Unbekannt

To set up export operations on Sāmoan soil, European business agents traded weapons for land, entering suspect deals for their own benefit. In doing so, they took advantage of the political landscape in a time of civil unrest and contention for the chiefly district titles among Sāmoans to exploit the indigenous population. The first export operations by Europeans were set up in 1855 by J. C. Godeffroy & Sohn, which post-bankruptcy, became the Deutsche Handels – und Plantagengesellschaft (DH & PG) in 1878. Traded goods included coconuts, cocoa, and rubber. Later, cotton was introduced and manufactured. This saw a shift in Sāmoa’s material culture.
Western trade established in the Pacific was volatile and consequential. After businesses were set up and operating, the Sāmoan workforce quickly became too small to cater to the expansive needs of companies whose businesses were gaining traction. Thus, colonial powers looked elsewhere for labourers. J.C.Godeffroy & Sohn, among other trading businesses in the Pacific, began importing workers through deception or by force, otherwise known as blackbirding. The term describes the process of enslaving men, women and children and abducting them to other countries for mostly free labour. This slave trade, a practice found across the Pacific in the 19th and 20th century, led to the displacement and dispossession of entire nations to satisfy plantation shortages. In Sāmoa, German trading company DH & PG continued J. C. Godeffroy & Sohn’s blackbirding endeavours. Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands fell victim to the violent blackbirding crusades. In Sāmoa, these indentured workers were known as “Tama Uli”, or “black boys”. Chinese workers, labelled “coolies”, were also imported and employed, though as argued by some, in exchange for some monetary compensation.
While working on plantations, blackbirded labourers were abused, punished, and strictly controlled by their self-proclaimed owners. Racially motivated prejudices against them held by Euro-Americans were passed on to the indigenous Sāmoan community. Visual evidence of enslaved individuals and groups mingling with the indigenous Sāmoan population, let alone the European settler community, is non-existent, suggesting segregated ways of living outside of work. When New Zealand took over Sāmoa’s administration in 1914, the enslaved community inherited from Germany largely remained in Sāmoa and continued to serve, in this case, the British Crown.
This photograph shows a blackbirded labourer on one of the DH & PG’s copra plantations. He is standing by a work horse that has a cart loaded with harvested coconuts strapped to it. A storage building is visible in the background among densely planted palm trees. Other workers, possibly also from Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands can be seen in the background. Likely taken in the 1890s, the photograph captures the colonial legacy of slave trade in Sāmoa. The photographer is unidentified.

Author: Charlotte Klinge, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa