Joining the gold rush
Dunedin might have been settled by the Scots but the Chinese also played an important part in its history, coming for gold and staying on to establish businesses.
As the steam ship docked at the Jetty St wharf in 1866, the Chinese men on board looked at the land beyond the bustling city of Dunedin and hoped for good fortune.
Would they earn enough to support their families 10,000km away? Would they face the same prejudices they had encountered on the American and Australian goldfields?
This morning, after hiring a dray, they would load it with the swags and provisions they had brought with them. By early afternoon, they would set off for Blackstone Hill in Central Otago, eager to join the four countrymen already there as prospectors. New Zealand’s first gold rush
In 1861, an Australian named Gabriel Reid discovered gold near Lawrence. This led to a rapid influx of people and Otago became New Zealand’s richest province.
But three years later, many of the European miners had either returned home overseas or left for new goldfields that had been discovered on the South Island’s West Coast.
With businesses losing customers and the Otago Provincial Government losing revenue from licences and gold export duties, it was decided to invite Chinese miners from the goldfields of Victoria, Australia, to try their luck in Otago. These Cantonese Chinese — the first non-European group to come to New Zealand in large numbers — had experienced racism elsewhere and first wanted a guarantee from the government that they would receive the same protection as other residents. Escaping poverty
The year 1840 saw Māori and British in New Zealand signing the Treaty of Waitangi. In China, it was the beginning of the Opium Wars, when Britain tried to sell more of the addictive drug, opium, to China.
Rebellions, poverty and famine forced thousands of Chinese men to look for opportunities overseas to improve life for their families. Many sought their fortunes on the goldfields of California and Victoria and smaller numbers travelled on to Otago, which they called the “new gold mountain”. Who were the Chinese miners?
The men who came to Otago were young peasant farmers from Guangdong (then called Canton), a province in southern China. Few could speak or write English.
The first group had mined in California and Victoria but from 1871 onwards, new arrivals travelled directly from China. Most planned to be here only five years or so, then other members of their family or their village would take their place. On the ground By February 1866, a party of 12 Chinese miners was based near Waitahuna in South Otago. Within five years, more than 4000 of their countrymen would be working claims in places such as Arrowtown, Cardrona, Cromwell and Waikaia. The Chinese meticulously worked over areas that Europeans had already worked and given up on, and they left very little gold behind. They came with relatives and neighbours for support and worked in teams, which resulted in them being very successful. In the early years, many miners returned home with 100 pounds or so — the equivalent in China to 20 years’ wages. This enabled them to build better houses, and schools or halls for their villages.
However, by 1900 most of those left in Otago were less fortunate and could not afford the fare back to China. Demanding work
Gold mining was tough, physical work. Snow storms, floods and mining accidents claimed many lives. In summer, it was stifling hot. In winter, the sun failed to reach the bottom of icy gorges and piles of washing froze rock-hard.
The miners’ huts were made of mud brick or schist rock and, where possible, built into the overhang of a cliff for shelter. Central Otago lacked timber for fuel or building so the doors of the huts were sometimes only rice sacks.
To cope with the extreme temperatures, the Chinese began wearing Western-style clothing. But one habit they didn’t adopt was the European diet. Finding mutton tough and smelly, they instead ate familiar foods supplied by Chinese merchants — dried fish, pork, rice and pickles. Chinese camps
The Chinese miners’ appearance, language and use of opium set them apart as different.
While many people admired their work ethic, others were jealous of their success, found their customs strange or considered them racially inferior to white people. Often the victims of harassment, the Chinese men kept to themselves and lived on the fringes of European towns. The biggest of their camps were at Lawrence and Cromwell.
In 1867, the Lawrence Town Council banned Chinese premises from the town and relegated them to swampy land outside the settlement. The camp set up there was an important trading centre where Chinese prospectors from the surrounding countryside stocked up with food and supplies. Alongside the shops, boarding houses and market gardens, there were meeting halls and gambling parlours — one of their favourite pastimes was a numbers game a bit like Lotto. There were also places to smoke opium, which at that stage was not illegal.
At its peak, the camp was home to about 120 residents, including mixedrace families resulting from marriages between Chinese men and European women. Chinese merchants
In 1871, nearly 100 Chinese merchants and shopkeepers were operating in Dunedin, inland Otago towns and the goldfields. Many of these business owners made more money than the miners.
As well as selling mining equipment and food, the shopkeepers provided advice, loaned money and helped newcomers get to the goldfields.
They also assisted with the flow of information and money back to China.
The most successful Chinese merchant in Otago was Choie Sew
Hoy, whose warehouse was close to the Dunedin wharves and new arrivals. Sew Hoy imported all sorts of Chinese goods, including rice, preserves, peanut oil, crockery and fireworks. He also invested in goldmining and pioneered the use of dredges to get the gold that was too deep to be extracted by traditional methods. Gardens and laundries
If you lived in Dunedin in the early 1900s, your vegetables probably came from Chinese-run market gardens. The first sprang up in the 1860s on what is now the site of Otago Museum but soon they could be found all over the place — from St Clair to Sawyer’s Bay and Tainui to Taieri.
Laundries and fruit and vegetable shops also provided income for Chinese prospectors when the gold began to run out. Racism
Although there were physical attacks on Chinese miners, the Chinese and Europeans lived reasonably peacefully at first. That changed in the 1880s when New Zealand suffered an economic downturn and, at the same time, gold became harder to find. Chinese miners began competing with Europeans for labouring jobs — and were often willing to work for longer hours and lower wages.
Hostility from New Zealand’s
Pākehā population resulted in organisations such as the Anti-Chinese Association being formed.
To discourage Chinese immigration, the Government made new Chinese settlers pay a 10 pound entry tax
(called a poll tax) and limited the numbers able to enter the country to one person per 10 tons of ship cargo. Later, the ratio was reduced to one Chinese passenger per 200 tons of cargo, and the poll tax was raised to 100 pounds. Unlike other immigrants, Chinese people had to pass a reading test in English, provide thumbprints if they left New Zealand temporarily and were not allowed to become citizens.
Toitū Otago Settlers Museum curator Seán Brosnahan says no other ethnic group was targeted in this way and it continued “way into the 20th century”: “The treatment of the Chinese, especially during the 1880s, was one of the darkest chapters in New Zealand history.”
The Chinese contribution
The Chinese miners and merchants in Otago had new ideas and a strong work ethic. Their descendants, who settled throughout New Zealand, played a major role in the country’s economic and cultural development.
China’s fight against the Japanese during the Second World War and the food Chinese people in New Zealand produced for the war effort helped to change public opinion in their favour.
From 1939, wives and children of the Chinese men in New Zealand were allowed to move here on compassionate grounds and from the 1980s, larger numbers arrived. This was when the New Zealand government abandoned its long-standing preference for
British immigrants and instead started selecting people based on their skills.
Like many immigrant groups, the Chinese had a strong drive to succeed. As a result, many of their children went on to tertiary study and professional occupations.