Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading post that was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington. The fort was a major center of the regional fur trading. Every year trade goods and supplies from London arrived either via ships sailing to the Pacific Ocean or overland from Hudson Bay via the York Factory Express. Supplies and trade goods were exchanged with a plethora of Indigenous cultures for fur pelts. Furs from Fort Vancouver were often shipped to the Chinese port of Guangzhou where they were traded for Chinese manufactured goods for sale in the United Kingdom. At its pinnacle, Fort Vancouver watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, six ships, and 600 employees. Today, a full-scale replica of the fort, with internal buildings, has been constructed and is open to the public as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Oceania.
Blackbirding is the coercion of people through deception or kidnapping to work as slaves or poorly paid labourers in countries distant from their native land. The practice took place on a large scale with the taking of people indigenous to the numerous islands in the Pacific Ocean during the 19th and 20th centuries. These blackbirded people were called Kanakas or South Sea Islanders. They were taken from places such as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Niue, Easter Island, the Gilbert Islands, Tuvalu, Fiji, and the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago amongst others.
Fort Astoria was the primary fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). A maritime contingent of PFC staff was sent on board the Tonquin, while another party traveled overland from St. Louis. This land based group later became known as the Astor Expedition. Built at the entrance of the Columbia River in 1811, Fort Astoria was the first American-owned settlement on the Pacific coast of North America.
Tonquin was a 290-ton American merchant ship initially operated by Fanning & Coles and later by the Pacific Fur Company (PFC), a subsidiary of the American Fur Company (AFC). Its first commander was Edmund Fanning, who sailed to the Qing Empire for valuable Chinese trade goods in 1807. The vessel was outfitted for another journey to China and then was sold to German-American entrepreneur John Jacob Astor. Included within his intricate plans to assume control over portions of the lucrative North American fur trade, the ship was intended to establish and supply trading outposts on the Pacific Northwest coast. Valuable animal furs purchased and trapped in the region would then be shipped to China, where consumer demand was high for particular pelts.
South Sea Islanders, formerly referred to as Kanakas, are the Australian descendants of Pacific Islanders from more than 80 islands – including the Oceanian archipelagoes of the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, the Gilbert Islands, and New Ireland – who were kidnapped or recruited between the mid to late 19th century as labourers in the sugarcane fields of Queensland. Some were kidnapped or tricked into long-term indentured service. At its height, the recruiting accounted for over half the adult male population of some islands.
The indigenous peoples of Oceania are Aboriginal Australians, Papuans, and Austronesians. These indigenous peoples have a historical continuity with pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories. With the notable exceptions of Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, New Caledonia, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands, indigenous peoples make up the majority of the populations of Oceania.
The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the disputed Oregon Country. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811, and established as an operating fur district around 1810. The North West Company was absorbed into the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821 under which the Columbia District became known as the Columbia Department. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 marked the effective end of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department.
Benjamin Boyd was a Scottish entrepreneur who became a major shipowner, banker, grazier, politician and blackbirder in the British colony of New South Wales. He was briefly a member of the Legislative Council.
Pacific Islander Americans are Americans who are of Pacific Islander ancestry. For its purposes, the United States census also counts Aboriginal Australians as part of this group.
Robert Towns was a British master mariner who settled in Australia as a businessman, sandalwood merchant, colonist, shipowner, pastoralist, politician, whaler and civic leader. He was the founder of Townsville, Queensland and named it after himself, he is also known for his involvement in blackbirding and labour exploitation of immigrant workers.
The South Sea Evangelical Church (SSEC) is an evangelical, Pentecostal church in Solomon Islands. In total, 17% of the population of Solomon Islands adheres to the church, making it the third most common religious affiliation in the country behind the Anglican Church of Melanesia and the Roman Catholic Church. The SSEC is particularly popular on Malaita, the most populous island, where 47% of its members live; there are also smaller populations in Honiara and elsewhere on Guadalcanal, on Makira, and in other provinces.
Florence Selina Harriet Young was an New Zealand-born missionary who established the Queensland Kanaka Mission in order to convert Kanaka labourers in Queensland, Australia. In addition, she conducted missionary work in China and the Solomon Islands.
Naukane, also known as John Coxe, Edward Cox, and Coxe was a Native Hawaiian chief who traveled widely through North America in the early 19th century. He was either considered a member of the royal household of Kamehameha I or a chiefly retainer, possibly the same person as Noukana, the son of High Chief Kamanawa, the King's uncle and trusted advisor.
Fort Simpson was a fur trading post established in 1831 by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) near the mouth of the Nass River in present-day British Columbia, Canada. In 1834, it was moved to the Tsimpsean Peninsula, about halfway between the Nass River and the Skeena River, and was later referred to as Port Simpson or as the native name Lax Kw'alaams. The fort was part of the HBC's Columbia Department.
The maritime fur trade, a ship-based fur trade system, focused largely on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska. Entrepreneurs also exploited fur-bearing skins from the wider Pacific and from the Southern Ocean.
Slavery in Australia has existed in various forms from colonisation in 1788 to the present day. European settlement relied heavily on convicts, sent to Australia as punishment for crimes and forced into labour and often leased to private individuals. Many Aboriginal Australians were also forced into various forms of slavery and unfree labour from colonisation. Some Indigenous Australians performed unpaid labour until the 1970s.
The majority of Fiji's islands were formed through volcanic activity starting around 150 million years ago. Today, some geothermic activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Fiji was settled first by the Lapita culture, around 1,500–1,000 years BC, followed by a large influx of people with predominantly Melanesian genetics about the time of the beginning of the Common Era. Europeans visited Fiji from the 17th century, and, after a brief period as an independent kingdom, the British established the Colony of Fiji in 1874. Fiji was a Crown colony until 1970, when it gained independence as the Dominion of Fiji. A republic was declared in 1987, following a series of coups d'état.
Kwaisulia was a prominent tradesman, strongman and blackbirder on the island of Malaita in the late nineteenth century, who for several decades held political control over the north of the island.
Henry Ross Lewin or Henry Ross-Lewin was one of the most prominent blackbirders of South Sea Islander labour in the 19th century. He worked with Robert Towns in the early 1860s to establish this labour trade in the British colony of Queensland. He later worked as an independent recruiter of Islander labour for himself and other capitalists. Ross-Lewin also formed a plantation on the island of Tanna where he was killed in 1874.
