HORRIBLE REVELATIONS OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC.

Southland Times, Issue 1632, 13 September 1872, Page 3

HORRIBLE REVELATIONS OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC.

♦ — Since the murder of the late Bishop Patteson a good deal of attention has been directed both at home and m Hie colonies to the character of the so-called " labor trade" amongst the islands of the South Pacific, particularly the New Hebrides group, from which laborers are imported tc work on the cotton plantations at Fiji. A number of British vessels are engaged in this trade, and from facts that have occasionally come to j light, suspicion? have been aroused that much of the " labor" is unfairly obtained, and that an investigation into the manner in which the traffic is carried on would reveal many acts of cruelty and even bloodshed perpetrated on unoffending and defenceless natives. We question j however whether the wildest imagination I could have anticipated the horrors disclosed in the narrative of the voyage of the brig Carl, in 1871, as g-iven by Dr J. P. Murray, late of Southland, in his evidence before the Water Police Court at Sydney, on the 16th August last, when Joseph Armstrong late master of the Carl, of which Dr Murray was the owner, was charged with murder on the high seas. It appears that the Carl sailed from Levuka, for the New Hebrides, to " collect labor," as it is called. After calling unsuccessfully at one or two places, she anchored off an island called Malakolo. Tbe ship's boat was sent to look for a better anchorage, and some of the natives shot at it with arrows. On the return of the boat to the ship, a scene ensued, which we give in Dr Murray's own words, as reported by the Sydney Mail : — " At this time a number of canoes were trading round the vessel ; we saw these canoes round the vessel when we returned to the ship ; partly in retaliation for the firing, we made an attack upon these canoes ; we fired at them ; most of the natives jumped out of the canoes ; one remained in one of the canoes fighting, another was wounded ; the second boat of tbe ship was then lowered and the natives were picked up out of the water by either one or other of the ship's boats ; on reconsideration I am not sure whether the second boat was lowered or not ; our boat picked up twelve or thirteen natives ; they were taken oc board the ship and put in the hold ; they were pulled up the ship roughly by the crew of the brig; when they were got on board they were placed in tbe hold ; these men did not resist ; we sailed away directly we got the men in thehoM, and went to the Solomon Group ; the ship was aucbored not more than two or three cable lengths from the j island of Malakolo; the natives who were not picked up escaped to the shore ; some were wounded." This is a pretty fair beginning, but there is more to come. In ei^ht or nine days the Carl came to another island called Santa Anna, and there the natives commenced to trade. " They exchanged cocoanuts, tortoiseshell, and such things ,• two of the natives came on board ,- the majority remained in. the canoes ; the cances came close alongside ; j heavy pieces of iron were thrown into the canoes by the crew and captain; some of the canoes were by this means upset ; the ship's boats were lowered and tbe natives were picked up by the crew of the vessel ; about twelve or thirteen were picked up in this way ; the natives were pulled out of the water into the boats, and from the boats they were lifted into the ship ; the ship might have been about a quarter or half a mile from land at this time ; the canoes and natives that were not taken went to the shore ; when the natives were got on board they were put in the hold ; the natives who had previously been placed in the hold were allowed on deck ; they were usually kept in the hold a couple of days ; after the men were got on board the brig sailed away." At another island, called Isabella, belonging to the same group, " the canoes came out as before, and commenced to trade ; whilst trading, they were upset in the same manner as the others were upset, by the captain and crew of the brig Carl throwing iron into them ; directly the canoes were upset the ship's boats were lowered, and manned by a crew from the vessel, and all the natives that could be picked up were bo picked up ; about ten of them were picked up ; the canoes were, generally speaking, small ones, having three or four men each ; the ship was under sail ail this time ; the natives came on board from the boats almost voluntarily ; they were put in the hold and kept there for a day or two ; they were liberated in a day or two if they did not exhibit any inclination to fight." So far the natives appear to have made but little resistance, and with the exception of those who were drowned, or picked up by the sharks when the canoes were upset by the ingenious apparatus kept in readiness for the purpose, consisting of a hundred-weight of pig iron secured by a rope, it is probable that but few lives were sacrificed. A new phase of the traffic, however, is disclosed when the Carl came to Bougainville, an island densely inhabited by warlike natives. " Having got to Bougainville, canoes came out very plentifully ; we went very near the land when coasting along the island ; we were about a week or ten days off aud on at Bougainville ; we were getting nativea for four or five days ; we got about eighty natives from this island ; they were obtained by their canoes being upset by the crew of the brig throwing iron into them ; when the canoea were upset the crew of the brig manned the boats and got the natives on board in the same way as the others bad been ; when they were got on deck they were placed in tbe hold ; these Bougainville men resisted very much, but the crew and some other white men on board assisted to get tbe natives into the hold ; they resisted the capture altogether ; at night-time the natives were all put into the same hold, but the natives from the different islands did not mix with each other ; we had not the men on board more than forty-eight hours, when an alarm vras given by the evening watch that the natives in the *

hold were rising ; the brig was under full sail at the time ; after the alarm bad been given, I could hear the natives battering at the main hatch with poles, and fighting with the other natives at either end of the vessel ; the bunks of the natives were made of green saplings and pules ; these the natives had torn down and armed themselves with ; they made javelins of siffie of the saplings and threw them up I the hatchway ; the hatchway was covered with open beams, but not sufßciently wide apart to admit of a man getting through ; the openings were perhaps 6 inches square; the openings were for the purpose of ventilation ; these hatches were made on board ship after she had sailed from Levuka ; every effort was made to pacify the natives ; no white man on board knew their language ; none of the natives from the other islands could converse with those from Bougainville ; the Bougainville natives and the others kept aloof from each other ; we shouted to them and endeavored to intimidate them by firing pistols over their heads ; we did our best to quell the disturbance ; tbe disturbance lasted for about a quarter of an hour ; the Bougainville natives endeavored to set fire to the ship by rubbing cocoanut shells together jl believe that caused the natives to fight ; the other natives endeavored to extinguish the fire ; after the expiration of about a quarter of an hour, the natives were fired upon ; the fire was directed to the natives under the main hatchway ; guns and revolvers were used ; everybody fired ; I am not sure whether Captain Armstrong fired ; I think he waa at the wheel ; the firing and fighting lasted all night ; when the natives stopped in the leist, every effort was made to pacify them ; the natives succeeded in loosening some of the bars of the hatchway ; the firing could not be said to have ceased until morning ; the firing waa carried on voluntarily by the 1 white men ; no positive orders were given by any one ; tbe general alarm being given everyone tock their firearms and proceeded towards the main hatch ; some of us carried arms with us, but most of the arms were kepfc in the cabin ; I think each man took bis own weapon out of the cabin ; I think some of the arms were loaded ; in the morning after the firing had cea«ed, a man named Scott attempted to go into the hold, to endeavor to pacify the natives ; he had only gone down two or three steps when he received a thrust in the stomach from a pole ; the white men who were on board besides the crew were interested in the cruise, but not in the labor trade ; a party of five young men in Melbourne had associated together for the purchase of land at Apia ; during the night tbe friendly natives had been admitted on deck through the fore and afc hatches ; some few of them that could not be got up remained below ; nearly all of them were got on dtck ; in the morning the hatches were taken off and the killed and wounded were taken out of the hold and put on deck ; I think some of the crew went down to bring them up ; the captain was giving directions ; about seventy dead and wounded natives were broicght on deck ; all the Bougainville natives, with the exception of ten or twelve, were either killed or wounded ; the dead natives were thrown overboard ; I could not say definitely who gave the directions ; the icounded natives icere also thrown overboard; I never could ascertain whether positive orders were given for them to be thrown overboard ; I think it was done with the general will of the whites ; I endeavored to get their lives spared, and suggested that they should be put on an island ; but the general feeling was against doing that ; there were about fifty killed, and about twenty wounded were thrown overboard whilst they were still alive ; my attention was not directed particularly to prisoner Armstrong ; I saw him with the general mass ; I could not swear positively what he was doing at the time the deid and dying were thrown overboard ; I paid no attention to him and do not know what he was doing ; I was desirous of saving the lives of the wounded natives ; I appealed to the mass, not to Armstrong specially as master ; the mass, of which the captain was one, all appeared to be engaged in one common object ; I couid not say with certainty that tbe captain heard my appeal to save the wounded ; he was in a position to hear me ; I spoke loudly ; everybody seemed excited, and did not appear to know exactly what they were doing ; the throwing of the wounded overboard was the joint action of all ; I could not swear positively whether the captain was engaged in throwing them overboard ; I could not speak of any one particularly ; the wounded were first of all put on the deck ; the dead were thrown overboard as they were brought out of the hold ; I did not look at the wounded as a medical man, but I looked casually at some of them ; it took me a few moments ; they must have been on deck a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes before they were thrown overboard ; I would not say that the wounded were not brought up on deck first, and the dead were brought up afterwards and thrown overboard ; the wounded and dead were not mixed ; there was no discussion as to whether the wounded should be thrown overboard ; it was a spontaneous movement ; I heard the wounded were to be thrown overboard, aud I went forward that I might not ccc it done ; it was the general feeling that that was the besb way to dispose of them ; there was a general cry for them to be thrown overboard ; the crew and the other white men were assembled round the after-hatch at the time; the whole of the white men, including the captain, were together ; the friendly natives were all forward ; I saw some of the wounded thrown overboard ; they made no resistance ; some of them were tied ; they were tied when they were brought up ; their legs were tied together ; I could not say how many of the wounded were tied ; I do not know for what particular object they were tied ; they did not resist ; some of the Bougainville natives, who were neither

killed nor wounded, were not found ; they were hiding ; some of them were on deck ; they were treated like the other natives, as they had ceased resistance ; I do not think the passengers took any part in throwing the wounded overboard ; I saw it was no use throwing the poor wretches overboard, that it ttouU be better to place them on some island where they would have a chance of recovery ; the general voice was to heave them overboard ; the hold was cleaned and got in order ; it was whitewashed, and efforts were made to obliterate the powder and shot marks ; we were probably twenty miles from land when this occurrence took place ; the ship sailed to Seven Islands ; we obtained pork and other provisions, but do labor ; thence we went to Levuka ; on the road to Levuka we called at the island of Apia ; one of the joung men and mjself went on shore, and twelve natives also went on shore of their own free will ; we remained on the island ; the brig is & British vessel, and flies the British flag ; I think she belongs to the port of Melbourne,- none of the islands at which we touched are under any European State or power ; the shooting and throwing overboard of the natives took place about twenty miles from land ; I am not sure whether the land was in sight or not." From information lately received from Melbourne and Sydney, we are glad to learn that there is some probability of justice being meted out to the miscreants who took part in the inhuman conduct above narrated.