Trials of Trusteeship   |   Remembering an Adopted Cousin   |   The Role of the Beachcombers in the Caroline Islands   |   The "Push" to Migrate   |   A Leap Into the Unknown   |   Micronesian Migrants Living in Poverty   |   Blackbirding in the 21st Century   |   The Expensive Taste for Modernity   |   Cultural Loss: How Real is the Threat?   |   Former FSM Senator Bossy Died September 24, 1997   |   An Alternative Strategy for Developing a Micronesian Export Economy   |   The Clam Industry in the Marshalls   |   The Call to Arms: Micronesians in the Military   |   Lessons Learned   |   Sacred Place, Taboo Place: Negotiating Roang on Lamotrek Atoll   |   Carolinian-Marianas Voyaging, Continuing the Tradition   |   Paradise with Rough Edges   |   Micronesia Settled 5,000 Years Ago

Encyclopedia Britannica defines "blackbirding": in history of slavery, the practice, once prevalent in western Pacific regions, of kidnapping people and transporting them to forced labor in distant plantations; sometimes the kidnapped people were paid nominal wages and were permitted to return home later; sometimes they were sold into outright slavery; ships and men engaged in this business were called “blackbirders". For a while, the practice of blackbirding seemed to have re-emerged, at least in the Micronesian islands and especially in the Marshalls and the Federated States of Micronesia. Unscupulous recruiters came to the impoverished islands telling of good jobs available in the mainland U.S. which paid good salaries and training.  Just sign here. As the following articles show, not everything was as the recruiters promised. The lid was blown off this modern day blackbirding by reporters Walter F. Roche Jr. of the Baltimore Sun and Willoughby Mariano of the Orlando, Florida Sentinel.  These reporters interviewed Micronesian workers throughout the southeastern U.S.  The islanders in the worse situations were those working at minimum wage in nursing homes. Of course, the reporters were looking at the worse cases.  I know and have visited with numerous Micronesians who were in similar situations.  That is, they fell for the promises of the recruiters.  The difference was, they knew they would have to start at the bottom, so to speak, and went into the jobs with a positive attitude.   Some of those I spoke with have returned to the islands, but most have turned their two years as an indentured worker into a postive, using their two years experience to land better jobs in another area of the state or in another state. But no matter how many good stories came from this, the fact is that the young islanders were lured away from their homes by false promises, and they all spent two years of indentured servitude. Indentured in America   ·   Ruthless Trade of the 'body brokers'   ·   Money, Migration and US Missles   ·   Nursing Homes Study   ·   Aussies Blackbirding, Too?   ·   Adopting Micronesians Click Here for a Complete List of Micronesia Books FSM News  |  The FSM  |  FSM States  |  FSM Religion  |  FSM Health Issues  |  Our Troops  |  WW2 Stories  |   Love Potion  |  Products  |  Micronesia Books © 2006 nopukob.com