BLACKBIRDING

Evening Star, Issue 21632, 30 January 1934, Page 12

BLACKBIRDING

A TRAGEDY OF THE 'SIXTIES By the ' courtesy of Captain J ames Marr, master mariner, now of Nymagee, New South Wales, a manuscript narrating the exploits of a certain William Stewart, a picturesque adventurer who was in business in Sydney in 1858 as a wine and spirit merchant, has come into the hands of this present writer (states John Sandes, in the ‘ Sydney Morning Herald ’).

William Stewart’s business career in Sydney came to an abrupt end in 1858 in consequence of a conspiracy in which he engaged with his brother James, a Customs agent, and three officials of the Customs, to defraud the Government of the amount of duty to 300 cases and casks of wines and spirits by obtaining certificates of export out of bond to New Caledonia on the schooner Louisa. The Louisa sailed tor New CaledonitT according to schedule—but without the liquor, which was subsequently found at various hotels in and around Sydney, having been sold to the hotelkeepers by the resourceful William Stewart. The Louisa returned to Sydney, and speedily left again for parts unknown. It was found that William Stewart had joined her at Jervis Bay and sailed in her to Lord Howe Island, where he picked up his brother James, together with the wife and family of- Janies, and set sail once more. The Louisa, then renamed the Mary Anne, pursued her devious course to various islands until at last William Stewart reached Papeete, Tahiti. There he won the favour of the Governor. UNWILLING PASSENGERS. On July 4, 1869, off Nukunau (Byron’s Island), the barque Anne of Melbourne, Captain Bruce, met the barque Moaroa of Tahiti, Captain Blackett, owned by the Atimaono Plantation, and sailing under the French Protectorate flag. The Anna had 159 natives of the Gilbert Islands on board recruited at various islands as labourers for Fiji, most of them, it is said, having been induced by false pretences to ship on the barque. Two days previously Captain Bruce had heal’d from a passing vessel of action bein gtaken by the courts at Sydney against the captain and supercargo of a! vessel for kidnapping and incidentally murdering a number of natives. He feared that he would be prosecuted if he sailed to Fiji with his unwilling passengers. Accordingly, when he fell in with the Moaroa, which was seeking labourers for the cotton plantation at Atimaono, he discussed the matter with his supercargo, J. B. Lattin, a Frenchman, who was part charterer of the Anna.

The crafty pair saw a way out of their difficulty at once. Together they approached Captain Blackett, of the Moaroa, to whom they imparted the doleful news that the water casks on the' Anna wore leaking, and thus they had r.ot enough water to supply their cargo of natives on the voyage to Fiji. They wished to got rid of their valuable labour asset lest the natives might die on tile voyage. To their humane suggestion that Captain Blackett should tike over the whole 159 Gilbert Islanders, paying £6 per head for them, which was cautiously described as 11 passage money,” the captain of the Moaroa readily consented. But . as Captain Blackett had not enough money on board the Moaroa to complete the purchase of the 159 islanders, M. Lattin joined the Moaroa as a passenger, so that he might take delivery of the cash on arrival at Tahiti, ft appeared to him to be an admirable arrangement. The Moaroa recruited about 150 more nctives at Arorae Island, and some 200 more at various other islands. On July 17 a course was laid for Tahiti with approximately 500 natives on board, of whom no fewer than 100 were women ard children. SANGUINARY REVOLT. No doubt the barque was uncomfortably overcrowded. The natives became excessively dissatisfied with their position At 7 o’clock on the morning of January 17, the vessel being then becalmed about five miles south-east of Nukunau, they rose and killed Captain Blickett and M. Lattin. The captain was shot with his own Winchester rifle, and the supercargo of the Anna was cut down with the copk’s axe. they also killed throe of the watch on de?k, who were Eastern Polynesian natncs, but the fourth escaped aloft and sliJ down a stay into the forecastle, 'fix' natives then attacked the watch below in tire forecastle, but Maori Harry, i pure-blooded Maori, transfixed with a harpoon the first man who came dovn the ladder, and put a summary end to that plan of attack. Steinhault, the mate (whom Mr J. L .Young, the narrator, met at

San Francisco, where the mate had become master of a vessel, but under another name), retreated .to the cabin with the second mate, the cook, and the steward. At about 9 p.m., when all the natives were on deck, the men in the forecastle ran through _ the hold and joined those in the cabin through the bulkhead. The second mate, having found some liquor, became foolhardy and insisted on one of the cabin portholes to parley with the natives. His head was instantly blown off by one of the kidnapped natives armed with a double-barrelled gun, which had been taken from the interpreter, who was not killed, but tied hand and foot on deck. This was about 11 a.m. Maori Harry, a man of quick intelligence, suggested to the mate at this juncture that they should blow up the half-deck next to the cabin. Accordingly all the powder obtainable—thirtyfour half-pound tins—was emptied into a keg which was raised on cases of provisions until the mouth of the keg was close rip under the half-deck hatch on which many of the natives were collected. ' ROUT OF THE NATIVES. There was a deafening roar as the powder exploded. The hatch was blown into the air, together with the natives standing "on it, in the midst of a dense cloud of smoke, and when the crew rushed on deck yelling like demons and brandishing any weapons that come to hand, the rest of the natives became panic-stricken and jumped overheard en masse. Some of the natives, finding that the vessel was not destroyed by the explosion, tried to board her, but were thrust back into the sea and gave no further trouble. A flat calm, with oppressive heat, prevailed while these ghastly events were taking place. The Moaroa just drifted along with the land about four or five miles distant on her beam, but a light breeze sprang up soon after the natives disappeared from the vessel. The record sets out that owing to the strong current running to the southwest between Nukunau and Bern Island, which lies twenty miles to the west of Nukunau, very few of the swimmers reached Nukunau. A few of the strongest among them reached Bern helped by the current. The narrator saw a man of . the Nukunau, in 1876, who Had on his hip the mark of a burn which he said was caused by the explosion. His name was “ Te Bunake,” a native of Tamana. He told Mr Young that a number of infants in arms and also older children were among the victims. Te Bunake gave harrowing details of the lamentations of hapless swimmers, as one by one they sank in the shark-infested ocean.

The late Mr Young, the narrator of the tragedy, has given his sources of information. He has related that Captain Bruce, of the Anna, was the same man with whom he himself was wrecked in the Rose in the hurricane of March 20, 1871. Captain Bruce, he,says, told him part of the awful story. The rest was gleaned from various sources in the Gilbert Group and at Tahiti and San Francisco. As Mr Young has already mentioned that he saw Steinhault, the mate of the Moaroa, some time afterwards at San Francisco, and that he knew him well, it may be concluded that it was Steinhault who described to him the explosion of the keg of gunpowder.

Mr Young’s narrative sets forth that the natives on board the Moaroa were recruited from five islands, of which the approximate populations are given in brackets. The five islands were: Bern or Francis Island (1.500). Nukunan or Byron Island (4,0001, Onoatoa or Clerk Island (3.000), Tnmana or Rolcher Island (2,000). and Arorae or Hope Island (2,000). Tt is added that these numbers are rough estimates. Truly the “ hlackbivders ” of the ’sixties and the ’seventies in the Pacific have left behind them a terrible record, of which the foregoing narrative reveals a vivid glimpse.