Mambare Bay

Name
Mambare Bay
Type of carceral site
Blackbirding
Dates of use
1847 – 1906
Quote
The time honoured recruiting signal - a piece of dynamite set adrift on a board and exploded - was given, and the boat dropped away from the ship's side and headed for shore [...] such natives as were disposed to enlist for work on the plantations waded out through the shallows and were accepted or rejected according to their physiques. Then, with a full load of them, the whaleboat pulled off to us, discharged of its living fright, and returned for yet another.
Novel.
Walsh, J.M. Overdue: A Romance of Unknown New Guinea. The States Publishing Company, 1925, p. 60.
Then began the - to the natives, at least - meaningless mummery of signing on. Each man was brought forward separately […] McClure signed the fellow' name, and the man attested his signature with whatever cabalistic sign constituted his idea of the 'white master's' writing.
Novel.
Walsh, J.M. Overdue: A Romance of Unknown New Guinea. The States Publishing Company, 1925, p. 61.
This barbaric coast-line of New Guinea, inhabited only by savage monsters of huge stature and unappeasable ferocity, is really the boundary of a great empire, the Saturn ring of a new planet [...] more civilised than was ancient Mexico […] the El Dorado of Raleigh.
Short Story, Adventure Fiction.
Clarke, Marcus. The Australian Edition of the Selected Works of Marcus Clarke. Ferguson and Mirchell Printers, 1891, p. 350.
MOLEN [remembering]: I am a very old man now, you see. I have lived a long life, and it will soon be time for me to die. From those who returned after the end of our contract in the plantation, I am the last man alive. Mally Bulla was everyone's favorite plantation; it is this story I want to tell you, and later, when you are a father of many children, you can tell it to them; and their children will tell their children's children. You are a lucky man today. I hear and see cars, trucks, and ships driven by engines […]
Radioplay.
Toro, Albert, director. Sugarcane Days. Radioplay, 1979. Recorded and collected by Tom Dutton. Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC), collection TD1, item P02179. https://catalog.paradisec.org.au/object?id=https%3A%2F%2Fcatalog.paradisec.org.au%2Frepository%2FTD1%2FP02179.
Authority
Native Affairs Regulation No. 84; Native Plantation Ordinance 1918; Pacific Island Labourers Act 1880 (QLD)
Archives and sources
National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
National Archives of Papua New Guinea. National Library of Australia (Mambare River Region)
Item sets
Carceral Sites
Site pages
Welcome

Linked resources

Items with "isRelatedTo: Mambare Bay"
Title Class
Losuia Station Organization