A Tongariki blackbirding story

Blackbirding was a form of slavery or forced indentured servitude that happened throughout the Pacific during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Vanuatu, blackbirding largely consisted of men, but sometimes women, being forcibly carted off to work in sugar plantations in Australia or in Fiji. Sometimes men did volunteer to do this work, but without understanding how many years they were signing away or how little money they would get in return for that work.

So here's the Tongariki blackbirding story.

Man Tongariki gets taken to work in Queensland, Australia. They work hard and eventually, they're on their way out. They're going back to the ships to go back to Vanuatu where they'll finally see their family again.

They're walking along and they come to a river. At the river, they see two Aboriginal children, a brother and a sister, who say their parents abandoned them, they're hungry, they don't have anything to eat, and they don't have anywhere to go.

What does Man Tongariki do?

...

That's right. That's right. They tell the kids, that's okay, you come with us, we have lots of food where we live, you'll like our little island.

The kids assent.

And yeah. I heard that the boy married and only had a few children before he died young, but that the girl had tons of kids. Half of Tavia village is part Australian and there are lots of people from other villages related to them. In fact, a few months ago, there was a big discussion on the island about whether or not certain people might be eligible for Australian citizenship, as in fact their grandmother or grandfather was an Australian.

There's the story.

Dad and Bubu David // BONUS WW2 STORY

Took this photo up in Muur village over Christmas 2013. Muur is this little village that's pretty far from the rest of the island. They used to all live down in this other village, Tavia, but their gardens are high up on the hill and about 20 years ago, they got sick of making the hike and moved on out there. Muur is a really nice place--super quiet and really chill all the time. My mom and dad came for Christmas and we spent Christmas Day up in Muur. My dad's wearing an island shirt from my host papa and a salu salu that Muur made. Bubu David is ... Bubu David. He was born sometime in the late 1930s and he's a link back to a totally different time.

Bonus World War 2 story that I've heard from Bubu David 5-10 times by now. Back in the day, during the war, and especially during the fighting up in the Solomons, there were lots of American soldiers in Vanuatu. Fighting never reached Vanuatu, luckily, but Ni-Vans are really aware of how bad it was in the Solomons. Major result: Americans are still going strong in Vanuatu with a post-WW2 high. There are very few American tourists, very few American business people, so mostly the American presence has been soldiers and PCVs. It's easy to be seen as good that way.

So back in the day, there were some air force pilots doing routine maneuvers and target practice on a big rock outside of Tongariki. Unfortunately, the plane crashed. Man Tongariki saw the plane crash and was very worried, so they canoed out to rescue the pilots. Although there had been a pretty strong missionary presence, nobody spoke too much English. They tried to be as hospitable as possible, though, kept the pilots in their houses, and, when a plane passed overhead, they built a big fire to signify that they had the pilots. A passing US ship came to pick the pilots up. On their way out, one man, Harry, who had been at a mission school on Efate and spoke more English than anyone else said, "Remember Harry. Harry saved your life." The pilots nodded, got on the boat, and that was the end of it.

Jump a bit later. One day, some other pilots were flying over Tongariki, and they dropped off tons of things -- cloth, tin meat, matches, knives, all sorts of stuff, all of which were labeled Harry. The pilots had remembered what happened and they sent out some goods to the people who had taken care of them. Harry took all of the items to Lewaema or Tavia, I forget, and divvied them out between everyone.