August 1863. CO 201/528. Quoted in Parnaby, op. cit., p. 15.
12.
12 James Walvin, Black Ivory: a history of British slavery (London, Fontana Press, 1993), p. 9-9.
13.
13 Quoted by G. R. Mellor, British Imperial Trusteeship 1783–1850 (London, 1951), p. 271-271.
14.
14 Parnaby, op. cit., p. xiii.
15.
15 Captain George Palmer, RN, FRGS, Kidnapping in the South Seas (1871) (Folkestone and London, Dawsons, 1971), p. 108-108.
16.
16 Parnaby, op. cit., p. 77. Enclosure in Belmore to Granville, 26 February 1869, Parliamentary Papers 1868–1869, XLIII, 408.
17.
17 Palmer, op. cit., p. 109.
18.
18 After his book was published, Palmer had to retract his criticism of the New South Wales legal team once it was demonstrated that they had worked hard and in good faith on his behalf. See Palmer to the Secretary to the Admiralty, 27 January 1872. See NSW Correspondence between the governor of NSW And the Earl of Kimberley respecting certain statements made by Capt. Palmer RN In his book entitled ‘Kidnapping in the South Seas’ (London, HMSO, 1872), p. 19-19. House of Commons Paper 43.
19.
19 Quoted by Docker, op. cit., p. 65.
20.
20 Palmer, op. cit., p. 141.
21.
21 The Earl of Belmore to Earl Granville, Government House, Sydney, 26 February 1869. See Correspondence respecting the deportation of South Sea Islanders, House of Commons Papers No. 43, 29 July 1869.
22.
22 Docker, op. cit., p. 57.
23.
23 Parnaby, op. cit., p. 20.
24.
24 Palmer not only had his costs reimbursed by the Admiralty, but was promoted from Commander to Captain and, when he retired in 1870, it was with the rank of Rear Admiral.
25.
25 Palmer also cites the Sydney Morning Herald (22 May 1869); the Sydney Empire (4 August, 6 October and 17 November 1869); the Sydney Evening News (May 1869).
26.
26 The full text of this letter was published in the Queensland Express (30 April 1869).
27.
27 Court of Vice-Admiralty, New South Wales, Sir Alfred Stephen, Judge, November 12 1869: ‘The Queen on the prosecution of commander George Palmer against the schooner Daphne’. See Appendix B to Palmer, op. cit.
28.
28 Sir Alfred Stephen to Earl Belmore, Sub-enclosure No. 2 Parliamentary Paper No. 6, 1869. Appendix A to Palmer, op. cit.
29.
29 Sir James Martin to Lord Belmore, attorney-general’s office, Sydney, 21 July 1871. From Further correspondence respecting the deportation of South Sea Islanders, February 1872, House of Commons Papers No. 43.
30.
30 Captain Palmer to Mr. Williams, 16 August 1869. See NSW Correspondence between the governor of NSW And the Earl of Kimberley, op. cit., p. 19.
31.
31 Despatch from the Earl of Belmore to the Earl of Kimberley, 6 October 1871. See NSW Correspondence between the governor of NSW And the Earl of Kimberley, op. cit., p. 2.
32.
32 Minute by Sir William Manning, ‘The Daphne’, 18 August 1869, ibid, p. 20.
33.
33 Hansard, 3rd Series, CCXI, 184.
34.
34 Parnaby, op. cit., p. 27.
35.
35 Belmore to Kimberley, 23 November 1871; Canterbury to Kimberley, 28 December 1871;Du Caneto Kimberley,29 December 1871;Fergusonto Kimberley,27 December 1871. Parliamentary Papers 1873, L, 244.
36.
36 Hugh Hastings Romilly, The Western Pacific and New Guinea: notes on the natives, Christian and cannibal with some account of the old labour trade (London, John Murray, 1886), p. 171-171.
37.
37 Quoted in British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to Colonial Office, 2 September 1893.
