1872 The Cutter Agnes: An extraordinary story of the lawless Queensland slave-trade and how a Queensland member of Parliament with a sugar plantations bought slaves from pacific pirates

A story of the Queensland slave-trade and how a Queensland member of Parliament with a sugar plantation bought slaves from pacific pirates’ how men and women were trapped and sold.

1875: Louis Armstrong a hotelkeeper in Levuka, at the Royal Hotel after bankruptcy in Melbourne

Louis ARMSTRONG was reported born Fiji before 1850, mother Tahitian or Fijian and unknown, ARMSTRONG father also unknown. Friday 5 May 1871 The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1956) reported Louis Armstrong, of Viti Levu, Fiji, publican, at present a prisoner for debt in Her Majesty’s Gaol, Melbourne. Causes of insolvency – Inability to [...]

1881: C. Hedemann offered Conrad Machens employment at Levuka, Fiji; German trade expands

This item is translated from a German item on Wikipaedia, sourced from a book and exhibition about Machens and Gerrman trade in the Pacific. Conrad Machens, born 3 May 1856 in Ahrbergen, was a German South Seas buyer. Machens was a seventh or eighth child of farmer Johann Conrad Machens (1806-1877) and second wife Therese Magdalene Machen (1818-1906), in [...]

1858: Pacific women worth 10 to 50 pigs

href=”http://balmainhistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/german-admiral-carl-von-coerper-with-samoan-chiefs-daughter.jpg”> But worth incalculably more if they were of a chief’s family; with slaves of their own, land, and rights. “White murders were generally caused by unpaid “theft” of Islander women, by White men reported British Naval Commander Acland in 1885 “had long discussions with  everybody in the group employing native labour… finding it “extremely [...]

1870: Anglican clergyman Revd. William Floyd arrives in Fiji

“A body of Church of England folk in Levuka in 1868 met for the purpose of securing a clergyman to minister to them, and a committee was formed in Melbourne to forward this purpose.  The Revd. William Floyd was a member of this Melbourne Committee, and eventually he offered his services and arrived in Fiji [...]

1886: Levuka Nasova cemetery, caretaker: George Gardiner

Image http://www.flickr.com/photos/markmat/81911231/“To the south west  of the town beyond Nasova, on the approach to which are several well appointed private residences, there is nothing to be seen except the cemetery, which is very picturesquely situated on the sloping side of a hill facing the sea. In it are several nice monuments, and the whole is kept [...]

1886: Levuka five generations of gene-mix; but work racially divided: 430 Europeans, and around 1000 “half-caste FIjians, Samoans, Botu Muliana, and other Polynesians”

“The population of Levuka may be estimated at about 430 Europeans, or persons of European extraction, while the settled population of half-caste FIjians, Samoans, Rotu, Muliana,  and other Polynesians, is about double as many more. Samoan sex-workers: They are of the same mixed nationality as may be observed in Suva, but a special feature is [...]

1886: copra and sugar in Levuka and Fiji

“Levuka …commands quite a respect able proportion of the commerceof the group, including that of tho whole of tho extensive islands of Vauna, Levu, and Tavinui, besides that of ‘Loma Loma, and the whole of the windward and central group, and of the northern coast of Viti Levu itself. This includes the sugar estates of: [...]

1886: law and order in Levuka; drunks put in stocks, and financial dispute settles by public fights on Sunday in Boatmans Square

“During all this time, (1868 to 1871,) it must be remembered, there was no Government, and the state of things reminded off of the glorious times of the first gold rush to California. for on all the rushes – in Australia – law and order were established from the outset. Here In Levuka, however, notwithstanding [...]

1868: Levuka Mountain Lovonis captured and enslaved to cotton planters: Thakombau at the head of the Government

“The first partially-successful attempt at the establishment of a Government was made in June, 1871, by some adventurers from Australia, with whom were associated two of the business men of Levuka. These placed an old chief named Thakombau at the head of the Government and constitution as King of Fiji, and he in turn appointed [...]