How 'Blackbirders' Forced Tens of Thousands of Pacific Islanders Into Slavery After the Civil War

At the height of blackbirding, European powers occupied much of Oceania, the collective name for the islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. With limited resources deployed over the vast distances between Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and other islands in the subregion of Melanesia (the main target of blackbirding), colonial governments found it virtually impossible to keep up with the slave trade.

One man dressed in the costume of the Ku Klux Klan, a waterproof bag hidden under his robes, writes historian Gerald Horne in The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War. He would mesmerize a crowd by seemingly sucking saltwater into his growing belly.

Read at Smithsonian Magazine