Hou Wang Miau
A study of the material culture of the Chinese Temple, Atherton
Abdul Latif Haji Ibrahim March 1981
Thesis Grad. Dip. Mat. Cult. JCU
CHAPTER 2
THE CHINESE IMMIGRANTS
Most of the Chinese who came to Australia were attracted by the goldfields. Yet early immigrants also came for reasons other than mining. In July, 1848, New South Wales imported its first Chinese
immigrants to work in the cultivation of hemp while the Chinese who came in large shipments to the Moreton Bay district in Queensland were employed as shepherds (Cumming & Campbell, 1955.7). They came from the southern part of China and were mainly Cantonese from the four counties (Sze Yap) of Toy Sung, Surm Wy, Hoy Ping and Yun Ping around the capital Canton (Chung Shen) of the province of Kwangtung (National Trust of Australia [Victoria] n.d.4). These people had
already worked for many years on the tin fields of Malaya and Indonesia and on the goldfields of North America and Peru. Political unrest, over-population and food shortages as a result of flood and
crop failures, added to the problems of the agrarian poor in China and were major causes of this migration. The small farmers throughout China were also forced to finance the bureaucratic corruptionand inefficiency which typified this period of dynastic decline (May, 1977.96).
Generally overseas Chinese belonged to the peasant or coolie classes. Their passages were funded by a traditional guild (Jahn) and their wives and children remained in China as security until the debts
were paid. These families were not held in any physical sense and were indeed quite well cared for by the guild (Watling, 1976.2). However, the husbands had to remit large sums of money to their
backers. With this heavy commitment, the objectives of Chinese emigrating to Australia were “firstly to return home with honour and wealth and secondly upon the roots of the trees rest the falling
leaves” (Yong, 1977.2). The idea of settling in Australia was therefore
inconceivable.
Chinese prospectors had been on the North Queensland goldfields ever since the news of the Cape River brought a thousand of them overland from the south during the wet season of 1867-68 (Bolton, 1972.54). The subsequent discovery of the Palmer goldfield and the shipment of gold valued at A£12,800 to Hongkong in 1869 stimulated a massive immigration of Chinese. By 1877 the Chinese at the Palmer goldfield numbered 17,000, almost without exception adult males and outnumbering
the Europeans by 52 to 1. The Europeans were apprehensive of these growing numbers and of the possible threat to peace. To protect their interests, an Act was passed in 1876 “imposing a head tax of A£10 on each Chinese immigrant, with heavier fees for miners' rights and
shopkeepers' licences on those already in the colony” (Ibid, 56). Later, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 excluded the Chinese from a field until three years after its discovery. The rush to the
Hodgkinson goldfield after 1877 spelt the end of the heyday for the Palmer which was already too crowded. Four hundred Chinese, mainly gardeners and tradesmen, gained access to the Hodkinson and were reinforced during the next year by 1,500 Chinese miners (Bolton,1972.61) .
During this period the mining of gold was giving way to the mining of lead, tin and copper. In 1878 Chinese miners tested tin deposits at Granite Creek and Cannibal Creek southeast of Maytown and, in 1880, 760 tons of tin, valued at A£28,000, were exported from Cooktown. This discovery of tin saw an influx of Europeans to the Atherton Tableland during 1878-80. In 1878, John Atherton while prospecting in an area called Tinaroo Creek. Deciding that mining was unprofitable and less to his liking than cattle raising, Atherton leased his claim to a party of Chinese from the Hodgkinson (Ibid,
117) .
About 1880 a settlement was established at Herberton almost simultaneously with the foundation of Geraldton (now Innisfail). There is evidence that the Chinese were indirectly responsible for founding
Herberton, but their exclusion from the tinfield made it not a centre for Chinese population (May, 1977.14) but rather a springboard to the rich agricultural land of the Barron Valley where Atherton is
now situated.
Evidently the Chinese immigrants who ended up at Atherton journeyed from various goldfields in the North such as the Palmer and Hodgkinson and from as far away as Darwin. The arduous trek was mostly accomplished on foot. With the decline of the goldfields, the Chinese tried their luck on tin fields along the Barron Valley. They had been in Atherton long before the town was first opened in 1885, working as cheap coolies on the fields and establishing their quarters on the bank of Piebald Creek, which came to be known by Europeans as Chinatown (see Chapter 3). Timber cutting was equally important as a cause of Chinese settlement at Atherton. The Chinese, after the decline of the Palmer goldfield drifted from Maytown to Herberton where they were introduced by the European land owners to timber cutting and the clearing of land for cultivation and dairy farming.
Since legislation debarred non-naturalized Chinese from owning land,t hey obtained cleaning leases from Europeans who had earlier purchased lands but lacked the capital or desire to cultivate them. Many European landowners held lands for speculative purposes and since the Chinese were barred from active farming, the landowners employed them to cultivate the newly cleared lands. The Chinese tenant had a five year lease in return for cutting down the timber and paying to the landlord an annual rent of A£1 per acre (Bolton, 1972.224) though according to one account (Sou San, n.d. [a]). The agreement was free for the first three years. The rich soil and favourable climate of the Tableland soon made the Chinese successful for farming had long been their customary occupation. About half of the Chinese population took such contracts; the rest turned to commerce.
During the depression years of 1889 to 1897, more Chinese farmers were allowed on the Tableland as a means of securing a reliable source of income for the selectors. Even the annual rental was reduced from £1 to 15 shillings per acre. The sorry state of the agricultural industry was due to the inadequate market and to the high costs of transport. European farmers could not compete with the highly efficient systems the Chinese had developed for the transport and marketing of their products.
One of the conspicuous features of Chinese agriculture was the skilful practice of hoe cultivation. The Chinese do not cultivate the whole surface, but are content to plant maize seeds in scattered
scoop holes with a hoe. The natural fertility of the soil does the rest (Birtles, 1967.316). Eighty percent of the total crop production of the Tableland came from the Chinese tenant farmers. In 1903,
800 tons of maize were exported from Atherton, 600 of them grown by the Chinese. The Chinese method was primitive but well suited and made no use of artificial fertilizer or machinery. It was said that the Chinese could process the maize from the planting of the seed through to the preparation of the food using just a pointed stick and two stones: the stick to cultivate the soil and to plant the seed and the stone to grind the grain (Watling, 1976.5).
The peak of the maize industry was in 1917 when Tableland farmers produced 937,085 bushels. This represented some 30% of the total Queensland crop for that year. The Chinese supremacy in maize
farming, aided by the uncertainty of the banana industry, generated a rush of Chinese from the coastal towns to Atherton. To the Royal Commission on the Fruit Industry in 1919, Tam Sze Pui stated that one thousand Chinese banana growers from Innisfail had gone to Atherton to grow corn. As a result, Athertcn experienced an upsurge in Chinese enterprises (May, 1977.22).
The Chinese produced nearly all the local vegetables and also experimented with planting upland rice. The rapid development of Herberton created a market for fruits and vegetables, which proved most convenient for the Chinese gardeners. The Chinese disliked wage employment preferring to work independently on cultivation that required little initial outlay. Market gardening, the traditional
standby of the Chinese in Australia, was almost their complete monopoly throughout the 1880s and 1890s (Bolton, 1972.223). The Chinese on the Tableland set up a primitive system of irrigation.
This system yielded good crops of vegetables even in times of drought when the community had to go without milk because there was no fodder for the cattle.
There were critics of the tenant farming system, mostly from the all-white Herberton settlers, but few housewives complained. They depended on the supply of fresh vegetables while the packers in the district needed maize to feed their horses and mules (Watling, 1976.5).
Those Chinese who became commercial traders lived mainly at Chinatown. Most Chinese farmers lived at Tolga although they participated in the activities of Chinatown. The Chinese traders obtained their supplies from the south, through the port of Cairns, using the same trail as the loggers travelling between the Tableland and the coast. A peculiarity which illustrated Chinese commercial enterprise was that fish caught off the coast were more readily available in Atherton than in Cairns (Birtles, 1967.329). Presumably this was due to the high population of Chinese in Atherton and to the higher prices obtainable there, since fish were preferred to meat by the Chinese. Several labourers were also engaged in building silos while a few houses in Atherton were erected by the Chinese.
In spite of European antagonism, the Chinese are generally portrayed as courteous, kind and hard working. It is widely agreed that theywere sober, peaceful and industrious folk and this won them more admiration than abuse (Yong, 1977.171). The Chinese on the whole were unaggressive and had a great capacity for minding their own business. They provided the community with services which had been lacking or were inadequate: some as market gardeners, others as cooks, a few even as doctors and herbalists (Bolton, 1972.57)." In Atherton one of the Chinese doctors of the 1920s is still remembered and respected today by European residents.
The European view of Chinese honesty and integrity, especially where these related to the development of the Atherton Tableland is well summarised by one farmer. Curtis (1947.25) quoted the farmer as saying, "if it had not been for the Chinese, the Tablelands could not have been developed. They were the first labour and the best we have ever had. They never shirked their work and they were strictly honest. We never had a dishonest Chinese.” The diligence of Chinese labourers was very much appreciated by the Europeans. They would work hard till all hours and in all weather. “They were content to struggle on through adversities and to grapple with all the difficulties” (Doyle, 1936.21). Chinese coolie gangs were fast and cheap and, using carrying baskets, were able to move heavy weights over long distances. The quiet placid manner of the Chinaman with his bland smile was always regarded with interest by children (Ibid. 21). Every Chinese carried an abacus (s1.Jangpang) for quick and accurate calculations.
Their aloofness and strong allegiance to their homeland kept them ignorant of their surroundings and disinterested in their adopted colony. “They were more concerned with ways to get enough food for
themselves, earn enough money to remit home to their families and had little concern with the niceties of improvement in day to day aesthetic experience” (Clarkson, 1968.150). The Chinese way of life was unpretentious and modest. They wore a conventional blue cotton dress and straw hat and the distinctive pigtail; this suddenly vanished almost overnight with the proclamation of the Chinese Republic in 1911.
Due to their aloofness, the Chinese were often viewed with bitterness, although such feelings were rooted in the Chinese monopoly of the agricultural market. Europeans charged the “Chinkie” with
lack of hygiene and the neglect of the land though these claims were hard to substantiate. Birtles (1967.223) quotes an early description of the Chinese farms as “desolations, exhausted soil, a few reeking with filth in the manner peculiar to the children of the sun, and the cousins of the moon, and that is all".
This intolerant attitude was inherited from the goldfield camps where the Chinese were excluded from community activities. A sense of discrimination was clearly displayed by Europeans towards the
Chinese and Aborigines who lived near their settlements. Although the value of the Chinese was recognised and they were tolerated in the Barron Valley, especially as a source of cheap labour, they were neither accepted as permanent residents nor given a stable role inthe economic and social life of the area.
The Chinese were also under criticism because of the opium whichfound its way in to Aboriginal camps. This gave them a bad name as traffickers and they were thought to have cheated the Aborigines of their wages, corrupting them in return with opium. This element was exaggerated in newspaper stories to the extent of hailing one Chinese in a North Queensland town as an "opium devil” (Bolton, 1972.228). Perhaps the difference between the two regions of Chinese settlement, coastal and inland, is one of community attitudes. Such areas as the Atherton Tableland, influenced by the all-white and anti-Chinese traditions of the neighbouring town of Herberton, would be prone to voice racial attacks while the coastal towns such as Ayr and Mackay, accustomed to a multi-racial society, would take a more tolerant view (Ibid, 227).
The growth of the Chinese population of the Tableland was due to their dominance of the agricultural market. Chinatown at Atherton in 1897 had a population of about 180, most of whom had moved from Maytown through Herberton after the decline of the Palmer goldfield. By 1904 the number was equal to almost half the European population and they outnumbered the European adult males by more than 100 percent (Birtles, 1967.270). The growth of the Chinese population was evidenced by the long lines of coolies jogging along the tracks carrying baskets of vegetables, a common sight in the early mornings. While the greatest concentration of Chinese tenant farmers was around Tolga others held tenancies close to the Barron River.
By 1909 the Chinese population of Atherton had reached its peak of 1100 people and was the largest concentration of Chinese on the Tableland. By contrast, the European population had risen by 1914
to approximately 6000, about three times the 1904 population. By 1912, Atherton Chinatown had become the social and political Chinese headquarters of the district and revolutionary celebrations held there were attended by Chinese from as far away as Cairns.
The passing of legislation in 1919 which curtailed Chinese tenant farming after existing leases had expired, started the exodus of Chinese from Atherton. The intention of the legislation was that all lands which had been leased to aliens were to be resumed for the benefits of returned servicemen wishing to settle on the Tableland (Atherton Shire Council, 1972). However, the "departure of the Chinese from Atherton was largely artificially induced by the Soldiers Settlement Scheme, where soldiers were deliberately placed on land leased to Chinese" May, 1977.73). Whether the Chinese were actually evicted from their tenancies is unknown and would be an interesting subject for future research.
The overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911 had wide repercussions and caused the disruption of the harmony of Chinatown, creating sharp divisions of loyalty among the Chinese. Minor outbreaks of violence occurred and the police had to enter Chinatown to curb the disturbances. The rift weakened the authority of the Tong Society, which was responsible for the administration of Chinatown. The
strict discipline and ordered lifestyle were disrupted, gambling was introduced and the quality of life in Chinatown began to deteriorate (Watling, 1976.12). Many Chinese residents, to avoid the violence, drifted from Atherton to market gardens, laundries, green groceries and boarding homes in the coastal towns and cities of the south. Many aged Chinese eventually returned to their ancestral
land.
To the east of the Barron River, the European selectors began to place greater emphasis on the future prosperity of dairy farming and on improvements in farming methods. The introduction of farm
machinery began to displace the Chinese tenant farmers as the most efficient maize cultivators (Birtles, 1967.346). By 1920 Atherton had become the administrative centre and the main European town of the Tableland. The Chinese who had arrived in the late 1890s were approaching retirement and the corn industry had died a natural death during the following decade (May, 1977.73). The decline of the Chinese popul ati on was marked by dere1i et huts on the farms for a neglected farm was the symbol of Chinese departure. The 1909 prophecy of the Tableland Examiner that
“The advent of the cow
Will rid us of the Chow"
had indeed been fulfilled.
Today there are but 32 adult Chinese resident in the Atherton District out of a total population of nearly 6000 people. 29 of them live in the town (General Electoral roll, 1980). There are three prominent familes today that have survived, those of Fong On, Jue Sue and Lee Long (Lee Leong). Both the fathers of Fong On and Jue Sue were involved in the original purchase of the Chinatown site.The Chinese in Atherton today are respected citizens and some are prosperous businessmen.
With the collapse of Chinatown, the continuation of Chinese culture and language proved to be difficult. In this the Chinese of Atherton, and for that matter of North Queensland, had different experiences from that of their compatriots in such large southern cities as Melbourne and Sydney. The Chinese in North Queensland were isolated and absorption into general Australian society quickly occurred. Traditional values and ideas, and a fluency in their mother tongue, were lost.
The Australian born Chinese in Northern towns have long since outlived the bitter hostility of earlier generations and form some of the most respected sections of the business community in towns such as Innisfail and Atherton. Their numbers however are few and decreasing, and they represent no threat to the established standard of living (Bolton, 1972.334). The descendants of the original
Chinese immigrants have settled permanently.