Experiencing Outside Worlds: Tannese Labour Recruitment in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

Before its boundaries were exploded by contact with traders from the 1840s on, the end of the known world for the Tannese was Mataso, a small island just to the north of Efate. Even within the wooden barracks the separation of male and female quarters conformed to the familiar sexual demarcation, and with the large number of Tannese labourers on many plantations all-Tannese barracks would have been a feature on some of the larger estates. Tannese also recruited in much smaller numbers for Samoa, Hawaii, Tahiti and even the western reaches of Micronesia. In all, during the second half of the nineteenth century some thousands of Tannese were to be found spread throughout the Pacific and Australia – testimony to a deeply-felt urge, particularly but not exclusively among young men, to embark on lengthy journeys of exploration.