Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The kidnapping of negroes or Polynesians to be sold into slavery.
  • Engaged in the kidnapping of negroes or Polynesians to be sold as slaves: as, a blackbirding crew.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The kidnaping of negroes or Polynesians to be sold as slaves.
  • noun Australia The act or practice of collecting natives of the islands near Queensland for service on the Queensland sugar plantations.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun UK, Australia The practice of kidnapping Pacific Islanders, or kanakas, for sale as cheap labour.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From blackbird +‎ -ing, suggestedly from the putative slang blackbird ("indigenous Pacific islander").

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Examples

  • I had had some experience in blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus.

    THE HEATHEN 2010

  • I had had some experience in blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus.

    THE HEATHEN 2010

  • I had had some experience in blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus.

    THE HEATHEN 2010

  • I had had some experience in blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus.

    The Heathen 1914

  • I had had some experience in blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus.

    South Sea Tales: The Heathen(DL SunSITE) 1911

  • They made little progress at first, because "blackbirding" -- the often brutal recruitment of laborers for the sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji -- led to a series of reprisals and massacres.

    unknown title 2009

  • They made little progress at first, because "blackbirding" -- the often brutal recruitment of laborers for the sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji -- led to a series of reprisals and massacres.

    unknown title 2009

  • They made little progress at first, because "blackbirding" -- the often brutal recruitment of laborers for the sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji -- led to a series of reprisals and massacres.

    unknown title 2009

  • They made little progress at first, because "blackbirding" -- the often brutal recruitment of laborers for the sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji -- led to a series of reprisals and massacres.

    unknown title 2009

  • "Following the importation of workers from the Pacific islands in the late 1800s, often known as 'blackbirding', successive Australian Governments have repeatedly rejected calls to allow any form of unskilled labour immigration," he said.

    UQ News Online 2010

Comments

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  • "...the prejudice exists among international relief workers in Mekele that missing men have been blackbirded for resettlement, and so strong is this impression that they will not take the obvious step of approaching party officials and requesting information. Resettlement is mentioned in hushed tones, with knowing nods."

    - 'Resetlement, Ethiopia, 1985', Germaine Greer in The Madwoman's Underclothes.

    September 1, 2008

  • Blackbirding has continued to the present day in developing countries. One example is the kidnapping and coercion at gunpoint of indigenous people in Central America to work as plantation laborers in the region, where they are exposed to heavy pesticide loads and do backbreaking work for very little pay.

    April 1, 2018