The people trade : Pacific Island laborers and New Caledonia, 1865-1930 / Dorothy Shineberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shineberg, Dorothy.

Series:

Pacific islands monograph series ; no. 16.

Pacific islands monograph series ; 16

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indentured servants--Vanuatu--History.

Indentured servants.

Pacific Islanders--Vanuatu--History.

Pacific Islanders.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (336 p.)

Other Title:

Pacific Island laborers and New Caledonia, 1865-1930

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Studies, University of Hawai'i : University of Hawai'i Press, c1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The story of the people from the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and the Solomon Islands who left their homes to work in the French colony of New Caledonia has long remained a missing piece of Pacific Islands history. Now Dorothy Shineberg has brought these laboreres to life by painstakingly assembling fragments from a wide variety of scattered records and documents. She tells the story of their recruitment, then sketches the workers' lives in New Caledonia, describing the contractual arrangements, the kinds of work they did, their living conditions, how they spent their free time, the large numbers who sickened and died, and the choice at the end of the contract to remain in the colony as free workers or to return home. Throughout the book she throws light on the controversy about the recruiting of the Islanders: were they kidnapped? Or did they choose to leave home? If so, what motivated them? Evidently the Islanders' cheap labor contributed to the development of the French colony, but how did the episode affect them and their homeland? The People Trade offers readers a revealing new picture of a long neglected side of the Pacific Islands labor trade.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Editor's Note

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Conventions

Note on Sources

Part One: Recruiting for New Caledonia

Chapter 1. The Pacific Island Labor Trade and New Caledonia

Chapter 2. The Colony Established

Chapter 3. Entrepreneurial Recruiting in the 1870s

Chapter 4. The Kidnapping Inquiries and the Suspension of the Labor Trade, 1880-1882

Chapter 5. Settlers Triumphant: The Labor Trade Revived

Chapter 6. The New Century

Part Two: Profile of Recruits

Chapter 7. Men and Motives

Chapter 8. The Women

Chapter 9. The Children

Part Three: At the Workplace

Chapter 10. Work in New Caledonia

Chapter 11. Living and Working in New Caledonia: By Law or Custom?

Chapter 12. "Perpetual Theft"

Chapter 13. Sickness and Death

Chapter 14. "Hebrideans" in Colonial Society

Chapter 15. Life after Indenture

Chapter 16 "Nothing More Convenient"

Appendix: Tables

Notes

References

Index

Other volumes in the pacific islands monograph series

About the Author

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. 249-297) and index.

ISBN:

9780824864910

0824864913

OCLC:

50061500