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The previous story, about Chinese market gardening in the Waranga area, begs the question – what was grown in the gardens? Initially, it was probably vegetables that the people were used to growing at home in China. Seeds could have been brought from China or purchased from Chinese traders in Australia
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One of the businesses in which the Chinese excelled in the Waranga area in the latter part of the 19th century was market gardening. Many of those who came to Australia seeking their fortune came from rural areas in south-eastern China. As a result, they already had the skills which
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When the traveller in the previous story was traversing the Waranga area in the late 1860s, he came across a Chinese hutkeeper on the Waranga Park station. Around the hut was what could only be described as an astonishing sight. “Judge my surprise at seeing suspended from the branches (of
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We tend to think of the Chinese who came to the Waranga area in the 19th century as being involved almost exclusively in gold mining. However, the new arrivals did engage in other occupations. A number of them worked in the pastoral industry as employees in roles such as shepherds
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One of the things that caused dissatisfaction amongst the Chinese on the Waranga goldfields was the imposition of the so-called resident’s licence in 1857. It was one of several deterrents introduced from 1855 by the Victorian Government after political pressure to curb the number of Chinese immigrants. An earlier
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In the lead-up to the dramatic events that took place at Eureka Stockade in 1854, there was considerable political agitation on the goldfields. For all miners, the oppressive miner’s licence fee and the aggressive way in which the fees were collected were lightning rods for dissent. Meetings occurred across
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Horse-drawn puddling machines, such as the one reconstructed at Whroo, are examples of “the puddling technology developed in Victoria from 1854 in response to the need to process enormous amounts of clay soil which needed to be broken up to get at the gold. Horses were used to drag harrows
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As we have seen earlier, the Chinese gold miners were used to working in teams. Sometimes, this was a group of indentured workers, often from the same geographic area of China. When their debts were paid off, the miners were free to form their own groups to work a claim.
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The Chinese were the pre-eminent alluvial miners on the Waranga goldfields in the 1850s and early 1860s. They tended to stick with alluvial mining well after the majority of miners had either left the industry or were employed by companies involved in quartz mining. In contrast to quartz mining, the
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The Chinese miners were mostly alluvial miners. Alluvium is the loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain or on an alluvial “fan”. Hence, alluvial miners worked relatively close to the surface as opposed to quartz miners. On
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The Chinese on the Waranga goldfields (as on other goldfields) tended to live in clearly defined camps. Maps from the late 1850s indicate there were at least four – two at Rushworth and two at Whroo. Language was a massive barrier to communication with other miners until the Chinese had been
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The Chinese miners and businesspeople on the Waranga goldfields tended to live in separate communities to the Europeans. There were various reasons for this. As a group, they suffered considerable racism from other residents of the goldfields, so it was safer to keep to themselves. Additionally, many of the miners