When did Blackbirding stop?

Slavery has been illegal in the (former) British Empire since the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade of 1807, and certainly since 1833. Slavery practices emerged in Australia in the 19th century and in some places endured until the 1950s.

The slave trade was important in the development of the wider economy – financial, commercial, legal and insurance institutions all emerged to support the activities of the slave trade. Some merchants became bankers and many new businesses were financed by profits made from slave–trading.

The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa and to take those they enslaved back to Europe.

Slavery, condition in which one human being was owned by another. A slave was considered by law as property, or chattel, and was deprived of most of the rights ordinarily held by free persons.

1904

1916

Slavery of Fijians In addition to the blackbirded labour from other Pacific islands, thousands of people indigenous to the Fijian archipelago were also sold into slavery on the plantations. … Two thousand Lovoni men, women and children were sold and their period of slavery lasted five years.

Ethnic Indians make up 44% of Fiji’s population. … Most indigenous Fijians, dark-skinned people who are ethnically Melanesian, either scrape out a living as subsistence farmers or work for ethnic Indian bosses.