The white Pacific : U.S. imperialism and Black slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War / Gerald Horne.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Horne, Gerald.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Oceania--History.

Slavery.

Forced labor--Oceania--History.

Forced labor.

Imperialism.

Oceania--Race relations.

Oceania.

United States--Territories and possessions--History--19th century.

United States.

United States--Foreign relations--Hawaii.

Hawaii--Foreign relations--United States.

Hawaii.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Worldwide supplies of sugar and cotton were impacted dramatically as the U.S. Civil War dragged on. New areas of production entered these lucrative markets, particularly in the South Pacific, and plantation agriculture grew substantially in disparate areas such as Australia, Fiji, and Hawaii. The increase in production required an increase in labor; in the rush to fill the vacuum, freebooters and other unsavory characters began a slave trade in Melanesians and Polynesians that continued into the twentieth century. The White Pacific ranges over the broad expanse of Oceania to reconstruct the history of "blackbirding" (slave trading) in the region. It examines the role of U.S. citizens (many of them ex-slaveholders and ex-confederates) in the trade and its roots in Civil War dislocations. What unfolds is a dramatic tale of unfree labor, conflicts between formal and informal empire, white supremacy, threats to sovereignty in Hawaii, the origins of a White Australian policy, and the rise of Japan as a Pacific power and putative protector. It also pieces together a wonderfully suggestive history of the African American presence in the Pacific. Based on deft archival research in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, the United States, and Great Britain, The White Pacific uncovers a heretofore hidden story of race, labor, war, and intrigue that contributes significantly to the emerging intersectional histories of race and ethnicity.

Contents:

Toward a "white pacific"

Blackbirding

"Bully"

Fiji

The KKK in the Pacific

Hawaiian supremacy?

Hawaii conquered

A Black Pacific?

Toward a "white" Australia

Toward Pearl Harbor

and beyond.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-237) and index.

ISBN:

9780824865177

0824865170

9781435666535

1435666534

OCLC:

257427946