to protect ‘natives of islands in the Pacific Ocean, not being in Her Majesty’s dominions, nor within the jurisdiction of any civilized power’ (6), despite the issue of kidnapping resulting from the British presence. This evidence would suggest that by the end of the 19th century public opinion had already changed significantly from the ‘savages’ that the indigenous populations were once viewed as, to a people worthy of protection, although it must be noted that in doing so, the islanders were clearly infantilised, deemed incapable of protecting themselves.
Yet even in 1906, claims were still circulating that this form of slavery persisted in the South Pacific, capturing the attention of media the world over, as seen in appendix B. The possibility that slavery was still practised 75 years after England outlawed it in 1833 is evidence of the European attitude towards the South Pacific as a something of a backwater where usual morals and laws did not apply.
Many South Pacific tribes, particularly of the Solomon Islands, Samoa and Vanuatu, practised head hunting as a crucial part of their culture. It was this trait that strongly contributed to the white men’s denunciation of the islanders as ‘savages’, as it continued long after the widespread colonisation of the region. In Jack London’s 1911 account of his voyage around Micronesia, The Cruise of the Snark (7), he told of headhunters from Malaita (in the Solomon Islands) attacking his ship, as the Snark and other similar ships were engaging in blackbirding. He gave the specific example of Captain Mackenzie of a fellow ship, the Minolta, who was beheaded by islanders in retaliation for his men kidnapping villagers by force, as the islanders believed in the ‘eye for an eye’ form of justice, practised widely not only against Europeans but also between tribes. According to a village elder that I met from Vanuatu, headhunting and cannibalism occurred in the most remote areas of Vanuatu into the 1980s, highlighting long-term issues with law enforcement faced by Pacific authorities as a result of culture clash.
The immediate catalyst for the creation of the Kidnapping Act was the shocking murder of B
