Kidnapped for Black-Birding.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 266, 10 November 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

Kidnapped for Black-Birding.

Bedce waa born shortly before the beginning of the century, aad while still a mere youth ho was kidnapped at Liverpool, and handed over with a number of others in the same plight to tha U.S. corvette Rapp'ahanock, ' papers and all correctly made out just as if we were properly enlisted man-of-war men.' Here he was horribly ill-treated, and at Callao he deserted. Shortly afterwards he was ' hocussed' and kidnapped for ' service' in the South Pacific. The vessel was a Peruvian kidnapper, 'whose trade was to steal poor devils from the islands and sell them for labour in the silver-mines.' This trade is called ' black- birding.1

The Story of a ' Bla?libirder.'

Mr W. B. Churchward, the author of the very interesting book 'My Consulate in Samoa,' has just issued through Messrs Swan, Sonnenschein and Co. an entertaining volume entitled ' Blackbirding in the South Pacific ; or, the First White Man on the Beach.' The book is really the autobiography of a certain Mr John King Bruce. Tho adventures of this man—a negro born at Liverpool more than ninety years ago—are set down pretty much in his own words ; and veryblood-curdlingsomeof them are. Bruce has been a desperado in his time, and confesses to a long string of murders—some of them committed in selfdefence, others the lesult of a sudden gust of passion—in the bad old days when there was practically no security for life in bhe South Pacific. The story of the stormy life of this tottering old man is set down pretty much in h:3 own graphic but not always elegant language.

I«ife on a Peruvian Kidnapper,

Well, sir (said Bruce), at last we left that hell-upon-earfcb, Callao ; but I soon found that I had only changed it for another sort of one, for.if ever there was a floating1 hell it was my new craft. I didn't mind it, though, for .ye got plenty of grog ; and we drank and fought jusb as much as ever we liked. Ifc wan all round a word and a blow, and there was scarcely over a day that someone didn't gel cut. All the pistols the skipper and mate.-? took away from us, or there would have been more murder than there was. This trip I was the man that everybody feared, and no one liked to annoy me after the firtt week afloat, for all who had tackled me had come to grief; and oh, how well I thought the devil did fight for me ! One day I. quarrelled purposely with, and killed, the biggest bully in the ship, in fair h'ghb, before blie whole crew. In that row the skipper backed me for fifty dollars with the iirst mate, who didn't like losing the money. He hated mo like poi.son for this, and bullied me like fan every time he could, and ne could pretty nearly any time, lie made my mad blood boil plenty of times, and itch to jret at him only once ; but it was no use fighting the officorn, for they gave their orders with v pistol ready, and the crew had only thoir knives, so we wcro obliged to knock under. However, I waited my time, and watched that mate like a cat. One very dark night when, unsteadied by the slightest breath of wind, the vessel heaved and surged on the black greasy swells, which shook and twirled her round and round just as they pleased, to the tune of the masts creaking and the flapping of the useless wails, my opportunity arrived. ■ Everyone was asleep, tho watch above and below, the man at the wheel, the skipper, tho mates, everyone bub me. And up I jumped, quietly crept aft, dodging from gun to gun, keeping close to the bulwarks—for I knowed that sometimes the skipper prowled about at night—till I gob to the hammock of tho mate, slung under the break of tho poop, as his cabin was too hot. He didn't think then that he was so near to going off to a much hotter placo; but I did, as I cut his throat to the very bone. He made no n->ise: I was too quick and the knife too sharp. Ho was dead in an instant. I ran back, bub loft the knife there. You think I was a fool to do so ? Oh," no !It was another man's I did the work with, and as the owner slept in the fo'c's'le alongside of me, I put some of the bright red blood on his hands. No ! No, I was too sly to take my own knife. I felt mad again—tho sight of the blood made me so—and I laughed myself to sleep over the shindy I knew there would be in the morning, and to think how the wrong man would geb in for it. Just as I thought, the row began the first thing in the morning. At daybreak I was roused up by the mate's rushing in and seizing the man the knife belonged to. I tumbled out, and helped them put him in irons; and how all the time I did laugh to myself! There was the blood on his hands, and there was the knife found in the mate's throat, so he must have done ib ! Besides which, I told tho skipper that 1 woke up in the night and saw the chap's hammock empty. The skipper thought a little, then, turning round to us, said. 'What do you say, boys?' *1 sang oub, 'He must have done!' and with that he up with his pistol and shot; tlie fellow through the neck. He foil screeching into tho water with a big splash when, in a moment, bhree sharks, which had been following us for days, seized him and began to tear him up. We then throw the mate over, just as he was, h.'iminock, knife, and all, as no one would have anything to do with an unlucky weapon ; and a few buckets of water put things all right again. • Hilled for Devilment.' The crew of this precious craft landed on one of the Pacific Islands and made a great haul of 'blackbirds.' We searched through house. after house, which were all in a line down the beach, beginning with the end ones, tying up all the" blackbirds we found, until we came to two big places right in the middle of tho village. These, the chaps at the door told us, were '.chock full of game/ ' Come along with me,' sang out the skipper. ' Ten of you pub down your guns, and come along with me ; bub all bring lashings.' Then he and a few others rushed into the house, bub very soon camo out again, the boss with the blood running all over his ugly face, from a cut he had got in the dark ; over him tumbled a man with a spear right through him, the point sticking a long way out from his back ; and two others never camo back at all, foralthougli tho natives hadn'tmuehtime to talk, they somehow or other persuaded them to stop. All the rest of the men at this <rot into an awful rage, but the'skipper kepbvery cool and looked more devilish than ever I saw him before. As he tied up his wounded head in a big handkerchief, ho eangotit, 'Nevermind, boys! We'll have them all presently. No shooting. Catch 'em alive. • Plenty of dollars in there, and a dead nigger isn't worth a, curse.' All his talk was'of no use, for the chapn were so excited they began shooting into the house all around. The shrieks and yells of the poor devils inside were dreadful to hear, and sounded righbabove the row of bho firing and bhe Veiling of bhe men, while the skipper ran about everywhere, shouting out to stop shooting ; but the men were so mad they could not leave off. The boss at last threatened them, but pointing their guns at him, they soon made him leave them to themselves. The row going on all the time was awful,, ballots were flying found just anyhow, as through and through the grass walls of the house they went, wounding our own people, who, thinking tbab the natives were doing it, cureed and swore, and fired all the harder. Presently a fellow sang out, ' Leb's have a light to seethe brutes better;' and then someone put a match to the house. In a minute the ! thick '.:'.•« mot burst into flames with | a (•/.}•■ '■■' ■•: lending their long red and lye 1! '*-; high aloft amongst the ' c , ; . ■ ■••«, shrivelling up their big m -a , , ,;.■ tinder, and Scorching with their liory breath +.he cool green breadfruit

leaves into cinders. Presently the big roof fell in with a loud crash, and not one escaped. The next house, with more people in it, soon caught fire, when the poor beggars inside tried to rush out; but as they came jumping through tho roaring flames they were shot by our chaps, or cub down with their cublasses. The men forgot all about dollars : they were only mad to kill and murdereverythingthat came nearthem. With fierce yells and laughs they hove back inbo the fire all thanatives they caught trying to get away through them, until ab la9t all were dead and quiet. In the end, the whole place was burned, and nothing was left of bhe pretby little town bub smoking ashes and two heaps of roasted human bodies, killed just for devilment, amongst which were two of our own fellows. When all was over, we book bhe few birds we had caught down to the boats, the men returned one by one, and off we went to the ship. That nighb the crew mutinied and seized the vessel. Bruce escaped by dropping inbo a boat that was lashed astern and landing upon an island which belonged to a white man—likewise a ' blackbirder,' who had stolen a schooner. This skipper, a strange mixture of desperado and eleven* quick-witted villain, was an old whaler, and once actually sab down arid cried like a child because his schooner gob into the midsb of a ' school' of whales, none of which could be captured for lack of the necessary applif>r>.™=>. He then felt very sorry that he had not stolen a bigger ahip. Eventually the schooner was wrecked and Bruce was thrown upon a reef, where after a marvellous escape from the sharks, he was picked up by cannibal savages. His black akin saved him,