The North American Society for Oceanic History (NASOH) has chosen Associate Professor Steve Mullins’ paper on re-ordering the 19th Century western Pacific maritime trade, presented in Honolulu in 2002, for inclusion in a ‘best of the last five years’ cumulative proceedings.

Although the paper already has appeared in the prestigious UK maritime history journal 'The Mariner’s Mirror', NASOH has obtained permission to republish it in the United States.

The paper was constructed around the 1872 voyage of the German pearl-shelling schooner Franz from Sydney to Torres Strait via the western Pacific, the New Guinea north coast and the Netherlands East Indies.

Steve said the research was painstaking and took a number of years to complete because it drew on documentary evidence in 4 languages that had to be extricated from various overseas archives.

The translations were done at CQU Rockhampton, some by international students from Germany and The Netherlands who certainly seemed to enjoy their engagement in the project.

While the Franz voyage was a blood-curdling affair (fewer than half the crew survived, and the captain later drowned himself) it occurred at a critical moment of transition in the Sydney-based maritime trades, and offers important insights into changing relations between capital and labour, the ethnic composition of the workforce, the consequences of rapidly changing regulatory regimes and the shifting loci of power on colonialism’s maritime frontiers.