NEW ZEALAND SLAVE TRADE

 In what  amounts to  a  special edition about the South Pacific  , the   June  edition  of  the  New  Zealand Genealogist has a detailed  article about   Kanakas  brought  to that country , like they were in Queensland ,  as   cheap labour .  Headed  Melanesians in  New Zealand , by Christine Liavala’a , with photos ,  it opens with the 1870 arrival in Auckland of the schooner Lulu with 23 men from  Vanuatu. Newspapers  denounced the arrival of the “ niggers ”.  An editorial in the Wellington Evening Post  said bringing a party of  Kanakas , nominally coming of their own free will  to work at  a  flax mill ,  awakened  grave  reflections.  The introduction of this labour in Queensland , it  said, had inaugurated a  species of slave trade  , which had  proved  a disgrace to the Colonies  and  to the age  we live in . Mention was   made of  the  Daphne affair in which the captain and owners of  the vessel had escaped the meshes of law , yet there was  no doubt that they were  guilty of  trading in flesh and blood  .There is reference to Sir George Bowen, the Governor of  New Zealand who, from his experience in Queensland , felt there was no need to bring in Melanesian labour in a temperate  climate where there were no sugar or  cotton plantations. Other articles  deal  with the Pacific and  the Great War , Germans in Samoa , Researching  the  Pacific Islands , Pacific Images  at the  Auckland Museum .  Again, a  good read .