Chinese Australian History by Chidestudy Press

16. Stopping them using our boats

Controlling entry to an island continent proved more complex than the Immigration Restriction Act, 1901 framers imagined. Chinese people had been coming to Australia in numbers since the 1850s and by 1901 had substantial community, family, and economic links with their Pearl River Delta villages, around the colonies and with Hong Kong and Shanghai. Resistance was fought out on the boats themselves; musters were held, documents examined, searches made and dictation tests administered. Secrecy, fraud, informers, and harassment reduced but did not eliminate communities while also causing governments much embarrassment before this first attempt at halting boat people was abandoned. Throughout the period after 1901 evolved a system that was not simply one of restriction but also of interaction between the Chinese-Australian community and its Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong and Shanghai based connections. The result, after more than 50 years, was a fall in Chinese community numbers but never an elimination of that community or its links with China before a gradual rise, after much cost in economic links, political embarrassment, and personal hardship. 
For the published article see: Michael Williams, 2020. Stopping them Using Our Boats. Australian Economic History Review, 61(1), pp.64–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/aehr.12207
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For a general overview of Chinese Australian history check out Episode 7: https://chidestudypress.podbean.com/e/7-chinese-australian-history-a-brief-overview/ 

15. Observations of a China Consul

Dundas Crawford was sent to the Australian colonies at a time when the Colony of Queensland was concerned as thousands of Chinese goldseekers were arriving at Cooktown and walking inland to the Palmer River goldfields. This was in 1877 and the report of his observations of Chinese activity in Queensland, NSW and Victoria was duly sent to the Foreign Office. The report makes fascinating reading. It is not only a rare example of a wide-ranging investigation with many interesting comments but even rarer, it is written in a, for the times, objective and sensible manner. Despite this the Crawford report remains an underutilised resource. Historians have done what they all too often do with interesting material, plunder it for a quote or statistic relevant to their specific task and then leave the remains to languish in a footnote. It was in a footnote I found the Crawford report many years ago and intrigued I tracked it down in the copy of the voluminous British Foreign Office files kept in the National Library of Australia. 
For the published article see: Michael Williams, ‘Observations of a China Consul’, Locality, Vol. 11, no.2, 2000, pp. 24-31.
For the report of Crawford itself see: Great Britain, Foreign Office Confidential Prints: No.3742, Notes by Mr. Crawford on Chinese Immigration in the Australian Colonies, J. Dundas Crawford, 1 September 1877. 
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14. Big House in the Tang Mountains

The one hundred years between the mid nineteenth-century Cali­fornian and Australian gold rushes and the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 saw the establishment and maintenance of extensive trans-Pacific links. These links developed between the native places or qiaoxiang of tens of thousands of people originating in the Pearl River Delta of south China who travelled to various destinations including the Pacific ports of Sydney, San Francisco and Honolulu. Here we discuss the history of these qiaoxiang links, a history of movement outside the qiaoxiang, but also a history of efforts to survive, return to, retire in and improve the qiaoxiang.
* Qiaoxiang can be translated as "native land of one who is away" and refers to a person's home village, district or county, depending on which they choose to identify with as their place of origin.
For the published article see: Michael Williams, ‘In the Tang Mountains we have a Big House‘, East Asian History, vol. 25/26, June/December, 2003, pp. 85-112.
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13. Chinese Opera in Australia

Chinese Opera was a prominent feature of colonial Australia, initially in the Victorian goldfields, but later in New South Wales, Queensland, and north-eastern Tasmania. Tracing its performance history and key locations, this discussion describes how it was staged and received, the efforts to attract a non-Chinese audience, and the practise of charitable benefit performances. The discussion also demonstrates the cultural importance of Chinese Opera, both to the Chinese living in Australia and as an exotic form of entertainment for their European and other co-colonials. The reasons for the absence of this form of entertainment from the historical memory are also reflected upon within the context of the psychology of a White Australia and the persistence of stereotypes in which ‘opera goer’ has no place.
For the published article see: Michael Williams, Smoking opium, puffing cigars, and drinking gingerbeer: Chinese Opera in Australia, In Opera, Emotion, and the Antipodes Volume II Applied Perspectives: Compositions and Performances, edited by Jane W. Davidson, Michael Halliwell and Stephanie Rocke, pp.166-208. Abingdon: Routledge, 2020.
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12. Anglo-Saxonizing Machines

Anglo-Saxonizing Machines: Exclusion America, White Australia by Michael Williams, contrasts the restrictive immigration policies targeting Chinese people in Australia and the United States from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. It examines the political and social contexts that shaped these laws and their enforcement, highlighting that while both countries aimed to limit Chinese entry, the United States laws were more complex with various exemptions, unlike Australia's more consistent and exclusionary approach.
The discussion also explores the impact of these policies on Chinese individuals, noting differences in return migration patterns, the role of courts and citizenship laws, and the rise of illegal entry methods like the "paper son" system in the United States. Comparing the experiences in both nations provides a broader understanding of the restrictive laws and the diverse motivations of Chinese migrants.
For the published article see: Williams, M., 2003, ‘Anglo-Saxonizing machines: Exclusion America, White Australia’, Chinese America – History and Perspectives, vol. 17, pp. 23-33.
Please check out the publications at - https://chidestudypresscom.wordpress.com/the-bookstore/  In this case the related publication is: Every Request for a Campaign Upon the Goldfields. Feel free to ask questions at: chidestudypress@gmail.com 

10. Robe walk to the goldfields

Of the many episodes that make up the oftentimes exotic impression of Chinese Australian history the 1850s walk from the small port of Robe in South Australia to the goldfields of Victoria has repeatedly taken on epic proportions. Its ‘long march’ like length, tales of hardship and death, not to mention present-day outrage at the discriminatory tax the walk was designed to avoid, all combine to make the stuff of legends. 
Yet remarkably the telling of this history has largely been left to local historians with their characteristic eagerness to retell every tale and make use of every allusion to their subject with little regard to plausibility, contradiction or even relevance. Thus, while the arrival of thousands of gold seekers from southern China in the mid-1850s at Robetown on Guichen Bay, South Australia, in order to avoid taxes imposed by the neighbouring gold rich colony of Victoria is well known, it is surprisingly little understood in detail.
As usual you should always check out the publications at - https://chidestudypresscom.wordpress.com/the-bookstore/  In this case the related publication is: Every Request for a Campaign Upon the Goldfields. Feel free to ask questions at: chidestudypress@gmail.com 

9. Amoy Shepherds

If people know anything about Chinese Australian history, they likely associate it with the 19th-century gold rushes, market gardening, the Lambing Flat Riots, and the infamous fake Dictation Test from the early years of Australia's 20th-century Immigration Restriction Act. But this common understanding focuses almost entirely on people from the Pearl River Delta, a region of the province of Guangdong (廣東) still widely referred to as Canton, and on Cantonese migrants. Even this level of awareness leaves significant gaps, overlooking contributions that range from opera companies to village networks and major business enterprises—stories that extend only to the mid-20th century. What is often reduced to a mere footnote, even in more comprehensive accounts, is the story of around 3,000 men who arrived in the British colony of New South Wales (which then included Queensland and Victoria) in the late 1840s and early 1850s. These men came not from the Pearl River Delta but from just north of it, the province of Fujian (福建), still considered southern China. Their migration predates the Australian gold rushes, yet their presence is a fascinating but often overlooked chapter in Australian history.
Check out: Williams, M., 2025, Too Much like Englishmen: Amoy Migrants in Australia, Ashfield, NSW: ChideStudy Press.
For more details see: Maxine Darnell, The Chinese labour trade to New South Wales 1783-1853: An exposition of motives and outcomes, PhD thesis, UNE, 1997.
Go to the 88 Objects website and see Ang's Defence (it's No,59) for yourself - https://chinozhistory.org/ 
As usual you should always check out the publications at - https://chidestudypresscom.wordpress.com/the-bookstore/  You can ask questions at: chidestudypress@gmail.com 

8. Celestial Gardeners

The stereotype of the Chinese market gardener is a prominent one in Australia. That it is a stereotype does not mean that it is wrong but that it is simply not as true as it claims to be. Today the discussion however is more about giving examples of how a denial of individuality helped to create such stereotypes. Stereotypes that remain embedded in Australian history today. 
This podcast is based on an article I wrote in 2022 called: ‘Vegetables varied and excellent, chiefly from a Celestial garden’, History, September, pp.9-11.
As usual you should always check out the publications at - https://chidestudypresscom.wordpress.com/the-bookstore/  You can ask questions at: chidestudypress@gmail.com 

7. Chinese Australian History - a Brief Overview

It is all well and good to focus on interesting aspects of a history but it is also necessary to have a grasp of its entirety. Here I strive to give the briefest of overviews to help provide the much needed context for previous as well as future podcasts. Enjoy!
As usual you should always check out the publications at - https://chidestudypresscom.wordpress.com/the-bookstore/ 
You can ask questions at: chidestudypress@gmail.com 
Suggested further reading
Returning Home with Glory: Chinese villagers around the Pacific, 1849 to 1949 by Michael Williams, Hong Kong University Press, 2018. [On the pattern of links to China]
The Poison of Polygamy by Wong Shee Ping (trans: Ely Finch), Sydney University Press, 2019. [A Chinese voice from 100 years ago]
Locating Chinese Women Historical Mobility between China and Australia, edited by Kate Bagnall and Julia T. Martínez, Hong Kong University Press, 2021. [On women]
One Bright Moon by Andrew Kwong, Harper Collins, 2020. [A personal memoir]
Chinese Australian History Seminar Series by Dr Michael Williams. [Online overview of Chinese Australian history]
 
 
 

6. Observers 8: European Australian observations on Chinese Australians

For much of our evidence on Chinese Australian history – especially in the 19th century – reliance is necessarily on European observers and European records. A great deal of this material is patronising at best and stereotypical or even plain made up at worst. In general, such observation pieces often tell us more about the writers than those being observed – although this too can be useful. Nevertheless, amid this diverse material can be found many instances of careful and interesting observation – even when it is patronising (and/or ignorant). Personal observation when sincerely given can provide much of value. 
Presented here is a small selection of the abundant amount of such material to be found scattered throughout 19th century Australian sources. The selections range from the comments of a naive English teacher to those of an experienced China consul. From eyewitness to the arrival of the first 150 Chinese gold seekers to pass through Bathurst in 1855, as well as the astonished spectator to a Chinese opera. Not to mention the creations of the authors of both Mary Poppins and The Man from Snowy River. Of course, these sections would not be complete with reports from one each of those instant experts – the journalist and the travel writer. 
As usual you should always check out the publications at - https://chidestudypresscom.wordpress.com/the-bookstore/  You can ask questions at: chidestudypress@gmail.com