I don't mean to downplay the severity, but there are procedural differences. Slavery was pro forma banned at the time. Effectively, I agree, for all practical purposes of the folk in chains, it was slavery.
Time would prove that the kindness the indigenous people of New Guinea had shown to the Americans and Australians was real, but that their supposed “loyalty,” much touted by Allied propaganda, was not. The truth is that no one ever asked the native people their point of view. After the war ended, researchers seeking oral testimonies from New Guineans who had lived through the war were astonished to learn that the native peoples were united in one opinion: that they wanted the “whites”—among whom they included Japanese, Australians, and Americans—just to go away and leave them alone.
"No, we won't let you suffer. No, we don't want you here."
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