Slavers in Paradise

This book is about the Peruvian labor trade in Polynesia, 1862-1864. Harry Maude has been connected with the Pacific Islands ever since 1927, when he read for honors in anthropology at Cambridge University, specializing in the social organization of the islanders. Fascinated by the romance of the South Seas, as portrayed in its literature, Maude joined the British Colonial Service as District Officer in the Gilbert Islands in 1929, and later became Chief Lands Commissioner and eventually Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Colony (now the Republic of Kiribati and Dominion of Tuvalu), the only anthropologist ever to administer a British territory.

Anticipating the collapse of colonialism he then joined the international South Pacific Commission in charge of regional social development; and on retirement at 50 he accepted an offer to research and write on Pacific Islands history at the Australian National University.