Life and labour for indentured Chinese shepherds in New South Wales, 1847-55

Abstract

The dominant image of the Chinese in colonial Australia pertains to their activities as gold diggers. Their role as shepherds and labourers in the service of the pastoral industry is less appreciated. This paper examines the distribution, lifestyles and labours of those Chinese imported under indenture by colonial pastoralists and employed as shepherds on the vast pastoral stations in the northern districts of New South Wales. By using pastoral records and personal accounts, a new perspective on the importance of Chinese labour to the pastoral industry and the history of the Chinese in Australia is offered.This paper does not question how or why the Chinese were imported and employed as shepherds, focusing instead on examining where and how they worked and lived. The reliance of previous scholarship on counting the number of indentured Chinese who appeared before the local magistrate, biased newspaper reports and second-hand accounts has tended to produce extremely negative accounts of the indentured Chinese as bad shepherds who abandoned their flocks and were generally a bad investment. The author's use of station records to glean information on the lives of the indentured Chinese allows a different view to be offered with the archival holdings for Maryland, Ollera, Collaroy, Brindley Park, Hawkwood, Bromelton, Bugrooperia, Eidswold and Coonambula stations, all relating something of how the Chinese shepherds and labourers lived and worked.