blackbirding

[ blak-bur-ding ]

noun

1. History/Historical. the act or practice of kidnapping people, especially Pacific Islanders, and selling them into slavery abroad, usually in Australia.

Word History and Origins

Origin of blackbirding¹

First recorded in 1870–75; blackbird + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

It also refers directly to practices known as “blackbirding”, where Pacific islanders were tricked or kidnapped into slave or cheap labour in colonies throughout the region.

From BBC

From the “blackbirding” of Pacific Islander people who were were kidnapped and forced into labouring work, to the Indigenous farmhands and domestic servants who were traded between settlers and not paid, there certainly was slavery in Australia.

From The Guardian

Aboriginal women were captured and sold as divers to pearl luggers, in a practice known as blackbirding, and indentured workers were brought in from Indonesia and other parts of Asia.

From The Guardian

There was Cock-eye Corbett, an ex-sailor, who was immoral and a Lancashireman, and knew more about blackbirding and copra and Kanakas, and the rum-holes from Nagasaki to Mombasa, than it is healthy for a civil servant to know.

From Project Gutenberg

Some of these ruffians went to the scaffold or to long terms of imprisonment; and from that time the British Government in a maundering way set to work to effect some sort of supervision of the British ships employed in the "blackbirding" trade.

From Project Gutenberg