Te Hekenga Taikoa 紐華源流, brought to you by the New Zealand Chinese Association. Giving voice to our past for future generations.
In 1881 New Zealand passed its first anti-Chinese law. Since the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi there had been rapid colonization. The newly self-governing colony took control of huge tracts of Māori land, and funded major programmes to increase British migration and build essential infrastructure. By the 1880s a new sense of nationhood was emerging, alongside a new anti-Chinese movement.
Aotearoa was still a Māori world when the first Chinese settler arrived in 1842. By the time of the goldrush less than 20 years later, there were more Pākehā than Māori. It was into this world that the first big group of Chinese migrants arrived. In 1881 Aotearoa’s three largest ethnicities were Pākehā, Māori and Chinese.
For early Chinese in Aotearoa, community building was an important part of settlement and survival. It was also a natural extension of the rural village culture many brought with them from China.
Ships stewards, cooks, rice farmers, orchardists, craftsmen, traditional doctors, musicians and business people — the earliest Chinese settlers brought all these skills to Aotearoa. But when they arrived, it was often a case of doing the work that was available.
When New Zealand went to war, so did Chinese New Zealanders. They went with pride, although some came to question being asked to fight when they were being discriminated against at home.
From the late 1800s, New Zealand ‘s ambition was to be an ideal “British” colony. But where did the Chinese fit in this with vision?
