Chinese Community in Ipswich

Local historian, Robyn Buchanan wrote about the Chinese people in Ipswich in the Ipswich Heritage Education Kit in 1996 and in her newspaper series of articles titled 'A Place in History. It seems unnecessary to recreate or rewrite this history, so the information below has been taken from these two resources.

Moreton Bay’s early days were plaqued with an acute shortage of labor. Few European immigrants came to Brisbane and employers, particularly the squatters, were desperately short of workmen. And it was the squatters who first asked that Indian coolies should be imported, but regulations did no allow this. So in 1848, 56 Chinese were brought to Brisbane.

They could be hired through agents for the cost of their passage plus the provision they be given six pounds per year, two suits of clothing and their keep for five years. After this, many shiploads of Chinese came to Moreton Bay and the 1851 census showed there were 588 “Mahomedans and Pagans”.  The unfortunate result was racial tension in the community.

The white workers feared the Chinese would undercut them and wages would drop. Other people simply had a blind prejudice. A letter in the Moreton Bay Free Press in 1848 talked of "these yellow and beastly strangers". The Chinese or "Celestials" as they were called were accused of filthy eating because they ate "rice and other unknown delicacies". There was even seen to be something sinister about their lack of beards.

Wives, families and unmarried Chinese women were not allowed to come with the men. They thought that some Chinese men might naturally wish to marry within the white community caused horror. Tales were invented about Chinese offering large amounts of money to buy white brides or about white women being tempted into Chinese opium dens. The whole story is a sad one of misunderstandings and of a community’s fear and intolerance of people who were different.

In Ipswich in 1851, the prejudice of local people culminated in an attack on a group of Chinese at Smith’s Boiling Down Works on the Bremer River. An initial report to present the Europeans in a favorable light.  It stated the Chinese “took possession of some cleavers, knives and other implements of the kind, with which they threatened the white men, until Mr Campbell, Mr Smith’s superintendent, interfered by by desire of his employer and preserved the peace”.

Later in the day, the Chinese returned with some of their friends and were savagely attacked by the white men, one of whom had used a tomahawk. A report in the “Moreton Bay Courier” stated: “There were 12 altogether most shockingly mutilated, especially about the head.  A fact that tells most seriously against the Europeans is, that not one of them had a single scratch.” Justice prevailed in spite of racial prejudice and the Europeans were imprisoned, but the underlying antagonism remained.

The Queensland Times sometimes mentioned the Chinese people in Ipswich, for example a Chinese man in a vegetable cart had an accident in 1866. The general tone is patronising but not antagonistic.

The number of Chinese in Queensland reached a peak during the gold rushes and in 1876, was 6% of Queensland's population. The politician John Macrossan spoke about "the yellow peril" and laws were passed to reduce immigration, so the numbers dwindled.

Older residents of Ipswich can remember a few Chinese remaining here as market gardeners. They sold their vegetables door-to-door with a pair of baskets hanging from a pole over their shoulders and at Christmas, they brought householders gifts of small jars of ginger.