Coolie Alibis: Seizing Gold from Chinese Miners in New South Wales

Abstract

This article examines debates over Chinese indentured labor in the Australasian colonies at the height of the gold rushes. It does so through the testimony of Chinese gold miners who protested the seizure of their gold by customs officials in Sydney Harbour. As a result of these protests, a “New South Wales Select Committee into the Seizure of Gold from Chinese Miners” was established in 1857 to investigate customs law and “coolie” rights. The findings of this committee uncovered Chinese and white settler memories over failed coolie transportation schemes, revealing the ways in which the legacies of coolie migration continued to shape understandings in the Australian colonies of law, labor rights, and fair taxation well after the cessation of such schemes in the 1840s. The archive of Chinese grievance against the colonial state, preserved in testimonies given to the select committee, reveal the long shadow of slavery in the British Empire, the complexities of multiracial communities, and the role of law and legal institutions in shaping both.

Made in Chinatown: Chinese Furniture Factories in Australia, 1880–1930

“…The Chinese Australian furniture factory work culture revealed here through workers' accounts and records of their lives offers a new understanding of Chinese overseas labour. This culture reinforces some historians' recent efforts to demonstrate that Chinese workers were far more than mere ‘coolies’ or ‘cheap labour’ (Kuo, 2017; Loy‐Wilson, 2017). Nonetheless, their working culture was centred firmly on the Pearl River Delta counties, where Australian earnings stretched further, so Chinese workers could work for less money than their European equivalents.…”

“…These materials permit an unprecedented insight into the Chinese factories. Yet, most sources are products of racialising and marginalising processes (Loy‐Wilson, 2017). In courtrooms especially, while Chinese manufacturers and workers made use of the law to their advantage, they may have felt compelled to speak and act in certain ways.…”

The Market Gardens of Dark Dragon Ridge, New South Wales, Australia, 1876–1930

“…Furthermore, I have drawn on correspondence between one gardener and the New South Wales state government, reports from other newspapers, and several local European reminiscences. While most of this material is rich in Chinese market gardeners' own views on their activities, I have tried to be cautious as these sources are products of administrative and legal processes that were controlled by European Australians in an era when the pursuit of ‘White Australia’ was widely supported (Ngai, 2014; Rhook, 2015; Loy‐Wilson, 2017).…”