Life for Chinese labourers in Australia
before the 1850s was often one of physical hardship in harsh conditions. On the
right, Chinese labourers in search of work walk along a winding country road
past bullock teams. On the left, Chinese workers are clearing bushland.
The earliest Chinese contact with Australia appears to have come from
fishermen searching the north-western coastline of Australia for sandalwood and
sea cucumbers. Chinese sources actually refer to a 1477 map that shows the
outline of the Australian continent. In the journal of HMS Investigator
(1802–1803), Matthew Flinders noted that the Aboriginal people of the Gulf of
Carpentaria seemed familiar with firearms and iron tools, and he reported
seeing pieces of earthen jars, bamboo latticework and other articles which he
thought to be of Chinese origin.
Chinese
settlement plays an important part in the unique heritage of New South Wales. Themes
which cross our mind when we talk about the Chinese settlement includes:
- Migration: cultural and social background from the villages of south China
- Social Institutions and Commerce: organisation, support and business relations of Chinese people
- Law, order and labour: White Australia Policy and Chinese people’s response role in shaping the pattern of Chinese settlement
- Agriculture and Mining: significant contribution of Chinese people
- Leisure: two things associated with Chinese - opium and gambling
- Persons: diversity of lives led by Chinese people
Ships of
First Fleet were dropping off convicts in Australia and sailing to China to
pick up goods to take it to Britain. Early musters and census shows
Chinese migration was a great solution to the labour shortage in New South
Wales. Records show that about 18
Chinese settlers had immigrated to Australia before 1848.
The earliest known Chinese immigrant to arrive in Parramatta is reported
to have been Mak Sai Ying. Born in Guangzhou (Canton) in 1798, he arrived as a
free settler in New South Wales in 1818 and purchased land at Parramatta. In
1829 Mak Sai Ying (or John Shying as he later became known) was granted the
licence for The Lion, a public house at Parramatta. He returned to
China in 1832, but was back in Sydney five years later. Some of his children became
furniture makers, and his descendants became cabinet-makers and undertakers in Sydney.
Prominent landowner John Macarthur employed three
Chinese workers including Mai Sai Ying on his properties in the 1820s. Chinese
migrants came to Australia in small numbers in the early nineteenth century to
work as cooks, labourers, market gardeners and cabinet makers.
The first group of Chinese labour who arrived in 1848 was
100 adults and 20 boys to work in various farms within New South Wales. With
the discovery of gold in early 1851, Chinese immigration numbers increased to
17000 by 1855. By 1861
there was a group of 26 Chinese men settled in Parramatta, one of the largest
groups of Chinese outside the goldfields. During the
nineteenth century Chinese, South Sea Islanders and Indians were the main
non-European groups to arrive in the Tweed. In 1861 Chinese made up three
percent of the colonial population. This dropped to one percent by 1891, by
which time gold had petered out and many Chinese miners had returned home.
In
1891, The Royal Commission presented a report to New South Wales Parliament
about the Chinese gambling and opium smoking of Chinese persons living near St.
George and market gardens in suburbs.
In 1901 the new Federal Parliament introduced the Immigration
Restriction Act 1901 which initiated legislation shaped Australia’s immigration
policy until World War II and resulted in a decline in the Chinese population
and restrictions on Chinese entry to Australia. This White Australia Policy,
aimed at excluding non-Europeans from Australia.
As
per the reports in 1913 from Inspectors of Nuisances to the Town Clerk, most of
the councils had an inspector who kept the log book of the reports made by the
residents regarding the offensive smell, dilapidated buildings, illegal
construction and living conditions of Chinese market gardeners.
The post-war migration program introduced by the
Federal Government in 1945 brought a large influx of British and European
migrants to boost Australia’s population and provide a workforce for industrial
development. It was not until the 1960s that the White Australia Policy was
finally dismantled and Asians once again began to be accepted as migrants.
The post-war period brought many Chinese people to
Australia. During this period, “Chinese market gardener” image of Chinese people
was replaced by “Chinese Cafes”.
Earliest arrivals - 1788 to 1848
From the very beginning of the colony, links with China
were established when several
ships of the First Fleet, after dropping off their convict
load, sailing for Canton to pick up
goods for the return to England. The Bigge Report
attributed the high level of tea drinking
to 'the existence of an intercourse with China from the
foundation of the Colony'. That
the ships carrying such cargo had Chinese crew members is
likely and that some of the
crew and possibly passengers embarked at the port of Sydney
is probable. In 1818, Mak Sai Ying ( aka John Shying) arrived in Australia and
after a period farming bought a land in Parramatta. John Macarthur employed three
Chinese people on his properties in the 1820s.
Indentured Labour - 1848 to 1853
Individuals such as Macarthur's employees were part of the
varied mix that was early
Sydney Town. It was the increasing demand for labour
after transportation ceased in the
1840s that led to much larger numbers of Chinese people arriving
as indentured labourers
to work as shepherds and irrigation experts for private
landowners and the Australian
Agricultural Company.
Between 1848 and 1853, over 3,000 Chinese workers on
contracts arrived via the Port of
Sydney for employment in the New South Wales countryside.
Very little is known of the habits of such
men or their relations with other New South Wales residents except for those that
appear in the records of the courts and asylums. Some stayed for the term of their
contracts and then left for home, but there is evidence that others spent the
rest of their lives in New South Wales. A Gulgong resident who died at age 105
in 1911 had been in New South Wales since 1841.
Gold Rushes - 1853 to 1877
Large numbers of Chinese people were working on the Victorian
goldfields and fewer on the smaller New South Wales fields in the mid 1850s.
From miners to artisans - 1877 to 1901
The last gold rush in the eastern colonies of Australia
occurred in 1873 in the far north of
Queensland at the Palmer River and by 1877 there were 20,000
Chinese there. After the
ending of this Queensland rush people either returned to
China or moved to other states and began
trying other ways of earning a living. People opened stores and became
merchants and hawkers. Some Chinese people were operating fish curing industry
in north and south of Sydney.
Domiciles – 1901 to 1936
By this time, significant numbers of Chinese people were
running stores within New South Wales. Chinese language newspapers were also
been published in New South Wales.
War and Refugees – 1936 to 1949
Cafes to Citizens - 1949 to 1958
In the post-war period, cafes began to replace market gardens
as the major source of employment and avenue for bringing in new migrants, both
legal and illegal.
Re-migration & Multiculturalism - 1958 to the present
The final death of the White Australia Policy saw new arrivals
from the Chinese. Chinese language newspapers were once again published.
The practice of returning the bones of the dead to rest
in the soil of their ancestors was
fundamental in Chinese culture and played an important
role in the bond with the village.
The usual practice was to bury a body for several years then
to collect the bones of a
number people at once to be 'returned to
China'.
District societies played the dominant role in the return
of bones. The return of bones to the actual villages was probably done through
the Tung Wah Hospital based in Hong Kong, a role this institution played for Chinese
people in many countries It is not known when the first societies were established
in New South Wales but the Quang Sing Tong, which was in existence by 1877, was
reported to be the oldest. By the 1890s there were at least 10 such societies in
Sydney with memberships that reached throughout New South Wales.
Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney reported that 75% of burials in
the 'Old Chinese Section' of Rookwood Cemetery were, ' returned to China' - 1500 exhumations from 1875 to 1939. After entire working life spend in New South Wales,
returning the bones of the dead to rest in the soil of their ancestors was fundamental
in Chinese culture and played an important role in the bond with the village. The
last recorded exhumation from this section of the cemetery in 1962.
While the majority of Chinese people in New South Wales were
not Christian and minority did convert to Christianity. The motivation for doing
so seemed to have been intermarriage and the desire of non-Chinese wife.
Chinese people began to expand themselves into various
occupations like fishing and the curing of fish, storekeeping, international trade,
fruit and vegetable selling, hawking, drapery,
cabinet-making, newspaper publishing, shipping and restaurants.
The first recorded Chinese store was in Campbell St,
Sydney in 1858 but by the end of
the 19th century, Sydney was the centre of a network of
such stores spread throughout
New South Wales. Generally the Sydney stores had links and
partnerships with those in rural New South Wales.
In 1919, Chinese businessmen in the Eastern States were
able to raise £30,000 to
invest in China Steelworks.
The earliest Chinese Newspapers, the Chinese
Australian Herald was established in 1894 by two Europeans and a Chinese
person named Sun Johnson. The Chinese Republican News was founded in
1914 to support the new Republic of China, and the Chinese World News, founded
in 1921
Tobacco growing was an industry that appears to have been
pioneered by Chinese
farmers in New South Wales and by 1891 there were 464
growers in New South Wales and Victoria, a number
that fell to 89 only 10 years later.
Gambling and the smoking of opium, considered the two great
vices of Chinese men, were not only much indulged in by Europeans but opium was
legal until the early 20th century and was an ample source of income for the New
South Wales government.
Rich & Famous: Chinese people such as Arthur Chang
opened the first café in Parramatta in 1950s called Arthur’s Café. Mei Quang
Tart is well known because of their wealth. Mei Quong Tart had been brought up
by a European family and was able to deal equally well with both European and Chinese
people.
New South Wales has and continues to have a long and
interesting Chinese heritage, from the tea drinking disapproved of by Bigge to
the present day descendants of John Shying. This heritage is represented in the
remains of buildings and items scattered throughout most regions of New South Wales.
References:
Choi, C. Y., Chinese Migration and Settlement in
Australia, Sydney University Press,
Sydney, 1975.
Smith, Lindsay M., The Chinese of Kiandra, New South
Wales. A report to the New South Wales Heritage Office, October 1997.
Young, Faye, Sources for Chinese Local History and Heritage in New
South Wales; 1997
Fitzgerald, Shirley; Red Tape Gold Scissors: the story of Sydney’s
Chinese; 1996
Jones, Paul; Chinese Australian Journeys: records on Travel, Migration
and settlement, 1960 – 1975; 2005
Brook, Jack; From Canton with Courage: Parramatta
and Beyond: Chinese arrivals 1800 – 1900; 2010
William, Michael, Chinese settlement in NSW: a thematic history, NSW
Heritage Office, 1999
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