CHAPTER 7
Slaves

Once the rest of the world learned about Easter Island and could find it on a map, sailors on long voyages began to stop there to get water and food.

Most of the ships that visited the island in the early 1800s were whaling ships and seal hunters. At first, they were just looking for supplies. They took away fresh water, bananas, sweet potatoes, and yams. Each time, they left behind more disease.

Then in 1805, a ship called the Nancy arrived from America. Its captain was a brutal man named J. Crocker. He and his crew attacked the islanders and captured more than twenty of them. He took the islanders onto his ship—as slaves!

A whaling ship

Both the men and the women were kept chained up in the hold of the ship until it had sailed two hundred miles away. Then Crocker let the prisoners come back up onto the deck. He planned to force the prisoners to work for him, catching seals.

But instantly, the Easter Island men jumped into the water and started to swim back home! They didn’t realize how far away Easter Island was. Most likely, all the men drowned. (The women were kept aboard the ship and remained slaves.)

Captain Crocker visited Easter Island again, to kidnap more slaves. After that, the island people no longer trusted visitors. Whenever a ship came near, they threw stones at it.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the whaling ships from coming to Easter Island—and taking more slaves.

In 1862, more ships arrived, looking for slave laborers. This time the slave raiders came from South America—from Peru. They tricked the islanders into boarding their ships or took them by force. If the islanders wouldn’t go along peacefully, they were shot!

Many slaves landed in Peru. Slavery was illegal there. But the slave raiders had a way to get around the law. They made the islanders sign a contract, agreeing to work as servants or laborers in the fields of Peru. Some of them were forced into a disgusting job. They had to scoop up huge piles of bird poop from an island offshore, where hundreds of birds lived. The bird poop was called guano. It was sold as fertilizer.

Nearly fifteen hundred Easter Islanders were enslaved in a short period of time. That was more than half the population of the whole island!

Pretty soon, other countries of the world heard about the slave trade. Many thought it was wrong—especially France. French Catholic missionaries arrived in the Pacific islands. Missionaries are people who want to teach their religion to others. The French priests argued against keeping islanders as slaves. A French bishop complained about slavery to high officials in Peru. In Rome even the head of the Catholic Church became involved.

Pope Pius IX

Finally, in 1863, Peru let the islanders go. But freedom came too late for most of them. Many had already died from smallpox in Peru. Others died on the way home. Only about a dozen Easter Islanders made it back to their life on the island.

Slavery

Slavery has existed all over the world for thousands of years, and still exists in some places today. In ancient times, people were captured and held as slaves in Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome. In Mexico in the years between AD 750 and 800, slaves were used to build huge temples out of stone. In the Middle Ages, local people were held as slaves in England, Spain, and Poland. In the seventeenth century, slaves were brought to North America from West Africa to work on plantations (large farms) in the South. Some worked as servants in the North.

But in the late 1700s, countries began to abolish slavery—to make it illegal. France was one of the first countries to abolish slavery, in 1794. By the 1860s, countries all over the world were rejecting the hateful practice. Slavery was finally abolished in the United States in 1865 after the Civil War ended.