Peruvian Slave Trade - Blackbirding

Blackbirding involves the coercion of people through deception or kidnapping to work as slaves or poorly paid labourers in countries distant from their native land. The term has been most commonly applied to the large-scale taking of people indigenous to the numerous islands in the Pacific Ocean during the 19th and 20th centuries.  

These blackbirded people were called Kanakas or South Sea Islanders - including Tokelau. For several months between 1862 and 1863, crews on Peruvian ships combed the islands of Polynesia, from Easter Island in the eastern Pacific to the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati) in the west, seeking workers to fill an extreme labour shortage in Peru.

Peru had officially abolished slavery in 1854, but were persuaded by Joseph Charles Byrne, an Irish speculator, to grant him a permit to recruit South Sea Islanders workers. Byrne's ship, Adelante, set forth in June1862 across the Pacific intending to go to Vanuatu (New Hebrides).​

However, Byrne made an unplanned stop at Tongareva  (Penrhyn) in the Northern Cook Islands where he was able to acquire 469 "willing recruits'".  They went voluntarily because there was a shortage of water and disease had wiped out their coconut crops, so were keen on short term work in a neighbouring island - they had no idea they were being taken to South America to work on the plantations and mines.  Bryne died on the return journey to Peru.​

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When the Adelante arrived back at the Peruvian port of Callao in September 1862, the human cargo from Tongareva was sold off - US$200 for men, US$150 for women and US$100 for boys (the equivalent of US$4,700/NZ$7,450 for men, US$3,500/NZ$5,550 for women and US$2,350/NZ$3,725 for boys in 2023).  Because the ship had not had to do the long voyage to Vanuatu and no recruits had been lost, the enterprise made a considerable profit and so almost immediately other speculators and ship owners set sail to make money on Polynesian labour.  Within two months of the Adelante returning, more than 25 vessels had left Callao for the South Pacific to "recruit" Pacific labour, thus launching the shameful Peruvian slave trade.​

Over a period of several months, more than 3,600 Polynesians were taken by the Peruvian slave ships, 1,400 of them from Rapanui (Easter Island).  Some escaped or died on the journey.  It's understood 3,470 left for Peru, 345 died before arriving. 

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Only 3,125 arrived in Peru - 2,116 landed, but 1,009 were held on the ships for repatriation.  Many of those who actually touched Peruvian soil, died of disease, poor treatment or despair.

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​Of those abducted, 253 were Tokelauans, about 47% of the total Tokelauan population at the time - certainly all the able-bodied men, some women and even children.  According to H.E. Maude in "Slavers in Paradise", the most authoritative work on the Peruvian slave trade from 1862-64, the atolls lost: ​

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• Fakaofo140 - only 121 remained;

• Nukunonu 76 - only 64 remained;

• Atafu 37 - 103 remained, but only 6 adult males; 

• None were taken from Olohega because Eli Jennings Snr acted as a 'recruiter' for one of the slave ships.  He is said to have received one year's income for a few days work.

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Peruvian officials were slow to fully appreciate what was really happening from the permits they'd granted, despite sustained pressure from other countries, with France, Hawai'i and the British at the forefront.  The United States was preoccupied with the Civil War at the time. Fuelled by local media outraged at the trade and treatment of the Polynesians, public opinion in Peru and Chile against the enterprise was mounting as they came to fully understand the true nature of the imported labour.  On 28 April 1863, Peru introduced new regulations that no labour ship could disembark crew or passengers without a special licence, 'which would only be granted after it had been made evident that the labourers had been freely contracted and that no crimes had been committed during the voyage'.

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Eventually a repatriation programme was arranged, with the first ship leaving Callo port in July 1863 but it was so badly organised that almost as many islanders died as a result of being returned to the South Pacific, as had died up to that point.

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Altogether 3,215 Polynesians are believed to have died as a result of being taken to Peru. But these were not all the deaths.  The smallpox and dysentery brought back by the few remaining survivors during the repatriation operation is estimated to have resulted in another 2,950 deaths, making a total of over 6,000 who died owing to the Peruvian slave raids, according to Maude.

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Maude wrote that soon after the repatriation was over there were said to be only 100 Polynesians left alive in Peru and nine of these managed to escape to the islands in ships which called, including one from Tokelau whose name is not known but who died from consumption soon after his return. Another Tokelauan, Hehe a Afora (or Mato as he was known on Rapa) married a Rapan and settled on the island, but his son Teau visited Fakaofo to see the land of his ancestors in 1924, when he was given a big welcome by the people.

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In 1973, anthropologist Dr Grant McCall was sent to Peru by The Australian National University to search for oral traditions or contemporary documentation concerning the Polynesians who remained behind after the abortive attempts at repatriation. Maude wrote: "He found that nothing remained but the record of 155 deaths in the Lima Charity Hospital, the last being in 1867; nothing, that is, but the single word 'canaca', now used as a derisive term for a lazy person and without any remembered connection with Pacific islanders or other racial group."

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The Peruvian government undertook an investigation into the slave trading, but very few of those involved were punished for their abhorrent crimes. 

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This page was compiled and written by Tokelauan/Samoan writer/producer Samson Samasoni based on a variety of sources.  Please refer any questions/notes to Samson directly by email.

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Photo Caption:  Cry of the Stolen People is a 2019 art installation that tells the story of blackbirding, the abductions of Tokelauans, and their sale into slavery in the world's last slave market in Peru. It's the brainchild of three artists in residence at Porirua's Whitireia Polytech, Moses Viliamu (a member of the Atafu Tokelau Community Group), Jack Kirifi and the late Zac Mateo.  Cry of the Stolen People was to  be shown at the Pacific Arts Festival in Hawai'i in 2020 but the event was cancelled due to the global Covid pandemic.  It was later shown in Porirua in 2021, a video of the full  Event is available here.