449

GUbert and Ellice Islanders on Queensland Canefields, 1894-1899

by Doug Munro Presented at a meeting of the Society 26 September 1991

During the mid-1890s the arrival of a labour recruiting vessel at a Queensland port would have caused no great excitement in the normal course of events. By then the labour trade in indentured Pacific Island or 'Kanaka' workers (overwhelmingly ) had been in progress for over thirty years involving more than 650 recruiting voyages; during that time some 50,000 three-year contracts of indenture had been entered into by Pacific Islanders, who formed the mainstay of the Queensland canefields labour force.' The vast majority were prevented by legislation from working in any capacity other than unskilled field labour in the sugar industry, and were supplemented by Asian labourers. Even the problem of labour turnover and finding replacements for the workers whose three-year contracts had expired was to some extent overcome by the numbers who opted to stay on and serve out further contracts. Known as time- expired workers, they comprised between one-half and two-thirds of the Pacific Islander population for most of the 1890s.and formed a sort of Kanaka "aristocracy of labour".^ Why, then, did the arrival of the three-masted schooner May at Bundaberg in January 1895 with a mere 74 labour recruits from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands arouse such widespread interest? On the face of it the sugar industry had all the labourers it needed, and an additional 74 labourers would make no appreciable difference to the 8,000 or so Pacific Island labourers were already in the colony. It may seem that the sugar industry had all the labour it was ever likely to require, but not so. Competition from planters in , , and the New Hebrides made labour more difficult and expensive to obtain; old recruiting grounds such as the northern Solomons and the Bismarck Archipelago were now out of bounds for various reasons; the prohibition on British recruiters supplying firearms and ammunition to Pacific Islanders worked to the direct advantage of French and German recruiters whose goveriunents imposed no such restrictions.' There was no guarantee that numbers would hold up and there had already been attempts to ban the further importation of Pacific Island workers. In the circumstances it was Dr Doug Munro is Reader in History/Politics at the University of the South Pacific. 450 widely feared that uncertainty of supply would lead to an actual labour shortage at a time when world sugar prices were depressed. There was, moreover, no prospect at that stage of Pacific Islanders being replaced by a white sugar workforce. "• Continued supplies of field labour were therefore a worrying prospect for an industry beleaguered on several fronts, and there would certainly have been an actual labour crisis by the 1890s were it not for that large pool of time-expired workers. For all these reasons the arrival of the May with the first contingent of Gilbert and EUice Islanders attracted unusual attention. It is not the 74 newly recruited labourers in themselves that caused excitement but rather the reports that their home islands constituted a recruiting ground of 'practically unlimited' potential. A solution to the sugar industry's problems of labour supply was at last in sight, or so it seemed.^

TAPPING THE NEW SOURCE OF LABOUR The Gilbert and Ellice Islands comprise 25 coral atolls and reef islands in the equatorial Pacific, lying directly north of Fiji and far away from Queensland's traditional recruiting grounds in . In 1892 Britain declared separate over these two island groups, but for administrative convenience they were governed as a single entity. The tiny Ellice Islands with their small populations (an aggregate of 2,000-2,500 spread over nine islands) offered little inducement to labour recruiters, and although raids by Peruvian slavers severely depleted the populations of two of the atolls, recruiters otherwise by-passed the place almost entirely for the more populous Gilberts. The , indeed, were a significant source of labour during the nineteenth century for plantation systems elsewhere in the Pacific and an estimated 11,000 Gilbertese enlisted for places as far apart as Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, southern Mexico and Guatemala. Given that the total population of the Gilberts at this time ranged between 30,000-35,000, Gilbert Islanders were perhaps the most active labour migrants in the region on a per capita basis.* Purposeful labour recruiting in the Gilberts commenced in the late-1860s, in response to the needs of cotton plantations in Tahiti, Samoa and Fiji. The first few years of recruiting were marked with the kidnapping, violence and fraud that is typical of newly opened recruiting fields. The volatile Gilbertese fought fire with fire and soon accorded the 'men-stealing' ships a hostile reception. One of the more spectacular incidents of the Pacific-wide labour trade occurred on the high seas when a Fiji recruiter, running low on rations, transferred eighty Gilbertese recruits to a Tkhiti-bound recruiter. In a scene reminiscent of the African slave trade, the recruits broke out of the hold and went on the rampage, killing the captain and some of the crew. When the mate, in desperation, blew up a section of the ship. 451 the surviving Gilbertese jumped overboard and swam to the nearby island of , leaving the ship to limp back to Tahiti. Not surprisingly in the the circumstances, the flow of recruits soon dried up and was only restored in the early 1870s by the onset of drought in the southern Gilbert Islands. Seeing overseas plantation work as the only escape from their 'land of heat and famine', the Gilbertese now enlisted voluntarily in their hundreds rather than face starvation at home. This drought, of several years' duration, established the relationship between recruiting and ecological disaster. Quite simply, in times of drought there was recruiting, and in times of relative plenty there was little or no recruiting. The recurrence of drought in the 1890s clearly facilitated the activities the Queensland vessel May (Captain J.P. Doig) in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. The first island of call, in late-1894, was the southern Ellice atoll of Funafuti where a miserable total of three recruits were obtained, despite the schooner spending several days anchored in the lagoon and offering a wage of £ 8 a year instead of the usual £6 a year that first-indenture labourers in Queensland received.^ Thereafter the pickings were better. The northern Ellice Islands were still in the grip probably the most severe drought that its inhabitants had ever experienced,* and the May gathered a further 22 recruits. In the words of the Government Agent on board the May, it 'seemed to be taken as a matter of rejoicing than otherwise, as food is scarce, and the people were glad to see so many lusty youths provided for'.' Proceeding northwards into the Gilbert Islands, the May discovered that recruiting was unexpectedly difficult, despite drought conditions. In the first place, the drought had been in progress for several years and other recruiters had got in first. Secondly, many Gilbertese were reluctant to enlist, fearing that their destination would be Central America rather than Queensland. Earlier in the decade some 1,200 Gilbertese had recruited to work on coffee plantations in southern Mexico and Guatemala, with unhappy results. One of the recruiting vessels was lost at sea with total loss of life. News had also filtered back that the mortality rate of the other Gilbertese to Central America was extremely high, as indeed it was. Although the May was licensed to recruit 150, she returned to Bundaberg, after a four month voyage, with a mere total of 63 men and 11 women.'" Nevertheless optimism carried the day, the Government Agent expressing his certainty that if the new recruits were satisfied and sent home favourable reports, 'a very large field for recruiting will be opened up, the scope being practically unlimited'." His somewhat exaggerated forecast was never put to the test. Shortly after the return of the May, the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, Sir John Thurston, registered a strong protest with the Governor of Queensland against further recruiting in the Gilbert or 452 EUice Islands. Based in Fiji, the High Commissioner exercised jurisdiction over British subjects in the Western Pacific. Now that the GUbert and Ellice Islands were British protectorates, he had wider authority over their affairs. The Resident Commissioner of the protectorates reported to him, and he to the Colonial Office in London. Although Queensland labour vessels were within their strict legal rights to work the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Thurston ideally wanted to prevent any such extension of their activities. FaiUng that, he would formulate regulations that would place further Queensland recruiting under the close and inconvenient scrutiny of the local Resident Commissioner. Thurston argued that Gilbert and Ellice Islanders — especially the latter — were unsuited for work on sugar plantations. He also pointed out that the Ellice Islands were 'depopulated', not realising that the northern cluster of islands were, if anything, overpopulated. But these considerations were secondary to Thurston's hidden agenda, which is hinted at in his assertion that further recruiting by Queensland vessels would be 'likely to cause grave embarrassment for in the admiiustration of the new [Gilbert Islands] '. He was referring here to his intention to ban the recruitment of Gilbertese for German plantations in Samoa. However, Britain had a tacit agreement with Germany that recruiting for Samoa would continue uninterrupted so Thurston had to be be circumspect, at least on paper.'^ The Colonial Office was initially none too supportive, thinking that Thurston was indulging his 'habitual bias against the labour trade'." This was somewhat unfair given that the petty but persistent breaches of regulations by Queensland labour vessels in Melanesia had been a constant source of irritation — although Thurston might have been equally critical of the activities of labour vessels from his own colony. In the end the Colonial Office pressured Queensland, for the sake of 'expedience', to suspend all further recruiting from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands until all those Islanders then in the Colony had been returned home — in effect a three year ban on recruiting from the area.'" In the meantime Thurston kept up the pressure. Never a man to aUow matters to rest Thurston continued his assault whilst on leave in London later that year." The Queensland authorities for their part could do little to counter Thurston's intervention apart from register dismay, aver their good faith and send an ostensibly unsolicited letter from the Bishop of Melanesia — then visiting Bundaberg — to the effect that the recently introduced Gilbert and Ellice Islanders 'seem[ed] happy and well'. Realising that they were in a no-win situation, and probably realising also that Gilbert and EUice Islands would not provide a lasting solution to the sugar industry's labour shortage, the Queensland authorities acquiesced.'* The Lochiel, (Captain R. Pearn) which had made aU its preparations before Thurston's objections became known, 453 was allowed to proceed and returned in late-August with 116 GUbertese." But the Sybil and all subsequent recruiters were specifically banned from the group.'* Td reinforce the ban, the Protectorates' administration issued an indefinite prohibition on labour recruiting in the under-populated islands of the central GUberts and southern EUice." So in the end Thurston got his way and in doing so he achieved a dual objective: the effective ban on Queensland recruiting activity in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands helped to nullify the tacit agreement on continued German recruitment in the GUberts for their plantations in Samoa. The episode also provides an instructive case study on how the assumption of colonial rule enabled the High Commission to operate more effectively. Thurston could act in the manner he did and achieve a result because the recruitment of Gilbertese to Queensland occurred after the declaration of the protectorate and the assumption of administrative control. In Melanesia by contrast, Thurston had less control over recruiting because there were no permanent British administrations in those islands, responsible to him, who could monitor the activities of labour vessels.

RECRUITING CONDITIONS Both the May and the Lochiel belonged to the Young brothers, the owners of the Fairymead plantation near Bundaberg. The masters, crews and Government Agents on both vessels quickly discovered that recruiting in the Gilbert and EUice Islands differed markedly from recruiting in the more familiar Melanesian islands.^" Recruiting in Melanesia was a difficult and dangerous business. Rather than go ashore and run the risk of being chopped down, recruiting was usuaUy conducted in Melanesian from the relative safety of the water's edge from a ship's boat, with another boat standing slightly offshore and providing armed cover. In Melanesia, moreover, recruiting took place at 'passages', which 'in labour-trade parlance . . . meant the precise places on the coast from which recruits were taken aboard and whither they were to be returned'.^' These passages were often controlled by so-caUed passage masters, namely individual Melanesians who mobiUsed recruits in return for material reward.^ For various social rezisons, moreover, recruiting was effectively restricted to young males. So despite the incursions of the labour trade, many Melanesian islands remained insulated from its wider ramifications. CUve Moore has used the term 'fortress Malaita' to described the southern Solomon island of Malaita, which yielded more recruits than any other single place: . . . the migration of young, predominantly male Malaitans did not bring Europeans into contact with the entire population of the island. Recruits were siphoned off at bays all aroimd the coast, with 454 the aid of Malaitan passage masters. Malaita remained a cultural bastille, around the walls of which were a series of parte cocheres through which Malaitans left and returned. Europeans never penetrated its walls.^' The contrast in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands could not have been more marked. It was perfectly safe to walk ashore in the EUice Islands and to allow the Islanders to clamber on board the ship in numbers.^ Even in the Gilbert Islands it was relatively safe ashore providing married women were in no way interfered with. Indeed, the recruiting process in both island groups was carried out ashore, with variations from place to place reflecting the political structures. In the gerontocracies of the southern GUberts, recruiting was conducted through a 'Committee of Elders' (unimame), whUe in the EUice Islands the governing authority was a more centralised, island-wide council known as the faipule. In both places the business was conducted in the community meeting house (maneaba). The centraUsed chiefships of the northern Gilberts, by contrast, meant that recruiting was conducted through the individual high chiefs on those islands, again ashore. Another contrast with Melanesia was that a different set of social pressures allowed women to recruit in large numbers, usually in the region of 40% of total recruits. Although the proportion of female recruits obtained by the May and the Lochiel (respectively 22% and 11%) fell well below the usual figure, it was nevertheless high by Melanesian standards.^' During the course of two uneventful voyages, apart from the anxious moments when the Lochiel scraped a coral patch, a total of 190 Gilbert and Ellice Islanders were recruited for Queensland sugar plantations (see Tkble One). The contingent that arrived in May at Bundaberg in January 1895 were put to work on the nearby Fairmead plantation. Only ten of the Lochiel contingent, which arrived at Bundaberg the following September, joined their compatriots.^* One died shortly after arrival, two others were declared medically unfit, and the remainder were transshipped to Rockhampton per the steamship Eurimbla. Of these, 50 were sent to the nearby Yeppoon plantation and the remaining 53 proceeded to Ingham per the steamship- A ramac. ^^ THEIR EXPERIENCE IN QUEENSLAND Disappointingly little is known about the plantation experiences of the Gilbert and EUice Islanders in Queensland. The available sources do not provide a detailed or coherent picture of their working and private lives, merely disjointed glimpses here and there. Beyond a few particulars it is not known of their performance as workers, how they were treated, how they settled into the routine of plantation life, how they reacted to it. Little is known of their relationships with fellow 455 plantation workers, apart from the quarrels that were reported, and less StiU about the social world that they created for themselves during the three year sojourn in Queensland. One source of (superficial) information is the half dozen or so short reports submitted to the Department of Immigration by local Inspectors of Pacific Islanders, and these were only written in the first place as a concession to Thurston. What fragments of information there are almost invariably relate to events out of the ordinary, rather than to the routine of daily life. Thus, the recruiting of two prisoners from the Gilbert Island of by the Lochiel generated a lengthy correspondence,^* more indeed than the sum total of information relating to the Islanders' plantation experience. Similarly, the mysterious weeklong disappearance from Fairymead of a slightly mentally deranged Ellice Islander, and the suicide by hanging of a Gilbertese at Fairymead two years later both find their way into the records.^' But the hum-drum of daily Ufe goes unmentioned. What follows is an attempt to reconstruct the normal pattern of their everyday lives in Queensland on the basis of evidence relating to abnormal events. The evidence is also contradictory in places. In his first report on the contingent at Fairymead, written five months after their arrival.

Table One GILBERT AND ELICE ISLANDERS IN QUEENSLAND Recuited in 1895 May GUbert Islanders 25 Ellice Islanders _49 74 Lochiel GUbert Islanders 117 TOTAL 190 Employment Fairymead, near Bundaberg 82 Yeppoon, near Rockhampton 50 Ingham 53 TOTAL 185 Less Rejected on medical grounds 3 Returned home with sick wife 1 Deaths 30 TOTAL 34 Repatriated 1898-99 Lochiel 64 Loongana 56 Titus 36 TOTAL 156 456 the Inspector noted that they were 'cheerful in disposition, wiUing workers, and quick tempered'; three months later he was saying that '[a]s a body they do not compare very favourably in the matter of work with the natives from other Groups, being inclined to take matters too easily'.'" At Rockhampton, too, after a promising start, they 'appear[ed] to be inclined to laziness' and caused their employer sufficient dissatisfaction that he would not hire any more Gilbertese; whilst at Ingam they were said to be 'lazy, insubordinate, and great thieves'." It is difficult to know how much credence to place on such snippets of second hand information, especiaUy when a Rockhampton newspaper account stated that the '[r]ecently arrived South Sea Islanders are working well and appear to give satisfaction'.'^ In all probability the growing disenchantment of the later reports simply reflected a more realistic assessment of the new labourers' potential as workers in an enterprise in which they had no personal stake. The scenario reads very much like the changing perceptions among sugar planters in Hawaii that surrounded every new wave of immigrant worker: '[e]ach group in turn was hailed as the "solution" to the problem of an adequate, low cost, docUe labor supply. . . . Each group was found to be wanting, failing in some respect to meet the employers' expectations'." One matter that can be discussed with greater certainty is that of Ulness and mortality. The Gilbert and Ellice Islanders, like other plantation workers, fell prey to a variety of ailments ranging from bronchitis to an abscess on the shoulder.'" Imported Pacific Islander plantation labourers, in Queensland and elsewhere, were particularly susceptible to gastro-intestinal infections and diseases of the respiratory system, and by May 1896 a total of eight GUbert and EUice Islanders had died;'^ by the time of their repatriation the number had risen to 30. Ralph Shlomowitz has suggested that such initial high mortality rates 'can be attributed to the susceptibUity of recently- arrived migrants to diseases to which they lacked immunity'.'* In other words new arrivals are at risk from a hostile disease environment against which their systems have little or no immunity. As a result there is a high death rate in the first year, and particularly in the first six months, tapering off as the immigrants gradually become accUmatised to the new disease environment. Lack of immunity to unfamiliar diseases was certainly the major direct cause of worker mortaUty, but greater attention to preventative measures by recruiters, immigration authorities and employers would have had a cushioning effect. The Gilbert Islanders' arrival at Rockhampton provides a case in point. As the local Inspector of Pacific Islanders explained: At the time of their arrival in the Fitzroy river at night there was a dense and cold fog. This caused detention of the islanders in the river on the steamer for several hours. Next day at the Immigration 457

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0 100 200 300 400 500 km ' • I I I I • Niulokito 458 depot all the islanders were suffering from colds. They went to the Yeppoon Plantation and received treatment there for this., but many of them developed bronchitis and a few had pleurisy and inflammation of the lungs.'^ Although details of plantation life and labour are lacking, events at Rockhampton afford an insight into the quality of the experiences that the Gilbertese underwent in Queensland. At the end of their first crushing season, at the height of the hottest and driest spell experienced in the district for many years, the Gilbertese and other Kanakas at Yeppoon received their pay. Most of them headed off to town and camped out for more than a week in the surrounding scrub. To the horror of the local citizenry they then proceeded to make an unmitigated nuisance of themselves in scenes that were aU too familiar when Kanakas came to town. One of the Melanesians disrupted a Salvation Army gathering outside the Post Office Hotel, and was arrested for 'knocking people about'. About the same time a white woman named Mary Wood, who lived with the Kanakas in the bush at North Rockhampton, was charged with disorderly conduct, assaulting a police constable, and supplying the Islanders wdth alcohol, and was sentenced to six months hard labour: at her trial she was described variously as 'a woman of the lowest type' who 'caused half the trouble with the Kanakas'.'* The most serious disturbance came when 150 Kanakas, including at least some of the Gilbertese, fought a pitched battle with the local constabulary: '. . . the row was terrific at one time, knifes were flashing and stones fell in showers', although few injuries were sustained on either side. The Kanakas made good their escape and, in separate incidents, bailed up a lad and two little girls and gave them 'some rough handUng'." The reference to flashing knifes indicates that Gilbertese were in the belligerent crowd of 150: even to this day Gilbertese often use that weapon to settled serious differences. Even those not directly involved in the affray were undergoing experiences quite outside of their ordinary encounters in life; and even those who had worked on plantations in places such as Fiji, Hawau and Samoa, as some of them had, were in the unusual position of being given a degree of unaccustomed latitude, because nowhere else in the Pacific were indentured plantation workers routinely permitted to leave the property on weekends and for festivities at the end of the crushing season. Although plantation workers of different ethnic and tribal groups frequently fought amongst themselves,"" the relative impunity with which Kanakas in Queensland could vent their aggression, frustration or high spirits on the dominant white community was unheard of elsewhere in the Pacific. The Gilbert and Ellice Islanders at Bundaberg eventually met with the approval of their employers as canefield workers"' but not for 459 their social intercourse with the other Kanakas employed at the Fairymead plantation. In October 1896, the local newspaper reported: The Gilbert Islanders at Fairymead have again brought themselves into conflict with the other boys employed there, and but for the presence of the poUce on Saturday afternoon [10 October], a serious tribal fight might have taken place. One of the Gilbertans [sic], at the end of last week, had an altercation with another islander, and upon Saturday morning attempted to settle the difference with his knife. The overseer, however, heard of the trouble betimes, and disarmed the assailant before any serious damage was done. This, it appeared, was not to put an end to the affair, as the Gilbertans made no secret of it, that they would follow the matter up after 4 o'clock in the afternoon; when, as they confidently observed, "they could not be interfered with." The police, accordingly, were sent for, and . . . [three officers] went out, before work was knocked off. The Gilbertans, on seeing them, burst out laughing, and told the poUce they could not remain there until the next day (yesterday) when the fight would take place. An old fellow, invaUded in hospital, who looked more in the grave than out of it, hobbled off to the huts and commenced to plant their weapons in the reeds outside. The poUce, though, proved too quick for him. The sleeping quarters of the boys were thoroughly searched and everything in the shape of a weapon destroyed. Then "Booth" as he called himself, the originator of the trouble, was arrested and brought into town to answer a charge of assault; and with these steps all notions of fighting evidently evaporated, nothing occurring yesterday to further disturb the peace. "^ Another unseemly episode occurred at Fairymead in February 1898, shortly after the expiry of the Gilbert Islanders' contracts with the Young Bros. In a festive mood the Gilbert Islanders launched into a rowdy celebration one Sunday afternoon, to the irritation of their feUow labourers from Tanna, one of the islands of the New Hebrides. 'WhUst the chorusing was in fuU voice in the Gilbertian huts,' reported the local newspaper, 'a deputation from the Tanna boys waited upon them and cried, "Rest Christian friends, rest". But the spirit of joy had not subsided, and in return for their very reasonable request, the Tannas were invited to take themselves away, or accept a hiding'."' Evidently the bible classes of the Queensland Kanaka Mission, which was organised from Fairymead by the Young brothers' sister Florence, and which were well patronised by the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders, had made only a skin-deep impression."" When the Tanna boys remonstrated a knife was thrown at 'the rotund figure' of their spokesman, narrowly missing him. Another Gilbert Islander picked up a waddy and attacked the unarmed Tanese, who 'dodged the blows and lunges in a manner reflecting the highest credit on their agility'. The uproar was put down by a white overseer before any injuries were sustained and the two Gilbertese beUigerents were hauled off to police custody to await trial. To the disgust of the police, who wanted the 460 pair to be fined the value of their accumulated wages, the court 'took a more lenient view of matter and simply bound them over'. To avoid further confrontations the entire Gilbert and Ellice contingent was transferred to the repatriation vessel at the first opportunity."^

REPATRIATION The Fairymead contingent departed from Bundaberg in March 1898 on the Lochiel and were landed at their home islands without incident. They did not impress the Government Agent, who described them as 'a dirty, lazy, discontented lot of people', for what that remark is worth."* It was on the second repatriation voyage, involving the Loongana, that the drama took place."^ Captain W.T. Wawn, the vessels's master, experienced one of those voyages where everything that possibly could go wrong did go wrong, barring shipwreck and plague. Trouble began even before the Gilbertese arrived in Sydney. The four Chinese carpenters employed to refurbish the vessel's sleeping quarters for the Gilbertese sorely tried the patience of Captain Wawn. After a few days the carpenters went on strike, 'objecting to being hurried and "no under standee Englees" '."* The vessel eventually departed Sydney on 22 November 1898 carrying all the GUbertese from Ingham and some from Rockhampton, 50 men and 6 women in all, whom the irascible Captain Wawn distastefully described as '[t]he dirtiest, laziest, & most cheeky crowd I was ever shipmaster with' — quite a compliment from one with almost twenty years' experience in the labour trade. Following a series of thefts of ship's food, one of the Gilbertese attempted to kill the cook with a knife for being turned out of the galley. After clearing the Loongana with the Protectorate authorities at (the northernmost island in the Gilberts) in late-December 1898, Captain Wawn then transferred the Gilbertese to the steamship Fernmouth for their return to their individual home islands. However, the Fernmouth only got as far as the central Gilberts before a propeller gave out, forcing her to hmp back to the lagoon at Butaritari with most of the returns stiU on board. By this time the Fernmouth had also sprung a leak and her steam pumping gear was oiit of order. A fortnight later the Fernmouth saUied forth once again with its cargo of Gilbertese; this time the repatriation was accomplished but not before the Fernmouth, leaking as badly as ever, lost all power in one of its engines. Nor was she able, in the circumstances, to gather a cargo of copra, so the owners would have sustained a considerable loss on that voyage. It had been .a trying experience for all concerned. No such dramas were experienced on the third and final repatriation voyage. The remaining 36 Gilbertese from Yeppoon departed in mid- January, 1899, in Burns Philp's steamship Titus and reached their 461 home island without incident, though perhaps the presence on board of Roman CathoUc missionaries returning to duty in the Gilberts helped to maintain a reasonable level of decorum."' Most of the Gilbert and EUice Islanders to Queensland were eventually repatriated. Of the 190 individuals who arrived in the Colony, 156 were returned to their home islands in 1898, leaving another 34 who either died in Queensland or who were rejected on medical grounds and returned home early (see Table). Those who returned no doubt had many a story to tell of their Queensland experience, but it is unlikely that they would have had much impact on their home communities. They were too small in number for that, a meagre 165 of the 11,000 or so nineteenth century labour migrants from the GUberts. Although the labour trade was instrumental causing considerable social change within the Pacific, this was the consequence of cumulative pressure over decades rather than being the product of action at the individual level. The most pervasive long term effect of labour migration in both groups has been to gradually encourage a reliance on western goods and services that has since developed into full-blown economic dependency, but this is largely a twentieth century development.^" The most immediately noticeable long-term consequence of return labour migration in the Gilberts was the introduction of CathoUcism in 1888 and the ensuing sectarian bitterness between Protestant and CathoUc adherents. The Gilbertese to Queensland would not have had any bearing on this or any other issue. Likewise, the handful of Ellice Islanders were too few in number to have had any discernible effect on their communities; instead they would have settled down to the routine of village life where the word of the elders (toeaina) carried greatest weight and where young people, like themselves, did not presume to speak out publicly on village matters. Nor did the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders have an appreciable effect in alleviating the Queensland sugar industry's labour shortage. They comprised less than 20% of the 1,305 new recruits for 1895 and less than 2.5% of the total number of Kanakas in the Colony that year. At the level of the individual plantation, however, the effect could be greater: they comprised almost a quarter of the total number of Kanakas in Rockhampton. But overall their effect on an industry that employed over 8,000 Kanakas was slight and if a strict social accounting was possible it would probably be conceded that the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders got more out of their Queensland experience than did their employers, given that the alternatives were to remain at home in their islands at a time of drought, or to eiUist for less favoured places such as Samoa where treatment was routinely harsh and brutal.'' 462 Nevertheless, sugar planters wanted to exercise their option of obtaining more Gilbertese after the first cohort had been returned, and a surprised Resident Commissioner of the GUbert Islands Protectorate was approached in early 1898 about the matter of further labour suppUes for Queensland." But such was not to be. In 1900, phosphate deposits were discovered on Ocean Island, which lies to the west of the Gilberts. Ocean Island was then incorporated into the Gilbert Islands Protectorate and the overseas labour migration of Gilbertese was henceforth channeUed into the phosphate island." No more Gilbert and Ellice Islanders would work on Queensland canefields. What had started out as a bold experiment in broadening the Queensland sugar industry's labour supply turned out to be a once-off event. The Gilbert and Ellice Islanders were the last wave, in a manner of speaking, of Pacific Islander immigrants to reach Queensland before the eventual suppression of the labour trade in 1904. Until then, the sugar growers of Queensland had to rely on their estabUshed sources of labour — the arid the New Hebrides — and upon the large standing army of time-expired workers.

ENDNOTES

This paper is part of an ongoing project that received funding from the Australian Research Council. 1 also wish to acknowledge the assistance of Carolyn Edmondson, John Kerr, H.E. Maude and especially Clive Moore who formally responded to this paper on.the night of its presentation and allowed me to incorporate his comments in the final draft.

Archival Abbreviations: CO 225 Records of the Colonial Office, Series 225, Western Pacific. PubUc Records Office, London. COL Colonial Secretary's Office records. Queensland State Archives. GOV Governor's Office records. Queensland State Archives. ML Mitchell Library, Sydney. QVP Votes and Proceedings of the Queensland Legislative Assembly. WPHC, 4 Records of the Western Pacific High Commission, Series 4, Inwards- Correspondence, General. Public Records Office, London.

1. Charles A. Price with Elizabeth Baker, 'Origins of Pacific Island Labourers in Queensland, 1863-1904: a research note', Journal of Pacific History, 11:2 (1976), 110-11; Clive Moore, Kanaka: a history of Melanesian Mackay (Boroko/Port Moresby, 1985), 28-29. 2. Ralph Shlomowitz, 'Markets for Indentured and Time-Expired Melanesian Labour in Queensland, IS63-1906\ Journal of Pacific History, 16:2 (1982), 75. 3. Doug Munro and Stewart Firth, 'German Labour Pohcy and the Partition of the Western Pacific: the view from Samoa', Journal of Pacific History, 25:1 (1990), 85-102; Colin Newbury, 'The Melanesian Labor Reserve: some reflections on Pacific labor markets in the nineteenth century', Pacific Studies, 4:1 (1981), 1-25. 4. Doug Hunt, 'Exclusivism and Unionism: Europeans in the Queensland sugar 463 industry, 1900-1910', in Ann Curthoys and Andrew Marcus (eds), Who Are Our Enemies?: racism and the working class In Australia (Sydney 1978), 80-95. 5. Brisbane Courier, 15 Feb 1895, 6bc; Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 25 Jan 1895, 2a; Mackay Mercury, 29 Jan 1895; L.B., 'A New Recruidng Ground', Newspaper Clippings, Vol. 52, ML Q998N. See also Bundaberg News-Mail, Centenary Supplement, 23 May 1967. 6. The information in this and the following paragraph is drawn from Barrie Macdonald, Cinderellas of the Empire: towards a history of and TUvalu (Canberra/Miami, 1982), ch. 4; Richard Bedford, Barrie Macdonald and Doug Munro, 'Population Estimates for Kiribati and Ibvalu, 1850-1900: review and speculation'. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 89:2 (1980), 199-246; H. E. Maude, Slavers in Paradise: the Peruvian labour trade in Polynesia, 1862-1864 (Canberra, 1981), chs. 10 & 12; S.G. Firth, 'German Recruitment and Employment of Labourers in the Western Pacific before the First World War', DPhil thesis (Oxford University, 1973), 17-18, 24-25, 33; Doug Munro, 'The Origins of Labourers in the South Pacific: commentary and statistics', in CUve Moore, JacqueUne Leckie and Doug Munro (eds). Labour in the South Pacific (Townsville, 1990), xxxix-li. 7. The stopover at Funafuti is described in 'Extracts from the Government Agent's Log re Recruiting Islanders at the Gilbert and EUice Islands', appendix to Brenan to Principal Under Secretary, Immigration Department, 7 Feb 1895, GOV/A28, pl33; "Statement Made by MrJ. O'Brien, Trader, Funafuti Respecting the Visit of the Schooner "May" . . .' end. in WPHC 4, 137/1898; Rodolphe Festetics de Tolna, Chez les Cannibales: huit ans de croisiere dans I'Ocean Pacifique a bord duyacht "le Tolna", (Paris, 1903), 161-64 (EngUsh translation provided by Penelope Bok). 8. Anne Chambers, Nanumea. AtoU Economy: Social Change in Kiribati and Tuvalu, No. 6 (Canberra, 1984), 87. 9. De Vaux to Brenan, 17 Feb 1895, GOV/A28, pl83; L.B., 'A New Recruiting Ground'. 10. Swayne to Thurston, 17 Jan 1895, WPHC 4, 42/1895; Swayne to Thurston, 19 Jan 1895, WPHC 4, 41/1895. For the Central American episode, see Arthur Inkersley and W.H. Brommage, "Experiences of a 'Blackbirder' among the Gilbert Islands", Overland Monthly, 23 (June 1894), 565-75; David McCreery and Doug Munro, 'The Cargo of the Montserrat: Gilbertese labor in Guatemalan coffee, 1890-1908', The Americas (forthcoming). 11. Brisbane Courier, 15 Feb 1895. 12. Thurston to Norman, 22 Feb 1895, CSO/A807, In letter 5030 of 1905; CO 225/47/5569. On German recruiting in the Gilberts as a issue in Anglo- German relations, see Doug Munro and Stewart Firth, 'From Company Rule to Consular Control: Gilbert Island labourers on German plantations in Samoa, \%61-96', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 16:1 (1987), 33-38. 13. Minute on CO 225/49/18391. 14. Frazer to Norman, 12 July 1895, GOV/A29, pp33-34. 15. The Times (London), 30 August 1895, 8f; Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, 7 Sept 1895, 5a; Capricornian, 7 Sept 1895, 22a. 16. Nelson to Norman, 2 May 1895, end. in CO 225/47/13191, and WPHC 4, 156/1895; Bishop of Melanesia to Norman (telegram), end. in WPHC 4, 156/1895. 17. Swayne to Thurston, 29 May 1895, WPHC 4, 211/1895; Swayne to Berkeley, 17 Sept 1895, WPHC 4, 369/1895; QVP 1896: III, 189, 191, 195. 18. Norman to Thurston, 9 May 1895, WPHC 4, 158/1895. 19. Swayne to Thurston, 3 July 1895, WPHC 4, 266/1895; Nelson to Norman, 19 Sept 1895, GOV/A29, p267; QVP 1895, II, 1017. 464

20. The official reports of the two voyages are de Vaux to Brenan, 17 Feb 1895, GOV/A28; Brenan to Principal Under Secretary, Chief Secretary's Department, 27 Feb 1895, GOV/A28; RusseU to Principal Under Secretary, Chief Secretary's Department, 16 Sept 1985, GOV/A29; Lawrence to Brenan, 16 Sept 1895, GOV/A29. See also Swayne to Berkeley, 29 May 1895, WPHC 4, 211/1895; Swayne to Berkeley, 17 Sept 1895, WPHC 4, 369/1895. 21. Peter Corris, Passage, Port and Plantation: a history of Solomon Islands labour migration, 1870-1914 (Melbourne, 1973), 36&n. 22. Peter Corris, 'KwaisuUa of Ada Gege: a strongman in the Solomon Islands', in J.W. Davidson and Deryck Scarr (eds). Pacific Islands Portraits (Canberra, 1970), 253-65, 328-31; Corris, Passage, Port and Plantation, ch. 4. 23. Moore, Kanaka, 48. 24. The photograph in Tolna, Chez les Cannibles, 174, of the May at Funafuti shows just that. 25. On the recruiting of females in the Gilberts, see Macdonald, Cinderellas of the Empire, 60-61. 26. Caulfield to Brenan, 16 Oct 1895, end. in WPHC 4, 396/1895. 27. Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 6 Sept 1895, 2e; Capricornian, 14 Sept 1895, 29c; Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, 1 Sept 1895, 4a, 9 Sept 1895, 4a. 28. See despatches in WPHC 4, 383/1895; WPHC 4, 397/1895; WPHC 4, 33/1896; WPHC 4, 247/1896; CO 225/50/12229; CO 225/50/26126; CO 225/52/10724. 29. Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 17 July 1895, 2c, 24 July 1895, 2g, 29 Oct 1897; Caulfidd to Brenan, 16 Oct 1895, end. in WPHC 4, 365/1895, and GOV/A29. 30. Caulfield to Brenan, 9 July 1895, WPHC 4, 274/1895, and GOV/A29; Caulfield to Brenan, 16 Oct 1895, WPHC 4, 365/1895, and GOV/A29. 31. Brenan to Principal Under Secretary, Chief Secretary's Department, 30 June 1896, end. in WPHC 4, 246/1897, and CO 225/50/19581. 32. Capricornian, 5 Oct 1895, 3c. 33. Edward D. Beechert, 'Patterns of Resistance and the Social Relations of Production: the case of Hawaii', in Edward D. Beechert, Brij V. Lai and Doug Munro (eds), Resistance and Accommodation on Plantations (University of Hawaii Press, forthcoming). 34. Voss to Brenan, 21 October 1895, end. in WPHC 4, 405/1895, and GOV/A29. 35. Brenen to Principal Under Secretary, Chief Secretary's Department, 30 June 1896, WPHC 4, 246/1896, and CO 225/50/19581. 36. Ralph Shlomowitz, 'Mortality and the Pacific Labour Trade', Journal of Pacific History 22:1 (1987), 49. 37. Voss to Brenan, 21 Oct 1895, end. in WPHC 4, 405/1895, and GOV/A29. For background on the Yeppoon plantation, see Oliver Simmonson, 'Population Development in Central Queensland: a regional profile, 1858-1906', B.A. (hons) thesis (Deakin University, 1990), 22-25. See also Carol Gistitin, Kanakas — labour of love (Rockhampton, 1989). 38. Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, 4 Dec 1895, 5f. 39. Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, 3 Dec 1895, 5a; Capricornian, 1 Dec 1895, 19c. For wider background see, CUve Moore,' "Me BUnd Drunk": alcohol and Melanesians in the Mackay district, Queensland, 1867-1907', in Roy MacLeod and Donald Denoon (eds). Health and Healing in TYopical Queensland and New Guinea (Townsville, 1991), 103-122; Mark Finnane and Clive Moore, 'Kanaka Slaves or WiUing Workers?: Melanesian workers and the Queensland criminal justice system in the 1890s', paper presented to the Australian Historical Association Conference, Sept 1990. 40. Corris, Passage, Port and Plantation, 88-89; Moore, Kanaka, 268-80. 41. Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 20 Oct 1897, 2e. 465 42. Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 12 Oct 1896, 2e. 43. John Kerr, Southern Sugar Saga: a history of the sugar industry in the Bundaberg district (Bundaberg, 1983), 58. 44. Caulfield to Brenan, 9 July 1895, end. in WPHC 4, 274/1895, and GOV/A29; Caulfield to Brenan, 16 Oct 1895, end. in WPHC 4, 365/1895, and GOV/A29; David Hilliard, 'The South Sea EvangeUcal Mission in the Solomon Islands: the foundation years', Journal of Pacific History, 4 (1969), esp. 42-45. 45. Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 16 Feb 1898, 2e. 46. Brenan to Under Secretary, Chief Secretary's Office, 5 Oct 1898, GOV/A33, PP612-13. 47. The Loongana, belonged to the Sydney-based Chinese merchant house of On Chong who had trading links with the Gilbert Islands. Peter Corris, 'Editor's Introduction' to WiUiam T. Wawn, The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade (Canberra, 1973; first publ 1893), xxxviU&n. 48. W.T. Wawn, Private Log, Loongana, 12 Nov 1898, ML CYllO. Further references regarding the repatriation voyage of the Loongana come from this source. 49. Pickering to Brenan, 8 Apr 1899, COL, 02452 of 1899. 50. John ConneU, "Islands on the Poverty Line', Pacific Viewpoint, 16-2 (1985), 463-73; Doug Munro, 'Migration and the Shift to Dependence in Tbvalu: a historical perspective', in John ConneU (ed.), Migration and Development in the South Pacific (Canberra, 1990), 29-41. 51. Stewart Firth and Doug MunrO, 'Compagnie et Consulat: loies germaniques et emploi des travailleurs sur les plantations de Samoa, 1864-1914', Journal de la Societedes Oceanistes, 91 (1990), 115-34. 52. CampbeU to O'Brien, 24 Feb 1898, WPHC 4, 189/1898; Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 21 Jan 1989. 53. Doug Mum-o and Richard Bedford, "Labour Migration from the Atolls: Kiribati and Tlivalu', in Moore et al (eds.). Labour in the South Pacific, \11-11; Ralph Shlomowitz and Doug Munro, "The Ocean Island () and Nauru Labour Trade, 1900-1940", Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes, 93 (1991), forthcoming.