Collections
01 Arrival in the Land of Cakes, Bern Emmerichs, 2019. The ship that brought 350 prospective Chinese miners to Australia in 1857 was Scottish and took its odd name Land of Cakes from a popular nickname for Scotland, a country known for its oatcakes. ANMM Collection 00055464
02 The Celestials Trek, Bern Emmerichs, 2019. In the 19th century, the term ‘Celestial’ was commonly used in newspapers to refer to Chinese migrants to Australia and North America. The Celestial Empire is an old name for China. ANMM Collection 00055465
03 New Gold Mountain Xin Jin Shan, Bern Emmerichs, 2020. This tableau features portraits of Hannie Kay based on those in the State Library of Victoria, and the artist’s imagined view of his wife Fanny, of whom no portraits are known. It also depicts historic Creswick buildings, including the courthouse where Hannie worked as official interpreter, and names from the petition of 30 April 1867 from Chinese residents to Creswick Council. ANMM Collection 00055466
The Celestial Trek Chinese miners on the Victorian goldfields
Three newly acquired artworks by Bern Emmerichs focus on a controversial period in Australian history, when authorities were trying to control Chinese migration to the goldfields. As a series these works help bring to life this complex and fascinating era in our history – a time of shameful racism, the lure of wealth, strangers meeting in strange lands, and resilience against the odds. By Daina Fletcher.
IN JULY 1851 THE NEW COLONY OF VICTORIA was inaugurated. Fuelled by the discovery of gold, its population jumped from 70,000 in 1850 to 500,000 in 1860 as people massed in Victoria from around the globe. After news reached China, then suffering widespread poverty and famine, thousands left their homelands and made their way to what they called Xin Jin Shan – New Gold Mountain. The Chinese miners attracted particular hostility. In 1855 the Victorian government passed the first legislation to restrict Chinese immigration to the colonies, applying prohibitive passenger limits per ship, a poll tax of £10 per Chinese passenger and a heavy import duty on opium. 58
Signals 133 Summer 2020–21
This did nothing to prevent the rush, however. Shipowners instead sailed to free ports in South Australia, which had no landing tax and only a 5 per cent tax on opium. They disembarked their Chinese passengers at Port Adelaide or Guichen Bay, near Robe, from where the prospective miners trekked up to 700 kilometres overland to the Victorian diggings. Bern Emmerichs’ series of three ceramic paintings are Arrival of the Land of Cakes, The Celestials Trek and New Gold Mountain Xin Jin Shan. They explore this historical event in the artist’s distinctive flowing and detailed figurative style, which pays homage to Chinese imagery, iconography and the export porcelain that was made for the European market from the 16th century onwards.
