The People Trade

This text presents the story of the people who left their homes to go and work in the French colony of New Caledonia. Using a variety of sources, the author explores the recruitment of the workers, their living conditions, how many died and the decision to stay.

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This text presents the story of the people of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and the Solomon islands, who left their homes to work in the French colony of New Caledonia has long remained a missing piece of Pacific island history. The author brings these labourers to life by painstakingly assembling the fragments from a wide variety of scattered records and documents. She sketches the workers' lives during and after recruitment, describing the contractual agreements, the kinds of work they did, their living conditions, how they spent their free time, the large numbers who sickened and died, and the difficult choice at the end of the contract to remain in the colony as a free worker or to return home.