Dragon Tails: 4th Australasian Conference on Chinese in Australia.

Christina Ealing-Godbold2015

A Tale of Temples & DragonsWithout understanding the history of the Chinese immigrants, you cannot possibly understand the history of North Queensland

Dragon Tails 2015• Comparing the Qld experience • Researchers from USA, South Africa, New

Zealand, Indonesia, and all Australian states

• Multi-professional approach – archaeologists, anthropologists, museum curators, historians, genealogists.

History of Chinese LabourersThe Coolie Trade

Used world wide as a replacement for slaves - From British abolition - 1834Used in tropical environments where white workers were supposedly not able to withstand the heat and conditionsCuba – sugar plantations used Chinese

Prof. Evelyn Hu DeHart Keynote Speaker

Race History Expert, Brown University, R.I.Studied Chinese Labourers in Cuba1877 Chinese commissioners conduct survey of 3,000 Chinese in response to allegations of terrible treatment.- floggings, no food, no rest, cutting off fingers, sleeping in mud – high mortality.

Why Chinese labourers• Reliable and hard working• Worked long hours• Extracted minerals from land that had already

been worked by Europeans• Grew crops where there was little water.• Indentured – could not leave for a better pay

rate

Qld Workers Contracts• 5 years, working 6 days a week, • 9 and 1/2 hours per day, and • were to be paid 7 dollars per month.• food (8 oz meat per day), a suit of clothes and a

blanket yearly, free medical attendance and in the case of incurable illness, 50 dollars to pay the return passage home.

How many Chinese came to Queensland?

1861 5281864 6281868 26291877 22,0001881 112291891 85241901 76721911 5995

Location of Chinese in Qld• Cooktown to Cairns• Palmer River and gold fields of the north.• Stanthorpe • Pastoral workers – Gayndah/Burnett (from Amoy 1848-1853 3,000 men – NSW )• Fortitude Valley/Breakfast Creek/Frog’s Hollow –

Albert Street Brisbane.

Where did Chinese come from• Guangdong province, Canton and Amoy• Labour Brokers secured their services

Similar Contracts were used for labourers in Cuba, Peru and Queensland

• Miners were indentured labourers brought to work on mines belonging to other Chinese

Why Qld• Economic reasons• Taiping Rebellion – more than 20 million

Chinese reportedly killed in this period of complete civil unrest.

• Population explosion in China and pressure on the land

• Short Journey to Qld 13-18 days.

Gold! – “The New Gold Mt.” • Palmer River discovery in 1873 by James

Mulligan• By 1877, Palmer River fields were 90%

Chinese. • An estimated one hundred tonne of gold is

eventually extracted. • Last Qld Goldfield – Croydon 1886.

Ask the purpose of the enquiry• Family History• House Renovation• Local history• Land Use Survey

Immigration Restrictions

• 1873- Chinese Immigration Act • 1877 - Poll Tax of 10 Pds and limit

on mining on claims for first three years.

• 1888 – Severe Racism developed • 1901 – White Australia Policy

Racism! Heathens or Celestials

White Australia Policy• A complete bar on immigration• Concept – “Democracy required an

homogenous society”• Labour unions feared the lower pay rate

accepted by Chinese workers.• Chinese could not own land.

Genealogy of the Overseas Chinese

Emigration is a Western idea, and one that did not exist in Chinese cultural concepts. In China, the official view was that they were leaving home temporarily to make money. The Quing Government actually outlawed emigation or “leaving the home country forever.”

Tracing Family in China• Exact Chinese name of your ancestor • Name of the village in China where they

lived before emigration• Find Chinese characters for both• Chinese headstones can sometime give

you Chinese names in original characters.

Useful Sites for China• https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/China_Gen

ealogy - how to get started 

• https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1787988 - Chinese Genealogies 1239-2014

• http://villagedb.friendsofroots.org/search.cgi Use this website to track your village. Note it has Chinese characters

Finding Chinese Names• Structure – Family name, Generation

name, Person name e.g. Kwong Sue Duc• Transliteration – also many dialects• Changed names when

successful/married/moved cities• Anglicized – Huey became Hughes, Lee -

Long became Leong, Yung - Young

Records in Queensland• Queensland State Archives –

– List of coloured Asiatics 1913 –South Sea Islanders, Japanese, Chinese, Malay, Greek and Indian.

– Inquest Records– National Archives - Naturalization records,

Alien Registration, Certificates of Exemption

More Records• Annual Licenses – for all jobs – Queensland

Govt Gazette and State Archives• Aboriginal Act of 1897 – Protectorate records

where they married indigenous Australians.• Police Records –Aliens/movement forms• Trove – court reports/ community

reports/Petitions and Letters to the Editor.

Aliens! - World War One• Alien Registration certificates• Not allowed to fight in WW 1• Had to be 75% white to get around this• Doctors used to prove the percentage• Chinese leases squashed after WW1 for

Soldier Settlement blocks.

Storekeepers• Many Qld Country towns had Chinese

storekeepers.• Examples are William Lum Chew of Dalby

and Yip Ah Chee of Surat.• Selling/trading was part of their village life

in Canton, where each family took it in turns to sell their wares at the market.

Business Model• Grew produce - hawked them after work• Opened a store – many small investors• Bought in nephews, sons, relatives to work

70 hour weeks– low pay- lived on site• Many branches of stores/market gardens• Diversification

William Lum Chew, DalbyCame to Cooktown 1881 –”Glamis Castle”Dalby by 1888. Married Harriet Archie had 6 children and then lost his business in a fire in 1915. Died 1937.Ah Lum Chew, Lum Quee, Lim Chew, William Lum Chee, William Lum, William Lum –Choo, William Ah Chu and possibly Jung Gum Chew.

Index to Coloured Asiatics 1913

Shipping arrivals• Mariners and Ships in Australian Waters,

http://mariners.records.nsw.gov.au/ is a useful online website

• search each of the years, month by month, to see which ships came from Hong Kong. Use Control Find and word “Hong”

• Use Control Find again to search for the name e.g. “Lum” within that shipping list.

Which ship did Lum Chew a?“Glamis Castle” or“Thales” – bothStopped at Cooktown?

Alien Registration Queensland iAlien Registration Said he arrived in1884, but List of AsiaticsSaid 1881.

Births deaths marriagesLanguage and transcriptions of the original language compound the difficulties.

8 Children to William Lum Chew and Harriet Archie (Ah Chee) from 1898 to 1914

Harriet Lillie Lum Chew 1898Joseph Herbert Lum Chew 1900Anne Cora Lum Chew 1902Frank Roy Lum ChewLeslie Buckle Lum ChewVictor Archie Lum Chew

 1905 19121908 (died age 2)

Lum Chew Fruiterer loses his Destroyed by Fire – 1915.

CEDT - Lum – Several Trips to China 1916 -1922

Agricultural Geniuses!• Vegetables – grown in arid conditions• By 1888 Brisbane was reliant on the

vegetables and fruit of the Chinese• Leased land from White farmers• Founded Banana growing in Qld.• Sugar Cane also.

MethodsIrrigation – maximized waterFertilizer – Dung, Hops from XXXX BreweryUse of fertile flood plains and creeksConstant monitoring – lived on site in hutsCheap, willing work force – long hours.Sold directly to the public – no middle man

How did the Chinese survive as aliens in racist lands?

• Temples or joss houses as communities.• Societies – Triads, Clan Groups, Masons• Chinatowns – opium, brothels, cooking.• Worked together to improve land, mines or in

business – Store may have 19 owners.• Assimilated easily into community • Married white or indigenous women

Brisbane Temple, Breakfast Creek

Processions aid AssimilationIn Cairns, Darwin, Bendigo, Atherton, Innisfail and other regional cities, the Chinese New Year and Festivals became part of the social fabric.Every temple imported costumes and instruments for the festivities.

Full bleed vertical image and caption like this. 20 pt arial Image bleed off left hand side, with caption at right