Tragic Pacific Blackbirder

This is a black ship in the Gilbert Islands’ history. It’s the brigantine “Tahiti” in which 270 Gilbert Islanders died in 1891. The vessel was built in California in 1881 for the San Francisco-Papeete mail run, via Taiohae. After some years in that service she was withdrawn and entered the blackbirding trade. Captain Fred K.

Klebingat, of San Pedro, who supplies the photo, says she was found bottom up by the ship “Roselle” off the American coast and in quiries revealed that she had been bound from the Gilberts to the coffee plantations of Central America with her human cargo at the time of her loss. All hands were drowned.