Details
Sugar cane first arrived in Australia on the First Fleet in 1788 and was originally planted in Norfolk Island. The first Australian sugar plantation and mill was established at Port Macquarie in 1821 but was abandoned nine years later. Colonial authorities and settlers then turned their attention to southern Queensland, northern New South Wales and the Northern Territory as potential sites for successful cane-growing.
Due to strong opposition towards the hiring of non-European labour, white workers dominated the sugar industry in New South Wales. Chinese labour, however, was vital to cane-growing ventures in the Northern Territory and Queensland. The Northern Territory entered the sugar market in the 1880s. The Delissaville, Daly River and Shoal Bay sugar plantations relied on Chinese workers but they closed due to poor soil and/or lack of financial assistance. Chinese farmers also grew sugar cane on small parcels of land around Darwin.
Chinese migrants were particularly central to the production of sugar in the Cairns district. In fact, they were the first to grow sugar cane in Cairns on a commercial basis. One of the town's well-known sugar businesses was the Hop Wah plantation. Established in 1878 by Chinese businessman Andrew Leon, Hop Wah was an entirely Chinese co-operative with the exception of one European engineer. The plantation, like many others along the Queensland coast, was not able to survive the drop in world sugar prices in the early 1880s and was forced to close in 1885.
As sugar declined in the mid-1880s, bananas became the major Chinese export crop in Cairns. Chinese involvement in the sugar industry returned after the ratification of the Sugar Works Guarantee Act in 1893. The Act allowed landholders to receive financial assistance from the government to set up central mills supplied by small farmers without restrictions on the type of labour employed. As a result, the plantation mills began to lease their land to small farmers, including the Chinese.
Although racial hostility and later discriminatory practices hindered the success of Chinese cane farmers, Chinese sugar producers in Cairns flourished into the early 1900s. The town of Aloomba in particular became a hub for the Chinese sugar industry and produced several prominent cane farmers, including Kwok Yin-Ming (also known as Willie Ming), Ah Tong, Ah Lin and Wong Fong.
From 1906 Chinese farmers began to withdraw from Queensland's sugar industry for several reasons. Firstly, Pacific Islanders were being deported from Queensland, thereby depriving Chinese farmers of their main source of labour. Chinese growers were also excluded from receiving a bonus for cane which had been grown with European labour. Chinese involvement in Queensland's sugar industry was also affected by extra charges placed on cane grown by Chinese farmers, a reluctance by major sugar mills to lease land to the Chinese and a cyclone which devastated farmers in 1906 and 1907. Only a few Chinese farmers remained active in the sugar industry in the 1910s.
Sources used to compile this entry: May, Cathie R., Topsawyers: The Chinese in Cairns, 1870-1920, James Cook University, History Department, Queensland, 1984; May, Cathie, 'The Chinese in Cairns and Atherton: Contrasting studies in race relations, 1876-1920', in P. Macgregor (ed.), Histories of the Chinese in Australasia and the South Pacific, Museum of Chinese Australian History, Melbourne, 1995, pp. 47-58; 'A Trip to Delissaville - By a Traveller', Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 21 January 1882, p.2-3; 'The Northern Territory', South Australian Register, 15 March 1884, p.1s; 'Mr Brandt's Shoal Bay Sugar Plantation', North Australian, 7 August 1885, p.3; Griggs, Peter D, Global Industry, Local Innovation: The History of Cane Sugar Production in Australia, 1820-1995, Peter Lang, Bern, 2011; Wills, Joanna, 'Remembering the Cane: Conserving the Sugar Legacy of Far North Queensland', Paper given at the Professional Historians Association (Queensland) conference held on 3-4 September 2009 at Brisbane.
Prepared by: Snjezana Cosic
Related Subjects
Published Resources
Books
- May, Cathie R., Topsawyers: The Chinese in Cairns, 1870-1920, James Cook University, History Department, Queensland, 1984. Details
Book Sections
- May, Cathie, 'The Chinese in Cairns and Atherton: Contrasting studies in race relations, 1876-1920', in P. Macgregor (ed.), Histories of the Chinese in Australasia and the South Pacific, Museum of Chinese Australian History, Melbourne, 1995, pp. 47-58. Details
Images
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- Title
- Chinese farm workers planting cane on Hambledon Sugar Plantation, Cairns, 1890s
- Type
- Photograph
- Date
- 1890s
- Place
- Australia - Queensland - Cairns
- Details
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- Title
- Chinese worker amongst sugar cane in the Northern Territory
- Type
- Photograph
- Date
- c. 1896
- Place
- Australia - Northern Territory
- Details
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- Title
- Cutting sugar cane in the Northern Territory
- Type
- Photograph
- Date
- c. 1896
- Place
- Australia - Northern Territory
- Details
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- Title
- Labourer working on the Hambledon sugar plantation, Cairns
- Type
- Photograph
- Date
- 1890s
- Place
- Australia - Queensland - Cairns
- Details
Created: 3 October 2004, Last modified: 8 March 2012
