This chapter examines the fishing industry in China before and during the peak periods of Chinese emigration to Australia in the early 1850s to mid 1860s. For the same period, it discusses Chinese social structure and relevant features of Chinese culture and then examines various aspects of Chinese social organisation in colonial Victoria. This acts as a backdrop for chapter 4, which identifies evidence for the first appearance of Chinese fish curers in Australia and then Victoria and how these establishments operated.

THE CHINESE FISHING IN CHINA

Historical records show that during Australia’s gold-rush period a small number of Chinese emigrants arrived from the Shantou (near Canton Province) and Fukien (in the south-east) regions (Choi 1975: 78–79). However, the majority – over 90% – came from south Canton Province in southeastern China (more correctly referred to as Guangdong or Kwangtung) and spoke variations of the Cantonese dialect. In particular, they came from rural areas surrounding Canton city and the Pearl River delta (figure 3.1). A number of Hakka people were also amongst this population (Cronin 1982: 17; Brienes 1983: 3). The Hakka are native to central north China, but became displaced in the 13th century and migrated to south China, where they maintained a separate language (Mandarin form) and culture (Choi 1975: 3).

32Kwangtung has a large marine environment with networks of rivers, canals and lakes including the huge Pearl River delta. Fish is a dietary staple and fishing plays a major economic role in this region (Choi 1975: 5; Brienes 1983: 26). Many Chinese people who immigrated to colonial Victoria would have fished the waters of their home province and been quite familiar – at least by sight – with Chinese commercial fishing activities. An old Chinese adage, “Salted fish and green vegetables is cause for contentment”, attests to the importance of fish in Chinese culture (Kan & Leong 1963: 121). To gain an understanding of the Chinese processing and use of fish products and the techniques likely to have been transferred to Victoria, it is useful to examine past Chinese fishing activities in China with a focus on Kwangtung.

There is strong evidence that Chinese people have a long history of eating fish as a source of dietary protein (Anderson and Anderson 1977: 334). In 1972, the tomb of the wife of a Chinese lord, Li-ts’ang, who ruled over the Ch’ang-sha Hunan district of China from 193 to 186 BC, was archaeologically excavated. The tomb revealed several vessels containing a variety of preserved foods, including fish (Yü 1977: 55). These remains demonstrate that for at least 20-one centuries Chinese people have been preserving fish, in this case bream, perch and three types of carp – each probably considered among the best eating fish of the time. In an 1849 Prices of Provisions catalogue for a Shanghai market, bream was by far the most expensive fish for sale (Chinese Repository magazine 1849). Located with the food vessels in Li-ts’ang’s wife’s tomb were 321 inscribed bamboo cards containing details of the preserved foods, notably that the fish had been cured by salting the flesh and then drying it in the sun (Yü 1977: 55–57).

During his 12th-century travels through China, Marco Polo observed that the Chinese fishing industry was highly developed and well organised (Cutting 1955: 50). In Kwangtung, fishing has remained a major industry. During the 1950s, inshore fishing based at small villages was noted by Ward (1954: 195–96) to be more common than ocean fishing based at larger coastal ports. Chinese inshore fishing relates well – for comparison purposes – to Victoria’s colonial fishing scene.

Chinese people harvest thousands of different fish species and other aquatic animals from their ocean, rivers, lakes and ponds. Artificial propagation of fish in ponds had been successfully practiced in China for centuries, long before European people used such techniques (Brienes 1983: 27). During the Ching dynasty (1644 to 1911), a period of great poverty in Kwangtung (Anderson 1970: 3), the most sought after fish were bream, carp, mullet, sole and squid (Diamond 1969: 16; Schafer 1977: 102). Fresh-water fish were eaten as close to capture as possible and were preferred by the wealthy minority. Salt-water varieties were typically cured and consumed by the Chinese majority (Anderson & Anderson 1977: 335; Colquhoun 1883: 78).

Chinese fishing methods have remained largely unchanged over centuries and lineally across the Chinese land mass (Abbott 1883: 456; Diamond 1969: 1). This uniformity over time and distance enables 20th-century research – such as by Firth (1946), Ward (1954; 1959), Diamond (1969) and Anderson (1970) – to provide a good indication of Chinese fishing practices on the Pearl River delta in the Ching dynasty.

Some relatively recent references are used here as main sources of information, especially in regard to overseas Chinese activities in Australia, such as Chan (1997); Lydon (1999); Williams (1999); Chan, Curthoys & Chiang (2001) and Wang (2003). Each of these is discussed in the ‘Previous research’ section of chapter 1. However, to examine select aspects of 19th-century Chinese people, their lives, lineage systems, family ties, merchant activities, hostilities and emigration practices – mainly within China, but also abroad – the earlier works of Oddie (1959), Choi (1975), Watson (1975), S Wang (1978), Mei (1979) and G Wang (1991; 1992) were found to be most useful.

The references which have been most valuable for this project and which are most often cited in the literature on China’s 19th-century social situation and aspects of culture are Choi (1975) and Wang (1978). Both of these give excellent background to the situation in China leading up to the Australian gold-rush period, the Chinese migration/immigration to Australia and systems of overseas Chinese organisation in Australia.

Cronin’s (1982) work – although now largely superseded by newer research projects such as Wang (1992), Chou (1995) and Curthoys (2001) – has also been used in this chapter. This is due partly to her useful overview of Chinese involvement in Victoria’s gold rush, but also for her original discussions on Chinese organisation in Victoria, Chinese–European interactions and the activities of Chinese merchants.

Social ranking in traditional Chinese society places fishermen in the lowest occupational class (Diamond 1969: 3). Both Anderson (1970: 7) and Diamond (1969: 3) suggest this low social status may be partly due to a general perception about their relative lack of economic opportunity and a belief that fishing is contrary to the Confucian value of preserving life.

Chinese commercial fishing activities were generally conducted by a family unit, which was often extended to include patrilineal kin i.e. a man, his wife, their children and the wives and children of their married sons – all living together either on their fishing boat or in a hut directly on the water margins (Ward 1954: 208). Whether living on boats or on land, every fishing family had a village base, of which there are a 33very large number dotted around the waters in Kwangtung (Ward 1954: 196). Men did the fishing, net making and maintenance, while women managed the house and children; and both men and women participated in sorting and curing fish (Ward 1954: 204). The hiring of extra men was common, but these too were generally patrilineal kin – i.e. relatives having the same surname as the owners – and would work, eat and live with their employers (Ward 1954: 209). An interesting point noted by Ward (1954: 197; 1959: 44) is that most Kwangtung fishing villages included a number of Hakka families that were engaged mainly in farming, but sometimes fished or were employed on fishing boats.

Fishing families often lived in perpetual debt, securing money loans or item credits through their local fish merchant, who was usually a relative or who had kinship relations within the fishing village (Ward 1959: 44). No bank or collateral guarantee was needed, money was lent or credit given on the basis of personal relationships (Ward 1954: 211). The system was one of association and applied to most commercial activities in Kwangtung – not only for fishing families. The crucial factor was to be associated with a group. Without the connection of a home village, fishing families would be unable to obtain loans, credit or even sell their catch to market.

As with fishermen in other countries, the Chinese fished predominantly with nets, traps and lines with hooks (Colquhoun 1883: 209; Ward 1954: 196; Von Brandt 1972). Inshore fishermen fished in pairs from small row or sail boats and often at night with a lamp hung over the bow to attract fish (Ward 1954: 202–03). A common Chinese fishing method – established in the Sung dynasty (960–1298) – is the use of cormorant birds, which are trained to catch fish and take them to their master (Davis 1844: 161; Gudger 1926: 6). These fishing methods had been practiced over generations and were highly refined and efficient. Ward (1954: 200) suggests that the most important task of the Kwangtung fishing people was the curing of fish, as the bulk of all catches were sold cured.

An American adventurer travelling through China in 1876 indicated that the Chinese fishing villages “surpass all others in abominations of sight and smell” (The Living Age 1876: 817). In this aspect at least, Chinese fish-curing establishments in Victoria appear similar, as after visiting a Chinese fish-curing establishment at Metung in Gippsland, a writer for the Gippsland Mercury on 20 May 1879 commented that his senses had been assaulted and the establishment “forcibly reminded one of the hovels in Little Bourke Street”.

During the Ching dynasty, curing processes allowed fish to be stored and transported to inland mountainous regions of China and provided a means of dealing with seasonal fish surpluses (Firth 1946: 10). Cured fish contains higher protein levels than fresh fish (as adding salt to fish flesh and then drying it creates amino acids which increases protein levels) and has acted as a food staple for Chinese people, often representing the only animal protein in a standard diet of rice and leafy vegetables (Herklots & Lin 1964: 6; Anderson 1970: 7; Wang 1920: 293).

For the fisherman, curing is a serious business, requiring the utmost attention to produce the best product. In English language literature there are a small number of eyewitness accounts of Chinese people curing fish. However, information on methods of fish curing is scarce and it is not known how fish were cured during the Ching dynasty. The techniques generally referred to by travellers include that fish was salted and then dried in the sun, just dry salted, just dried in the sun, or pickled in salty brine and then dried in the sun. A common term in historical literature is ‘cured and dried fish’ which is ambiguous as it may refer to two separate methods or to fish that was cured (in a brine or dry salt) and then dried.

Firth’s 1946 anthropological study of a Malay fishing village gives the earliest written indication in English of how Chinese people cured fish – not actually in China, but at least for Chinese people in an Asian country. Firth notes that in many East Asian regions fresh fish industries tend to be managed by the “natives”, while fish curing is conducted entirely by Chinese people (1946: 12, 14). The various types of cured fish products observed by Firth were prawn paste, pickled anchovies (placed in large baskets of salt), salted fish paste, spiced pickled fish (placed in containers with spices and salt), strip cured fish (the whole fish is cut into strips, held open by a hoop and hung in the sun for several days) (figure 3.2) and most commonly, salted and dried fish (Firth 1946: 218–20). For the salted and dried product, fish were gilled and gutted, soaked in salty brine and placed on timber or bamboo trays to dry in the sun (Firth 1946: 219). The New South Wales 1880 Fisheries Inquiry and a newspaper article in the Bendigo Advertiser (1857, January 5), suggest the Chinese fish curers in Australia also used this method, as at least in some cases, they split the fish down the backbone, salted and then dried them in the open air. They also pickled fish in casks or barrels (Votes and Proceedings of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, vol. 1 1880: 1224; Bendigo Advertiser 1857, January 5). 34

In almost every country that has an important fishery, cured or processed fish makes up the largest measure of fishery products (Jarvis 1950: 2). The industry is driven by a wide range of forces that are sometimes of such social and economic importance that countries have gone to war in order to retain or secure fishing grounds and fish-curing locations. The following section facilitates an understanding of why and how Chinese people sought opportunity overseas and gives insight into the cultural systems they brought to Victoria.

CHINA’S SOCIAL SITUATION AND ASPECTS OF CULTURE

Kwangtung’s numerous and densely populated rural villages were underpinned by large family clans of common lineage – or kinship – groups (Choi 1975: 10). The kinship system of social organisation was – and to an extent still is – central to the unity and functioning of Kwangtung society (Choi 1975: 9).

Each clan was ruled by a kinship leader who took counsel from headmen and used a series of administrative advisers to keep him informed of events that may have bearing on his own clan (Moore and Tully 2000: 4). In the Pearl River delta region, there was great diversity within local cultures and social traditions, which often varied even within one village (Chan 2001: 8). Nevertheless, common lineage over centuries promoted a strong sense of social unity. Clan finances were generated by an internal system of land rent and various taxes. Wealth was channelled back into the community to improve collectively held land, assist primary food production and to build and maintain education facilities, communal religious temples and other benefits shared by clan members (Jackson 1970: 47). Kinship leaders also brought social cohesion to the clan, including providing advice on personal matters and adjudicating in conflicts between clan members (Moore and Tully 2000: 4; Chou 1995: 62).

During the latter half of China’s Ching dynasty, however, a number of factors combined to make Kwangtung a more unpleasant and dangerous place to live.

Social situation

Predominantly due to the fertile flood plains, Chinese people have historically considered Kwangtung a regional safe haven. For this reason – and over centuries of changing Chinese dynasties – defeated emperors, loyal soldiers and displaced people have migrated to Kwangtung (Choi 1975: 4). Choi (1975: 9) discusses a number of ‘push factors’ in the exodus of people from China during the second half of the 19th century, notably poverty, land shortage, political instability, banditry and natural climatic disaster. Population increase had taken its toll on land availability, land fertility and water resources, plunging many into poverty (Greif 1974: 5). By the mid 18th century, Kwangtung was supporting some 14 million people and population levels were still rising (Durand 1960: 247). Throughout the mid 19th century, drought and floods further reduced land availability and fertility and intensified poverty (Yarwood and Knowling 1982: 166).

District clans struggled to control the remaining fertile land on the Delta flood plains and hostility between Kwangtung clans grew into fierce and prolonged fighting (Choi 1975: 8). Warlords, rebel armies and bandits roamed the region and homelessness and starvation were common (Greif 1974: 6–7). Most fertile land regions in 35China were experiencing similar instability, reducing the option of simply moving out of the troubled Kwangtung (Choi 1975: 9). By the mid 19th century, the population in Kwangtung had swelled to approximately 30 million people, placing the region among the most heavily populated in China (Durand 1960: 247).

During the long periods of political instability, violence and famine, Kwangtung villages came under yet another threat – pirates engaged in the opium trade. From the late 18th century, British traders exchanged opium from India for Chinese silver – China’s standard currency – and Chinese-grown tea (Adams 1997: 2). Huge quantities of opium entered Kwangtung illegally through Hong Kong harbour and were distributed by smugglers throughout China (Greif 1974: 6). The vast sums of money involved in opium trading corrupted many imperial officials and clan leaders, who hoarded profits for personal gain. Others used opium money to hire mercenary fighters to protect clan interests (Greif 1974: 7–8; Choi 1975: 11).

Opium running and addiction compounded Kwangtung’s instability and the province sank into further social and economic crisis (Choi 1975: 4). The imperial Chinese Government in Peking (Beijing) acted by seizing and destroying 20 000 chests of British-owned opium and passing harsh laws to punish drug dealers (Adams 1997: 2). Far from pacifying the situation, the British Government – not wanting to lose the lucrative opium trade – launched the first Opium War, lasting from late 1839 to mid 1842 (figure 3.3). China lost the war, plunging the nation into further financial and political turmoil and enabling corruption and banditry to flourish (Greif 1974: 7). The Opium War also forced China to open the ports of Canton, Foochow, Ningpo, Amoy and Shanghai to British and other foreign trade (Chang 1968: 91; Mei 1979: 469). This greatly increased the number of foreign vessels entering Chinese ports and gave many desperate people a means of transport out of China (Wang 1988: 109). From the end of the first Opium War in 1842, small-scale but persistent Chinese emigration was underway (Chang 1968: 90; Wang 1988: 116; Jones 1990: ix). Long-standing Chinese imperial laws prohibiting emigration – a crime punishable by death – were relaxed in 1860 and annulled in 1893.

After the first Opium War, social and political unrest continued. Large unruly groups of impoverished people travelled the countryside, seeking food and other commodities by attacking villages, small towns, rich families and government food-storage compounds (Choi 1975: 8). The differences between rich and poor were already stark, but became further emphasised by the Ching Government’s oppressive military action against the destitute Kwangtung people. Civil unrest intensified and rural populations rebelled against the Ching Government. Known as the Taiping Rebellion, this tumultuous period lasted from 1851 to 1864 (Lazarus 1975: 358; Mei 1979: 473).

In the midst of this rebellion, another war over opium erupted in 1856, social chaos deepened and the Ching Government came close to collapse (Choi 1975: 17). By the end of 1864, poor living conditions, natural disaster and fighting had claimed an estimated 20 million lives (Wang 1978: 12; Horsfall 1985: 7). The Chin Government, victorious in the Taiping Rebellion, immediately began a lengthy campaign of rebel executions, which resulted in the loss of approximately another one million lives (Wakeman 1966: 136–50; Mei 1979: 437).

Against this background, Choi’s ‘push factor’ seems hardly descriptive enough. An early Chinese emigrant from Kwangtung to the Australian goldfields, Lum Khan Yang, gave his reason for seeking opportunity overseas: 36

From approximately 1830, developing markets (mostly under British influence) in, for example, North and South America, Cuba, Peru, West Indies, Jamaica, Hawaii and Australia welcomed cheap labour to clear land, set up basic infrastructure and perform general manual labour. Contract workers from Kwangtung had been providing a portion of this labour for over a decade (Chang 1968: 91). Then, in 1849, the Californian gold rush began, followed two years later by the discovery of gold in Australia. Leaflets circulated in Kwangtung by Chinese merchants and shipping companies advertised the opportunities provided by the goldfields. Persistent emigration from Kwangtung after 1849 suggests that these opportunities were attractive to Kwangtung people. Tens of thousands of southern Chinese people left to seek their fortunes, not necessarily from gold, but in the gold-rush countries. This was the origin of Chinese emigration to Australia, California and other world regions.

Aspects of culture in China and abroad

The number of people who left China to seek their fortunes abroad during the 19th century is unclear (Choi 1975: 22; Wang 1978: 268). As a very broad approximation, between 60 000 and 80 000 Chinese people entered Australia during the colonial period (Wang 1978: 269; Markus 2001: 69), some 200 000 to 300 000 went to the United States and a further 150 000 travelled to various other non-Asian regions such as Hawaii, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand (Chang 1968: 99, 103; Stapp 1990: 82). Wang (1978: 308) estimates that 2 355 000 Chinese people left China via seaports between 1840 and 1900.

The kinship system is central to understanding Chinese social behaviour in foreign countries (Cronin 1982: 19; Wu 1982: xi). In particular, Chinese men were responsible for the survival and future wealth of their clan (Yarwood and Knowling 1982: 166). The decision to leave China was not one for the individual to make, but a carefully thought out, serious family affair, initiated as a means to generate family capital (Cronin 1982: 19; Choi 1975: 13). When permission was given for a clan member to work overseas, the emigrant was under obligation to transmit a large portion of earnings back to their immediate family in China, which was beneficial to the clan more broadly (Wu 1982: 93; Chou 1993: 76). Clan officials, a headman or merchant of the same kinship would arrange groups from ten to one hundred or more people to emigrate at a time and would often travel personally with the party (Wang 1978: 99–101; Choi 1975: 81).

A credit–ticket system was commonly entered into, where the headman or a merchant paid passage for an individual or group. The recipient was then bound to work solely for their creditor under debt bondage until the passage plus interest was paid or more commonly for a specified period, usually one year (Cronin 1982: 18) – although Wang (1978: 305) suggests credit–ticket payments could take several years. The credit–ticket system operated as a labour recruitment scheme and had been in use in China from approximately the mid 1700s (Campbell 1969: 2–3; Richardson 1982: 2). Yong (1977: 1) suggests that some 80% of Chinese people who travelled to Victoria during the gold-rush period did so under the credit–ticket system. Wang (1978) provides the most informative evidence concerning the Chinese credit–ticket system, suggesting that

The indebted contractor usually received rations, accommodation and possibly a small wage, but the profits of their labour all went to their passage creditor (Cronin: 1982: 19).

The use of the credit–ticket system in Australia can be identified in an 1858 New South Wales select committee into Chinese immigration. A Chinese merchant, Chin Ateak, is asked how an individual Chinese person would secure the labour of some 30 Chinese men (in China) to come and work in Australia. He answers:

Family loyalty is an integral part of Chinese culture and emigration was managed within the bounds of such kinship obligation (Choi 1975: 10; Chou 1995: 60; Chan 2001: 9). Binding kinship obligations were not simply to work and send money home. The Chinese individual was – from birth to death – influenced by senior 37members of their family, especially on major concerns such as education, choice of marriage partner, place of residence and, importantly, occupation (Choi 1975: 9–10; Moore and Tully 2000: 4). As put by Coolidge (1909: 7, cited in Brienes: 1983: 4):

The situation is also noted by Chan (1997: 200, cited in Chan 2001: 9):

Cronin (1982: 18) cites Tao & Leong (1915: 68) who state,

It is often suggested in historical literature that all Chinese immigrants to Australia – aside from some merchants – were headed for the goldfields (see for example Wang 1988: 109; Chou 1995: 60, Adams 1997: 3; Williams 1999: 20; Curthoys 2001: 103). Only after failing at mining – it is generally suggested – did some Chinese people enter other occupations such as market gardening, shop keeping and fish curing (Horsfall 1985: 118; Loh 1989: 10; Curthoys 2001: 115–16). While the number of Chinese people in occupations other than mining did increase during Victoria’s later gold-rush period (discussed later in this chapter), the assumption that all Chinese people initially came to mine for gold may not be accurate.

A large influx of people into any area requires the establishment of basic infrastructure and supplies such as accommodation, food, clothing and equipment. It is often acknowledged that Chinese people in colonial Australia were remarkably self-sufficient, rarely buying supplies from European merchants on the goldfields or otherwise (Cronin 1982: 21–31; Jones 1990: 26; Williams 1999: 11–12; Lydon 1999: 69; Curthoys 2001: 107). As noted by Brienes (1983: 5) in reference to Chinese social organisation in California, “the Chinese were truly remarkable for their resistance to the essentially English-based model surrounding them”. Cronin (1982: 21–22) argues that Chinese people already established in Victoria provided for the needs of new Chinese arrivals to Victoria. Such an organised system would certainly require a permanent workforce of people who were not working on the goldfields.

Greif (1974: 29) examines the establishment of Chinese infrastructure during the initial period of Chinese mining in New Zealand (1866–1867), finding that by the time miners arrived, Chinese market gardeners had already purchased fertile land and were growing produce that was intended exclusively for their countrymen.

There is other evidence that Chinese people prepared for an influx of miners into Australian regions. In regard to the Palmer goldfields in Queensland, Kirkman (1984: 169) cites newspaper reports from 1873 (one year before the Chinese ‘rush’) that Chinese gardeners were planting vegetables in the area. In late 1874, Chinese doctors, hoteliers, storekeepers and other merchants set up businesses in the major settlements on the Palmer fields, then “suddenly in 1875 a damburst of immigrants direct from China occurred” (Kirkman 1984: 169–170).

Wang’s (1978: 117) study of Chinese emigration suggests that arrangements for Chinese people arriving to mine for gold in Australia were kept totally in the hands of Australian-based Chinese firms. Wang (1978) credits Lowe Kong Meng (figure 3.4), a prominent Chinese merchant based in Melbourne, as shrewdly designing and organising the entire Chinese immigration to northern Queensland. Wang (1978: 117) also suggests Lowe Kong Meng had a major role in facilitating Chinese business in Western Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. This is consistent with the traditional Chinese system of using cooperative enterprise to advance group social and economic interests (Jackson 1970: 48). In an overseas setting, this helped Chinese people to become self-sufficient and to remain independent from European systems.

Researchers have acknowledged the diversity of overseas Chinese occupations (see for example Williams 1999: 6; Stapp 1990: 81–84; Wang 1978: 89–93). However, the implications of the credit–ticket system that required most Chinese immigrants to Victoria – and to Australia more broadly – to work at least their first year overseas under the control of their passage creditor and then to work as directed under kinship obligation, has not yet been recognised in relevant literature. Moreover, the historical evidence for early Chinese primary industry, their cooperative enterprise, the desire to be self-sufficient and the Chinese influence in the development of colonial Australia makes the Chinese system of labour usage in Victoria – and overseas countries – a significant issue which demands further examination. 38

Chinese labour systems in colonial Victoria are difficult to determine. Research is hampered by a lack of colonial-period Chinese written records and the apparently deliberate efforts by colonial-period Chinese people to hide their social organisation and structures (Cronin 1982: 1). To better understand Chinese micro-society – such as a fish-curing establishment – the modern researcher must conduct cautious interpretations of contemporary records often written by a misinformed, culturally unfamiliar and generally antagonistic European population (Cronin 1982: 1). The Chinese system of labour usage in colonial Victoria that is suggested here and backed up where possible is forwarded as the most likely scenario of how their systems may have functioned. In addition, as the intended occupation of Chinese people entering Victoria during the gold-rush period would have varied – for example, from merchant, headman, miner, even temporary sailor or goods smuggler – the following discourse is not intended to be inclusive of every Chinese person in Victoria.

The system of delegated occupation suggests that Victoria’s Chinese population may not have all gone to the goldfields in the hope of ‘striking it rich’. A select minority – people with particular skills such as vegetable growing, fish curing, retail experience and cart/bullock drivers – would have been more valuable to creditor and common kinship goals not as miners, but as suppliers of essential goods.

This Chinese system of labour utilisation – although without creditor involvement – has been noted on a smaller scale among other groups of overseas Chinese people. For example, in an early study of Chinese fishermen in Perak, Malaysia, Dew (1891: 107) discusses how one fisherman out of a team of six (each on a similar share of profits), always stayed at the base camp to keep house, tend the garden and cook meals. Piper (1984: 9) and Butler (1977: 29) discuss similar practices among Chinese miners in New Zealand. Common kinship obligations and a cultural understanding that individual efforts were for the benefit of all, facilitated strong group cohesion. These factors, including indebted labour usage, enabled the kinship system to operate smoothly amongst overseas Chinese people (Chou 1995: 64).

Merchant involvement

Chinese merchants in Australia participated heavily in the credit–ticket system (Votes and Proceedings of the New South Wales Legislative Council 1858, vol. 3; Wang 1978: 117) and therefore had at their disposal a supply of very flexible labour. By delegating more or fewer workers to specific tasks, potential avenues of economic 39gain in Australia could be tested and then either exploited or abandoned – a particularly useful tactic with fleeting or fluctuating markets which the Chinese were very good at identifying (Inglis 1975: 73; Omohundro 1977: 117; Wu 1982: 105; Frost 2002: 124).

The credit–ticket system also assisted to raise the social status of the Chinese merchant class (Wang 1992: 188). The traditionally low status of Chinese merchants reflects the Confucian value that an individual should not endeavour to become rich through entrepreneurial activities (Wang 1992: 310). This places merchants near the bottom of the traditional class structure, which includes, in order of importance, scholars and officials, peasants, artisans, merchants and shopkeepers and the lower classes in undesirable occupations such as fishermen, servants, gravediggers and prostitutes (Wang 1992: 238; Diamond 1969: 21).

After the first Opium War and southern China’s increased contact with the outside world, merchants found an improved market for import/export activities. This enhanced merchant wealth, enabling them to inject more finance into their kinship system. This would have been highly regarded according to Confucian philosophy that values “philanthropy towards the needy and loyalty to the clan-village”, effectively raising the social status of merchants (Wang 1992: 238, 310). As identified by Hwang (1976: 6), Wang (1991: 186) and Lydon (1999: 68–69), Chinese merchants overseas began actively developing their philanthropic activities as a strategy to achieve a higher status. High social status gave merchants power over their fellow overseas countrymen, which in turn facilitated more wealth. By favouring certain people in business endeavours, the merchants broadened their guanxi network. Guanxi is a Chinese cultural system structured around kinship and locality ties) where a favour given represents a favour owed (Praetzellis & Praetzellis 1997: 282, Lydon 1999: 80–85, Stockman 2000: 85–90). As put by Yang (1994: 123):

Chinese merchants involved in the credit–ticket system – now with increased social status and guanxi contacts – would have also acquired some influence over kinship officials in China. The overseas merchant could now – if desired – use their social position to encourage particular workers to stay with them after they had repaid their passage debt. These people may have been placed in a position of elevated authority such as a headman of a working group and/or given the opportunity to establish their own commercial enterprises, enabling them to climb the Chinese social ladder and begin merchant activities themselves. As stated by Wang (1992: 311), “Each merchant earned his initial success through his own efforts, with the support of his family, local links and trade organisations.”

Shipping records from the 1850s onwards show that regular shipments of preserved foods and other cargoes were arriving in Victoria from Asian regions (Syme 1987). Newspaper reports and other historical documents reveal that from the mid-1850s, Chinese people in Victoria operated businesses such as market gardens, rice mills, fish-curing establishments, butcheries, tobacco farms, commercial hotels, boarding houses and general supply stores (Choi 1975: 30; Cronin 1982: 23–28; Williams 1999: 20). Chinese people involved in these businesses were obviously not working as miners and were likely subject to the Chinese social system. As with 80% of the Australian Chinese population, they were probably under debt obligation. These kinship ties – and merchant control – meant that Chinese people working in supply/demand occupations were not general retailers, but were meeting the needs of their own group (Macgregor 1998: 26).

This kinship trade is well-established in Chinese cultural traditions that require commerce to be conducted primarily within family circles in order to facilitate loyalty to lineage and brotherhood trust and to maintain kinship connections (Wang 1992: 310). Lydon (1999: 81) has noted this system was active amongst Sydney’s Chinese population:

In this way, Chinese people in Victoria were able to remain self-sufficient, survive better physically (through fresh food supplies) and be more economically productive than many of their non-Chinese colleagues, including those working on the goldfields (Curthoys 2001: 105).

There is potential for further research into the ‘on-the-ground’ systems that Chinese people used to distribute commodities throughout Victoria. Initially, it is important to emphasise three factors. First, some Chinese merchants had a great deal of labour at their disposal. Second, that through the kinship system, an individual Chinese person’s occupation in Victoria could be controlled, and third, that there was likely a substantial number of Chinese people in Victoria who never worked on the Victorian goldfields, but who instead formed part of the working infrastructure supporting Chinese endeavours to build wealth through gold. This non-mining overseas Chinese population is referred to in Reverend Young’s 1868 report into the 40Chinese population in Victoria. The report lists a broad range of Chinese occupations in Victoria, all of which were a component in supplying commodities to the Chinese mining population, for example shop managers, market gardeners, butchers, tailors, shoemakers and hawkers (Young 1868 cited in McLaren 1985).

Chan’s (2001: 9) statement that overseas Chinese people sometimes saw lineage obligation as a liability and a constraint could suggest that many Chinese men longed to be part of the goldfield excitement but were instead obligated to work in supporting occupations.

For the general Chinese workforce in Australia, merchants acted as the overarching link to all that was Chinese, especially the kinship system. Catering for over 42 000 Chinese people – the approximate number in Victoria during the late 1850s (Choi 1975: 20; Wang 1978: 275) – would have been a substantial endeavour, requiring considerable organisation. Merchants underpinned overseas and Australian trading networks, acted as banking agents and loan creditors, mediated in bureaucratic procedure and offered lodgings, employment, working equipment and much more (Lydon 1999: 84). It is likely they also undertook the vast organisational effort required to assemble, feed, transport and place in suitable occupations the thousands of Chinese people entering Victoria during the gold-rush period. This makes their importance to the early Chinese social system in Victoria paramount.

CHINESE SOCIAL ORGANISATION IN VICTORIA

Between 1848 and 1852, Australian colonies were also involved in the Chinese labour trade (Curthoys 2001: 104). With the British Government’s abolition of slavery in 1833 and the end of convict transportation to New South Wales in 1840, Chinese labourers were seen, mainly by pastoralists, as a reliable, cheap solution to the shortage of labour in Australia (Daley 1932: 23; Choi 1975: 18). The first major group of Chinese people to enter Victoria were part of this labour trade system. They consisted of 123 male labourers who arrived on the Phillip Lang from Hong Kong in 1848 (Wang 1978: 272; McLaren 1985: x).

Due to European difficulties in pronouncing and spelling Chinese names, official government registries for Chinese people entering colonial Victoria are incomplete and confusing (Williams 1999: 85–87). Therefore, the majority of Chinese labourers who entered Victoria during the gold-rush period remain nameless (figure 3.5).

Census details suggest that merchants made up approximately six to eight percent of Chinese people in colonial Victoria (Williams 1999: 94; Couchman 2001: 126). Cronin (1982: 26) indicates there were between thirty and forty Chinese merchants living in Melbourne during the gold-rush period. The Sydney Morning Herald (1861, May 11) reported that the Chinese merchants were: 41

Chinese merchants often had their names recorded properly, are better represented in historical records and were more accepted by the Australian population than the Chinese working class (Oddie 1961: 69; Cronin 1982: 78). Due to these factors, Chinese merchants have less anonymity than most Chinese people in colonial Victoria and, along with their dominant position in overseas Chinese communities, make promising research subjects, especially in regard to social and economic factors influencing colonial Australia.

It is useful to examine two of Melbourne’s leading Chinese merchants: Louey Ah Mouy (often written Louis Ah Mouy) and the previously mentioned Lowe Kong Meng.

In 1851, Louey Ah Mouy was brought to Melbourne under contract to Captain T. Glendinning (Daley 1932: 24). At this time, Louey Ah Mouy was a 24-year-old carpenter from Toishan in the Sze Yap district of Kwangtung (Pike 1974: 19). He was contracted by Glendinning to build six houses with Singapore oak. On completion of his contract, Louey Ah Mouy decided to stay in Victoria and work for himself (Cronin 1982: 26).

By 1852, Louey Ah Mouy would have been aware that Victoria was stirring with the excitement of gold discoveries. Familiar with China’s social situation, cultural practices and kinship system, he would have realised there was money to be made if he could finance Chinese labourers to Victoria. Louey Ah Mouy sent letters to his home village in China relating the news of gold discoveries (Pike 1974: 19). These letters have often been regarded as triggering the Chinese gold rush to Victoria (Pike 1974: 19). The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List show that 129 Chinese people arrived in Victoria by sea in 1852 (cited in Wang 1978: 268). It is likely they were, as suggested by Cronin (1982: 16) “The first emigrants, an advance party of young ‘respectable’ Chinese”. In March 1854, the Rose of Sharon landed another 503 Chinese people in Melbourne (Sydney Morning Herald 1854, March 7). If Yong’s (1977: 1) and Wang’s (1978: 90) claim is accurate that 80% – possibly more – of Chinese people entering colonial Victoria were under the credit–ticket system, this shipment contained more than 400 indebted labourers. By the end of 1854, approximately 5000 Chinese people had entered Victoria by sea (Moore & Tully 2000: 4); perhaps 4000 of these were indebted labourers. In the following five years, over 40 000 Chinese people entered Victoria, creating an enormous source of merchant-friendly labour. It would have been logical and cost-effective to create an infrastructure of transport, market gardens and fish-curing establishments to support this influx of people.

Historically, it is known that Louey Ah Mouy accompanied a Chinese labouring crew to Victoria’s Yea district, probably between 1852 and 1854, and struck rich gold deposits (Pike 1974: 19). It is possible that he engaged some of his workers to prepare market gardens and other basic infrastructure in anticipation of the next wave of Chinese immigrants. Within a year, 19 of these first Chinese goldminers returned to China to flaunt gold, purchase equipment and recruit more labourers for Victoria (Cronin 1982: 16). In late 1852, Louey Ah Mouy established a cartage business and merchandise store in Swanston Street, Melbourne, selling goods imported from Asia and other parts of the world (Pike 1974: 19; Cronin 1982: 20, 28; Macgregor 1998: 26).

Cronin (1982: 20) states that it was ‘widely rumoured’ – although no hard evidence has been located to back her claim – that Louey Ah Mouy was heavily involved in the credit–ticket system. Within a few years he had used Chinese labour to build and operate a rice mill in Flinders Street and establish profitable gold mines in the Victorian districts of Yea, Ballarat, Mount Buffalo, Bright and Walhalla (Oddie 1961: 68). He also held shares in other mining ventures in Australia and overseas, invested heavily in Victorian real estate and was a large shareholder and a chairman of Melbourne’s Commercial Bank of Australia (Pike 1974: 106; Gippsland Guardian 1866, May 11). Louey Ah Mouy died in Melbourne in 1918, aged 92, a wealthy and respected man.

Lowe Kong Meng (figure 3.4) was born into a wealthy Chinese family from Penang, in present day Malaysia, although his lineage could be traced to the Sze Yap district near Canton (Leavitt 1888: 98). He was well-educated and spoke both French and English fluently. In 1853, he travelled to Victoria and spent three months working as a gold digger (Cronin 1982: 28). After carefully assessing the Victorian situation, Lowe Kong Meng left Australia for India, returning to Victoria in 1854 with his own sailing ship and a good supply of trading commodities (Leavitt 1888: 98; Pike 1974: 106; Cronin 1982: 28). At this time he was only 20-four years old and would have almost certainly been acting with the support of his wider family. He opened a tea and merchandise store in Little Bourke Street, purchased six more ships – all registered to the Port of Melbourne – engaging one in the Torres Strait with the trepang industry – sea slugs were a delicacy in Asia – and keeping the rest constantly trading between Melbourne and China (Oddie 1961: 68; Cronin 1982: 28). Like Louey Ah Mouy, Lowe Kong Meng is presumed to have paid passage for thousands of Chinese people to come to Victoria (Cronin 1982: 20), furnishing himself with a steady supply of labour. Vivian (1985: 9) cites evidence from The Examiner (1870, October 15) of Lowe Kong Meng’s use of Chinese labour. The article states that Lowe Kong Meng provided James Peters of Tasmania with 19 experienced gold diggers from Ararat, Bendigo and New Zealand, offering up to two thousand more Chinese men if desired.

42Lowe Kong Meng would have needed a considerable workforce to support the mining claims and companies which he owned and others in which he held major shares such as the Kong Extended Gold Mining Company, Kong Meng Gold Reef, Kong Meng and Columbia Tribute Gold Mining Company, New Kong Meng Company, Madame Bent Gold Mining Company, Midas Consols Gold Mining Company and the hugely rich Majorca mine (Oddie 1961: 68; Cronin 1982: 28; Kyi 2004: 62). Lowe Kong Meng also held major shares in, and was a chairman of, the Commercial Bank of Australia in Melbourne, represented a major Chinese insurance company, was part-owner of a sugar conglomerate and owned businesses in Queensland, Darwin, New South Wales, Western Australia and New Zealand (Pike 1974: 106; Oddie 1961: 68; Gippsland Guardian 1866, May 11). He invested heavily in land, purchasing large blocks at Brighton, Toorak, Malvern and St Kilda, where he employed Chinese labour to grow bulk vegetables, fruit and tobacco (Oddie 1961: 68; Cronin 1982: 28). Interestingly, there was a large Chinese fish-curing establishment at St Kilda (Horsfall 1985: 119) and although the owner is unknown, it was quite possibly under the control of Lowe Kong Meng.

Early in Victoria’s gold rush, three dominant – although separate – Kwangtung language/district associations emerged: the Sze Yap representing the ‘Four Districts’ of Toishan, Sunwuui, Hoiping and Yangping; the Sam Yap representing the ‘Three Districts’ of Nanhai, Punyu and Shunte; and the Heang-San, a minority group possibly of Hakka people (Young 1868 cited in McLaren 1985: 49). These grew rapidly to contain thousands of associates and – like an extended kinship membership – provided social protection, support and identity (Wang 1978: 116). These associations were not unique to Australia, but appeared wherever large numbers of Chinese people settled. Each association had direct antecedents in China (Armentrout-Ma 1983: 107).

The Chinese merchant class established themselves at the head of these district associations, directing the members and controlling many aspects of their economic system (Oddie 1961: 67; Wang 1978: 117; Stapp 1990: 84). Upon arrival in Victoria, new Chinese immigrants were met by district association members and taken to a Chinese tent city ‘beyond the town’ where they were lectured on life in Victoria, issued with working equipment, then left in the care of their creditor’s headman who told them where they would work (Crawford 1877: 27; Wang 1978: 115; Cronin 1982: 22). Wang (1978: 102) suggests the Chinese immigrants to Victoria

For the indebted labourer, there were three broad occupation possibilities. The first was mining, the second was employment in the produce and supply industries, the third was to be socially connected enough to be set up as a merchant store owner. Some merchant store owners became wealthy and socially influential, others remained small-time business people and some went bankrupt. Stapp’s (1990: 335) study of a Chinese mining community in Idaho, United States, suggests that merchant stores either sold a poor range of cheap goods, or a large range of necessities and luxury items. It is not known if Chinese store owners – in the United States or Australia – actually owned the products for sale or were simply working for wealthier merchants. Whatever the case, three distinct Chinese social class types become evident in colonial Victoria: the wealthy and influential leading merchants, a broad range of middle-class merchants and headmen and the majority working-class labourers.

Each of the larger Victorian goldfields were comprised of several individual (spatially separate) villages where Chinese people lived, worked and were dependent on their own district groups. In Beechworth, Horsham, Bendigo and Ballarat, the Hakkas, Sze Yap and Sam Yap each had separate merchandise stores, vegetable gardens, butchers, barbers, cook-shops, opium establishments and religious temples (Young 1868 cited in McLaren 1985). They also had independent systems of transporting imported goods, fresh agricultural supplies and cured products such as fish and tobacco from Melbourne to the various goldfields (Cronin 1982: 22–23).

Through appointing Chinese people to undertake specific tasks according to who they did or did not favour, Louey Ah Mouy, Lowe Kong Meng and other Chinese merchants shaped the early (1850s to 1870s) Chinese communities in colonial Victoria.

Where major economic opportunities emerged, such as the Victorian gold rush, it appears that the first Chinese person or group of people to set themselves up as merchants and encourage other Chinese people into the region often ended up with the largest pool of available labour. These merchants became the wealthiest class and would then employ and do business favours for the next, aspiring, class of merchants (Oddie 1961: 69), thereby creating a functional and self-sufficient social system. In this way, Louey Ah Mouy and Lowe Kong Meng established themselves as leaders in Victoria’s colonial Chinese society. The system outlined above – especially the techniques of social survival and methods for procuring and utilising labour – has been noted among Chinese settlers in other parts of the world, both before and after the Chinese arrived in Victoria. Four brief case studies will be used to add weight to the suggestions above.

43Many researchers have discussed Chinese merchant activities in the United States in the 19th century and merchant control over the labouring Chinese population. Mei (1979: 475–76), for example, argues that merchants were the first Chinese people to immigrate to California, where they immediately engaged in all manner of trade, opened stores and organised others to sell Chinese groceries and daily necessities to incoming Chinese. Stapp (1990: 325–46) indicates that the Chinese mining population in Idaho was grouped into social clan units that were fully controlled by a higher organisational class – presumably the Chinese merchants. Armentrout-Ma (1983: 110), mentions that the earliest merchants in San Francisco held authority over and dominated Chinese community leadership. Rohe (1982: 9), commenting on the journey by Chinese miners to the goldfields, suggests that “Commercial agents or storekeepers in constant contact with the headquarters of their district companies directed the movement”. Similarly, Mark and Chih (1982: 56) comment that “Merchants controlled the clan and district associations … Their power gave them jurisdiction over most aspects of the lives of Chinatown’s working men”.

These researchers acknowledge the control that Chinese merchants had over the Chinese working population, but fail to discuss the role of merchants in organising labour to set up initial infrastructure such as market gardens and fish-curing establishments. Taking Wang’s (1992: 301–12) description of overseas Chinese merchants – that merchants went abroad to seek trade opportunities – into account, the early Chinese merchants in the United States would have almost certainly identified opportunities to supply their compatriots with goods and services and directed a portion of their available labour to this end.

Omohundro (1977: 116) briefly describes Chinese labour organisation in the Philippines, noting that people indebted to Chinese merchants were mostly basic labourers. Omohundro (1977: 116) and Campbell (1969: xvii) observe that these labourers were frequently loaned out to work for other merchant kinsman elsewhere in the Philippines, suggesting that indebted overseas Chinese workers had close connections with their merchant bosses, were highly mobile and worked at whatever occupation was assigned to them. Wang (1978: 92) discusses Chinese people in California and refers to the credit–ticket system, stating that “After arrival in California, migrants remained directly indebted to the brokers, either working for the agents on mines or hired out to employers”.

Between approximately 1790 and 1820, West Borneo was host to a Chinese gold rush. In a study of cultural geography, Jackson (1970) has detailed social patterns of Chinese organisation on the West Borneo goldfields. This region was not under direct European rule until the 1850s and gold mining and goldfield administration was predominantly in the hands of Chinese Kwangtung villagers (Jackson 1970: 2). Each of the West Borneo fish-curing locations were settled by separate kinship and district association units (kongsis, or ‘ritual brotherhood’) held together by common bonds of kinship, loyalty and economic interests (Jackson 1970: 62; Wang 2003: 71). Kinship headmen, traders and merchants occupied positions of influence within the kongsi communities (Jackson 1970: 63). Each kongsi goldmine was comprised of groups of miners, shop owners, farmers, fishermen and tradesmen. Jackson (1970: 64–65) notes that the non-mining population was integral to each kongsi’s gold mining activities and held the same organisational position as miners. Each member of a kongsi was subject to taxes relative to their occupation, but everyone received a share of the gold profits (Jackson 1970: 64–65). The system described by Jackson suggests that those involved in non-mining occupations such as farmers and fisherman were part of an integrated group pursuing wealth through gold.

Wu (1982) discusses the migration of Chinese people to New Guinea and examines aspects of their social organisation. From 1889 to 1901, a German company engaged some two thousand Chinese labourers – predominantly from Kwangtung – to experiment in New Guinea with coconut and tobacco farming (Wu 1982: 17). The farming projects failed. In 1901, approximately 150 Chinese people chose to remain in New Guinea as free settlers (Wu 1982: 19). Wu states that when subsequent work opportunities arose in New Guinea, the settlers sent messages back to China asking brothers, cousins and other clan or lineage members to join them. Then, “when newcomers arrived, the established pioneers became patrons for them, acting as leaders as well as protectors” (Wu 1982: 52).

Ah Tam was one of the earliest Chinese settlers in New Guinea and became a leading figure in the community. Using Chinese kinship connections, Ah Tam recruited labour to promote his commercial ventures. By 1910, his business interests included a wholesale and retail store, two ship building yards, a hotel, several agricultural plantations, a gambling establishment, a brothel and an opium house and he owned every building in Chinatown (Wu 1982: 52). While nothing is mentioned of Ah Tam paying for passage of immigrants, Wu notes that Ah Tam was a large employer and, for an initial period, paid very low wages to the new Chinese arrivals.

Further discussion of overseas Chinese social systems and use of labour can be found in Willmott (1960) for Indonesia, Moench (1963) for Tahiti, Inglis (1975) for Papua New Guinea and Watson (1975) for England.

44In each case, for Victoria or elsewhere, by drawing on the kinship system, a set of ready-made contacts was available through which credit, import/export commodities and labour resources could be obtained. Importantly, kinship obligations through the credit–ticket system facilitated a willing and cheap labour source. This, it is suggested, is the major factor in enabling Chinese people in Victoria to operate as a self-sufficient minority and turn local economic possibilities into capital. As argued by Wang (1978: 310),

Occupational change

The Chinese labour systems discussed above were used in Victoria for only a relatively limited period, from the arrival of Chinese gold-rush immigrants in the early 1850s to approximately 1870. By 1870, declining gold yields in Victoria, racially restrictive Victorian immigration laws – in place since 1855 – and Chinese kinship pressures for male family members to return home, were quickening the outflow and slowing the inflow of Chinese people in Victoria (Choi 1975: 26). Victoria’s Chinese population had peaked at 42 000 in the late 1850s, then dropped to below 18 000 by 1870 and continued to fall at an approximate rate of 500 per year for the rest of the century (Horsely 1879: 417; Choi 1975: 20, 22). By the end of 1888 – the height of anti-Chinese sentiment – there were only around 3500 Chinese people working as goldminers in Victoria (Oddie 1959: 19). By 1901, numbers had dwindled to some 1200 (Choi 1975: 29). Most of Victoria’s existing Chinese population would have long completed their period of passage debt by this time. The initial commercial boom of Victoria’s gold rush was over and the Chinese community in Victoria was in decline (Chou 1995: 59). With more Chinese people leaving Victoria than were arriving, the credit–ticket system would have been supplying only a small number of labourers to support merchant entrepreneurial activities. At the same time, the huge infrastructure set up by Chinese merchants to supply Chinese miners became less important as mining populations decreased.

Kwuangtung remained a troubled province, with Chinese people in Victoria still under kinship obligations to support family back in China. The ideal for most lower-class Chinese goldminers had always been to return to China when their family’s economic circumstances had stabilised (Brienes 1983: 7). On failing to ‘strike it rich’ through gold – as was often the case – many Chinese miners in Victoria began pursuing a new range of occupations to allow them to continue to send regular remittance money to family in China (Oddie 1961: 65; Choi 1975: 29; Chou 1993: 70–75). This is evident through census reports that show in 1861, 80% of Chinese people in Victoria were employed as miners, dropping to 74% in 1871, then to only 25% in 1891 (Census of Victoria 1861, 1871, 1891). The Chinese people in Victoria were no longer pursuing wealth through gold, but nor were they left penniless from their mining activities as is often suggested in historical literature (see for example Cronin 1982: 60). McGowan (2005) argues that when gold was plentiful, many Chinese goldminers in Australia had done quite well financially and could be classified in the ‘middling’ as opposed to the lower classes.

With reduced profits from mining, Chinese people turned to other labour-intensive occupations such as market gardening and tobacco farming, previously occupied by the debt-obligated new Chinese immigrants. Individuals or small groups of kinship and district-associated people entered into occupations that provided adequate income to continue remitting money to China. Chinese people also started providing services, selling products and working for non-Chinese people in positions such as general farm labourers, seasonal harvesters, sheep washers and shearers, scrub clearers/tree ring barkers, cooks, servants, hawkers, boot makers and tailors (Oddie 1961: 66; Chou 1993: 65). However, in the initial post-mining period, it was to market gardening that many Chinese people turned in order to earn a small but steady income (Baker 1985: 37; Adams 1997: 20; Wegars 2003: 70–71).

After the 1870s, Chinese market gardeners comprised 30% of the Chinese population and became the principal vegetable growers for Victoria (Clowes 1911: 196). Chinese gardeners planted crops that were popular in European diets and with Melbourne’s increasing population, due initially to the gold rush and then to the building boom of the late 1870s through the 1880s. They were making sizeable profits catering to non-Chinese consumers (Chou 1993: 65; Wilton 2004: 27). By the late 1880s Chinese people also dominated laundry services and furniture and cabinet-making industries (Oddie 1959: 81, 86), then in the early 1900s Chinese retail stores and restaurants became popular among Chinese entrepreneurs.

The fundamental elements of Chinese social organisation in colonial Victoria, however, continued unchanged. The kinship system was dominant, district associations remained central and merchants acted as community leaders. Commerce was still predominantly conducted within the family unit, which enabled kinship merchants – through their guanxi favour and money-lending abilities – to continue to control many 45aspects of Chinese economic activity in Victoria. However, the days of large numbers of Chinese labourers working to support the Chinese presence on the Victorian goldfields were over.

The system discussed above is also relevant to Chinese fish-curing operations in Victoria. It is speculated that these establishments were initially owned by Chinese merchants and operated by indebted credit–ticket labourers, possibly with a kinship obligated headman. Cured fish was sold to independent Chinese miners and used as a food source for the large numbers of indebted Chinese labour under merchant control. In regard to the Port Albert fish-curing establishment, when mining activities slowed and Chinese miners began drifting into other occupations, two or three Chinese people may have leased or had some other arrangement with the owning merchant to take over fish-curing activities.

To obtain the best possible understanding of the ownership, operation and labour force of the Port Albert Chinese fish-curing establishment, it is useful to examine the entry of Chinese people into Australia’s fishing industry and evidence of other fish-curing establishments in Australia and elsewhere.