St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-11-02
a TALE FROM SAMOA
startling Stories OF Cruelty and
Cannibalism in the Islands.

~AhAOE@llSIil III the lSlanuS.
San Francisco Chronicle.
Samoa has always been pictured as
Inc home of the palm tree and mission
airy, where soft ,zephyrs blow and the
people live in idleneSS all the year
around. Val Cullen Jones, a newspaper
correspondent, who guided some I'M
fortunate SamOans home at the bidding
OF the New York World. found il differ
eht. ana tells of deep woods infested
with cannibals and system of slavery
worse than that existing on the east
coast of Africa.
no man could eXaggerate the horri-
Die condition OF things on the Samoan
Islands, said Jones at the Palace hotel
Yesterday. Il found that thousands of
men are openly Kept there in slavery of
the most awful sort. The Germans.
VINO own al the choice land in Samoa
and the plantations. get their laborers
from the Solomon islands. They do not
buy them or trade for them even. but
simply send a ship and barter for a
cargo OF SavageS, educated only in can
nibalism. They beat the negroes into
SnpJection, and keep them i'll that con-
dlIloh by cruelty"
Mr. Jones saiG that we'll posted men
whom he talked with in Apia were of
the opinion that fully 5000 Solomon
Island blacks had been eHslaved by the
German planters and taken to Samoa.
AT least a third of them had escaped.
ana Most OF these were living in the
deepest part of the forests and in noun
tam recesses on the island of Upolu.
That the blacks who thus fed to the
woods and remained there returned TO
cannl0alism was not doubted 10y the
whites in Samoa.
correspondent Jones said that while
the blacks remained with their captors
they were constantly under the eyes of
0Verseers. II any slave was stupid or
dlsoDedlent, he was beaten with wire
cato -nlne-tails made not of nine wires,
but OF hundreds. Each wire had brad
at the end, and the weapon, when prop
erly welded. was a formidable one.
One stroke with it would make holes in
slaves back. and the sun beating
down would soon make each wound
tester. Sometimes the result OF such
beating was death.
There were instances. Mr.. Jones
added, when the Solomon island saw
ages rebelled. but usually they were
tractable enough uhtil opportunity
came for escape. Afterward they
watched for revenge. About a year ago
an overseer named SehillIng, who was
VIGOROUSLY cruel, was caught up by
slaves who had run away. and was car
ried into the woods. With thOrns they
cut all the tendOns of the wrists. then
pulled each tendon down toward the
elbow. Thus mutilated, the man was
left tied TO tree. He was found there
few days later, and was released, but
he never recovered so that he could use
a V hip again. More recently an over
seer named Nessler was caught east of
Apia in the woods, and the natives cut
cTiss-crOss gashes in his flesh all over
his body. When Jones saw this man
In Apia the wounds had only partly
healed.
The three Samoans sent home by the
World were delivered safely. ana one
more with them. This was a Samoan
woman who had married a man named
Griffith. Her husband took her to Chi
cagO and then deserted her, and she
tried to get home, and was on the Mon
oval when Jones first heard Of her. She
had intended 10 stop at Honolulu and
work until she got money enough TO 90
the rest of the way to Samoa. The pas
sengers raised money enough to pay her
fare home.