What I do remember about the voyage? Given what happened how can one forget?
That I participated in this atrocity still troubles my conscience some fifty years later.
The story is so gruesome and yet seemingly at the time so normal. But I feel I must tell
the story without any reservations.
The Carl set sail from Melbourne in June, 1871. And I, Jim Bowen, was
the ship’s fifteen-year-old cabin boy. I had been a cabin boy for over a year, sailing up
and down the Australian coast, visiting ports in the colonies of New South Wales and
Queensland. But this voyage on the Carl was my first out of Australian waters. Our
destination was Fiji, where the owner of the ship, Dr James Murray, intended to
purchase land for sugar cultivation. But once there Dr Murray changed his mind. It
was an ill fated decision.
It was in Fiji that Dr Murray purchased a licence from the British Consul to
participate it what was called the Pacific Labour Trade. This ‘trade’ involved
‘recruiting’ Pacific Islanders to work on sugar, cotton and rice plantations in the
Australian colonies and the sugar plantations of Fiji.
By mid-September the Carl was off the coast of the island of Bougainville. Our
earlier attempts to lure islanders on board by pretending to be missionaries had been
unsuccessful. So this time, off Bougainville, a different method of recruitment was
planned.
As we idled in calm waters the unsuspecting locals, in canoes, came close to the
ship. They were curious and wanted to trade. We waved to them and drew them closer.
But when they were close enough we put well laid plans into action.
Dr Murray gave the word and we tossed over heavy metal and old cannons onto the
canoes below. This smashed the canoes, punching holes in them, and throwing the men
into the sea. Long boats were then launched and we hauled them, one by one,
on to the Carl and bungled them into the ship’s hold. Those who resisted were
clubbed into submission. The sea around the ship was a turgid, bubbling froth of blood.
By the time we had finished our unsavoury actions over eighty men were safely
packed in to the hold.
I take a moment here to reflect on the ship’s owner. Dr Murray was a strange man.
Earlier, he had made a name for himself in the colonies by being part of the team to
locate the missing Burke and Wills expedition. But tiring of medicine he had decided
that a sure way to make money in the Australian colonies was to participate in the slave
trade.
The brutality of ‘recruiting’ the islanders was only the start. Trapped below in a fetid
and cramped space the islanders rebelled and attempted to smash their way out.
Alarmed, Dr Murray ordered members of the crew to open fire with muskets into the
hold. After several volleys of shot it went quiet below. But the next morning, as we
sailed for Fiji, the rioting re-started. Again the crew were ordered to open fire, with
silence following the volleys of musket shot.
Slicing through tranquil waters close to the Fiji islands, Dr Murray ordered that
the crew open the hatch. About ten to twelve islanders staggered out. Below, the rest
were either dead or dying. The next order was the most gruesome. Dr Murray ordered
several of us into the hold, myself included, to remove the dead and injured. It took
some time to complete the task as we brought each body up on to the deck.
After a brief rest we set about throwing the dead and injured overboard. Young men,
older men, boys. It was terrible. One by one we flung them into the sea. The whole
process was carried out as though it was a daily routine. One body after another, tossed
into the water. Blood, sweat and grime everywhere. Afterwards none of us said a word
as we slumped into corners, lost in deep thought.
The remaining islanders, washed and fed, fetched a good price when sold in Fiji.
Murray seemed happy enough, but what of the human cost? Over sixty islanders dead.
Lives ruined. Including mine.
I never went to sea again after the Carl docked. I became a stockman then a
blacksmith; married had three children and said nothing to anybody of what had
happened on that voyage. This document I have placed in a secure place, only to be read
after I am long gone.
Old age is a good time for reflection. From my window I can see the sea. Now
tranquil, it ebbs and flows, so calm and structured, and shows no sign of the hideous
crime perpetrated on the Bougainville islanders all those years ago.
© Tropical Writers Inc 2026