Post by NZBC on Jun 11, 2007 22:53:42 GMT 12
www.arrowtown.org/chine.htm
Their hope was simple. An influx of Chinese miners would considerably bolster a flagging provincial economy. This invitation occurred after more than 10 years British experience of Chinese miners in Australia. The first group of immigrants reached Dunedin in February 1866 and went to the Tuapeka goldfield. Later in the same year another party arrived in the Cromwell district. Within two years there were 1200 Chinese in Otago and this total quadrupled in the 1870s. The Chinese immigrants were also a valuable source of cheap labour.
In the Arrowtown region the 'Celestiais' earned 5/- day carrying out street repairs for the borough or working for builders. The Presbyterian Church was erected with a great deal of Chinese labour. Their reputation as workers was it seems excellent although remuneration was considerably less than the £3 a week paid for European labour.
Most of the immigrants set forth from the Kwangtung province in Southern China a region of farmers and artisans. Numbers further increased as they in turn sponsored relatives from the homeland, the process of chain migration. As was the case on the world's other goldfields, European miners were fearful of the Chinese. Initially there was fear of competition for claims, but in the main the Chinese were content to work over claims already abandoned by Europeans. Nevertheless, there was continuing prejudice for the Chinese offered an economic threat, especially during the depression of the 1880s.
To dissuade further immigration a poll tax was introduced but by this time (1881) mining was on the decline. Those Chinese who remained drifted off to market gardening or commerce, forming the basis of the present Chinese community.
tinyurl.com/5sa3ycy
Their hope was simple. An influx of Chinese miners would considerably bolster a flagging provincial economy. This invitation occurred after more than 10 years British experience of Chinese miners in Australia. The first group of immigrants reached Dunedin in February 1866 and went to the Tuapeka goldfield. Later in the same year another party arrived in the Cromwell district. Within two years there were 1200 Chinese in Otago and this total quadrupled in the 1870s. The Chinese immigrants were also a valuable source of cheap labour.
In the Arrowtown region the 'Celestiais' earned 5/- day carrying out street repairs for the borough or working for builders. The Presbyterian Church was erected with a great deal of Chinese labour. Their reputation as workers was it seems excellent although remuneration was considerably less than the £3 a week paid for European labour.
Most of the immigrants set forth from the Kwangtung province in Southern China a region of farmers and artisans. Numbers further increased as they in turn sponsored relatives from the homeland, the process of chain migration. As was the case on the world's other goldfields, European miners were fearful of the Chinese. Initially there was fear of competition for claims, but in the main the Chinese were content to work over claims already abandoned by Europeans. Nevertheless, there was continuing prejudice for the Chinese offered an economic threat, especially during the depression of the 1880s.
To dissuade further immigration a poll tax was introduced but by this time (1881) mining was on the decline. Those Chinese who remained drifted off to market gardening or commerce, forming the basis of the present Chinese community.
tinyurl.com/5sa3ycy