Finding the Chinese perspective

‘Finding the Chinese perspective: Locating Chinese petitions against anti-Chinese legislation during the mid to late 1850s’, Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria, issue no. 8, 2009. ISSN 1832-2522. Copyright © Anna Kyi.

One of the challenges facing researchers of nineteenth-century Chinese-Australian history is the dearth of sources reflecting the Chinese perspective. Part of the difficulty in gaining a better understanding of the Chinese protests against the various taxes imposed on them during the mid to late 1850s has been locating the petitions from the Chinese and their supporters. The accompanying article also published in this issue of Provenance puts the petitions that have been located into the context of evolving anti-Chinese legislation. The present article seeks to encourage further research into this topic by identifying where the petitions can be found at Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) as well as in published sources such as the Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly (Victoria), newspapers and books. Towards this end, it also considers some of the benefits and limitations of these sources. No one source contains all of the petitions from all of the various phases of the Chinese protest campaign. To consult only one source can create the risk of interpreting an incomplete picture. Further research might uncover more petitions. For researchers interested in locating other petitions held by PROV, this article will provide some useful ideas on how to approach this search.

Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly
If you are trying to access petitions from the early phases of the protests against the £10 immigration poll tax and the proposed Chinese residence tax in 1857, the Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly are worth consulting. However, they are not comprehensive in relation to these particular phases and prove to be inadequate in relation to later phases (1859). There are two main reasons for this. First, not all papers tabled at the Legislative Assembly were printed. This is the case with petitions that were tabled in late 1859 from Chinese in Castlemaine, Bendigo and Melbourne[1] and it is also relevant to the petition against the immigration poll tax from Chinese in Victoria tabled in 1856. Second, not all petitions were addressed to the Legislative Assembly and so they could not be tabled in this forum.

Petitions in the Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly are accessible on microfilm at the State Library of Victoria. This source also contains the 1857 petitions against the Chinese influx.[2] When read together these petitions become a dialogue: you can see the accusations that were made against the Chinese as well as how the Chinese chose to defend themselves. It is also possible to get an understanding of the level of support for the petitions from this source. All but one of the petitions against the Chinese taxes identifies the number of signatures that were attached to the originals.

Original petitions in the Legislative Assembly records
Accessing the original petitions held in the Legislative Assembly records at PROV is one way to address gaps in the Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly. So far, few researchers have considered looking at this source. This is not surprising as access is not particularly easy. It is necessary to seek permission from the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly before PROV is able to give researchers access, and until now there has been no index to locate which units the petitions are located in. The Legislative Assembly papers are kept in chronological order. You can narrow the search down by looking through the index to the Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly to find out when a particular petition was tabled.

Besides filling in gaps in the Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, there are other reasons that might make consulting the originals worthwhile. The significance of the signatures on original petitions requires further examination to determine whether they can present any new insights into the Chinese presence. Can the 1857 Chinese Castlemaine petition, which contains names in both Chinese and English, be used to assist individuals who are researching their family history? Can the signatures on these petitions be used to track the movement of Chinese individuals around the goldfields? In his research on Chinese petitions against opium smoking in 1884, Dr Kok pointed out that ‘The symbolic grouping and arrangement of names and the very names themselves, indicated most retained much of their traditional Chinese beliefs, as well as their associations with lodges to which they belonged and as members of which they had worked for gold’.[3] Can these petitions reveal the same type of information? A lot depends on the type of Chinese name used on the petition. A Chinese man can have up to five different names: the name he was given as a baby; the scholastic name his teacher gave him; the name he received after marriage and some men had honorific names which suggested their rank or generation.

In considering the signatures as a potential area of research, it is important to note that the petitions against Chinese taxes which were addressed to the Legislative Assembly in 1856 and 1857 are accompanied by more signatures than the petitions addressed to the Legislative Assembly in late 1859. In this later stage of the protest campaign there is a tendency for one individual or a small group to sign on behalf of a larger group. This trend was also common to petitions against the Chinese influx in 1857.

 

The European signatures on some of the original petitions also represent an important step towards gaining an understanding of the Europeans who supported the Chinese. We need to further our understanding of the range of different motives behind this support. This understanding will help to avoid simplistic ‘us against them’ interpretations of race relations, and may help us to understand what enabled some to possess a more inclusive sense of democracy.[4] Two petitions against the Chinese residence taxes that were addressed to the Legislative Assembly contain European signatures (refer to tables 4 and 5). Original petitions addressed to the Governor contain more signatures of European supporters.

 

 

Original petitions addressed to the Governor
Most of the petitions that were not addressed to the Legislative Assembly were either addressed or forwarded to the Governor. In an era when responsible government was in its infancy, differing understandings over who had the power to alter legislation – the Governor as representative of the Queen’s imperial power or the newly formed government with its colonial power – are understandable. In 1859, the Act to Consolidate and Amend the Laws Affecting the Chinese Emigrating to or Resident in Victoria created confusion over who had the power to amend legislation. This law indicated that the Governor had the power to amend the legislation when in fact he did not. Consequently, some petitions were addressed or forwarded to the Governor in mid-1859. When the Chief Secretary advised that petitions should be sent to the Legislative Assembly, some groups did so in late 1859.[5]

Table 9 identifies some of the original petitions that were addressed to the Governor. These are located in the Chinese Protectorate records, which form part of the Chief Secretary’s Inwards Correspondence (VPRS 1189) held by PROV. The list is not exhaustive. The Chief Secretary was the only means of communication between the public and the Governor as well as other government officials. Once the petitioned official had seen the petition, it was often sent back to the Chief Secretary’s Office. The records in this series are quite extensive, partly because the Chief Secretary was also responsible for communication between the various government departments.[6]

Newspapers and other published contemporary sources
Newspapers can provide a means of accessing petitions when the originals are yet to be located in PROV records or elsewhere. This is currently the case with petitions that were sent during mid-1859, and the Ballarat Chinese petition sent to the Governor in 1857. Since completing the research for the accompanying article published in this issue of Provenance, I have also come across a petition from Quang Chew, which was sent to the Governor when the poll tax was being debated and some were proposing that the Chinese be excluded from Victoria. A copy of this petition is located in the published letters and diaries of French miner and photographer, Antoine Fauchery, who was on the goldfields during the first half of the 1850s. The original is yet to be located. The following tables identify where the copies of these petitions can be found.

Endnotes

[1] Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, session 1859-1860, volume 1, John Ferres Government Printer, Melbourne, p. xxii.

[2] See Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, session 1856-1857, volume 3, John Ferres Government Printer, Melbourne.

[3] Quoted in Celebrate 150 years: Parliament of Victoria, Issue no. 12, September 2006, available at <http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/150th/newsletter.asp>, accessed 8 October 2009.

[4] Some of these ideas are explored further in A Kyi, ‘Changing Perceptions of Democracy on the Goldfields’, paper presented at the Museums Australia Conference, Canberra, 2007, available at <http://www.museumsaustralia.org.au/UserFiles/File/National%20Conference/2007/AnnaKyi_ConferencePaper07.pdf>, accessed 4 August 2009.

[5] For further explanation of what happened refer to my article, ‘The most determined, sustained diggers’ resistance campaign’, also published in this issue of Provenance.

[6] In regard to petitions addressing the Governor of Victoria, a brief explanation of the system of registering and forwarding petitions that are now located in PROV, VPRS 1189 is available in the series description for PROV, VPRS 1192, Petitions.

[7] ‘The Levee’, Ballarat Times, 22 January 1858.

[8] ‘Meeting of the Chinese’, Ballarat Times, 14 August 1857, pp. 1-2.