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 or any other island located in the Pacific Ocean.
Blackbirding is the coercion and/or deception of people 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 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 North America, in both the United States and British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the temporarily jointly occupied and disputed Oregon Country. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811 and established as an operating fur-trading district around 1810. The North West Company was absorbed into the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1821, under which the Columbia District became known as the Columbia Department. It was considered part of British North America and later became the brief first Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) with the subsequent merger with the Colony of Vancouver Island (1849–1866) to form a larger second short-lived Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871). After protracted negotiations with British and Canadian authorities, the newly reorganized Province of British Columbia joined in 1871 with the new Canadian confederation of 1867 further east, as the western-most province of the now trans-continental Dominion of Canada. The Oregon Treaty of June 1846, signed in Washington, D.C., by the United States and the United Kingdom, marked the effective end of the old Hudson's Bay Company's jurisdiction of the former western Columbia District / Department on the Pacific coast, although the HBC still continues a mercantile commercial business into the 21st century.
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.
The Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 (Cth) was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which was designed to facilitate the mass deportation of Pacific Islanders, or "Kanakas", working in Australia, especially in the Queensland sugar industry. Along with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, enacted six days later, it formed an important part of the White Australia policy. In 1901, there were approximately 10,000 Pacific Islanders working in Australia, most in the sugar cane industry in Queensland and northern New South Wales, many working as indentured labourers. The Act ultimately resulted in the deportation of approximately 7,500 Pacific Islanders.
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.
Sikaiana is a small atoll 212 kilometres NE of Malaita in Solomon Islands in the south Pacific Ocean. It is almost 14 kilometres in length and its lagoon, known as Te Moana, is totally enclosed by the coral reef. Its total land surface is only 2 square kilometres. There is no safe anchorage close to this atoll, which makes it often inaccessible to outsiders.
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 a 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.
Pijin is a language spoken in Solomon Islands. It is closely related to Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea and Bislama of Vanuatu; the three varieties are sometimes considered to be dialects of a single Melanesian Pidgin language. It is also related to Torres Strait Creole of Torres Strait, though more distantly.
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 and African Australians were also forced into various forms of slavery and unfree labour from colonisation. Some Indigenous Australians were slaves 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.
