Nation, Race and Citizen

1. Nation, Race and Citizen 1888-1914 Outcome two

2. Emerging National Identity 1880: The Australian continent was divided between six colonies – NSW, Victoria, SA, Queensland, WA and Tasmania People tended to identify themselves in relation to the local area and colony, not much further. Country people rarely visited the city and vice-versa Colonies where separate political identities, administered independently with legal ties to Britain but no obligation to each other.

3. Emerging Australian Identity Up until 1890 there was significant economic growth/prosperity due to the gold rushes and the pastoral industry. Wool and the squatters monopolised land, power and wealth. Other industries emerged and expanded. New technologies in transport and communications reduced the isolation of the colonies.

4. Emerging Australian Identity Many colonies were joined by rail: Melb and Syd (1883), Melb and Adel (1887) and Syd and Bris (1889). Roads improving but still rough Steamships provided reliable travel along the coast 1858: Telegraph lines joined main capitals Telephone links of Syd and Melb 1884 Many of these linkages encouraged the discussion of a future federation.

5. Emerging Australian Identity 1849: British Colonial Secretary Earl Grey identified the advantages and suggested the inevitability of some kind of union as it will be “necessary for regulating the interests common” such as the “duties of import and export”, “roads, railways” as well as “communications”. However it would be many decades later until federation was seriously considered and debated.

6. How Australian Colonialists were Viewed Many Australians (especially NSW) felt tainted by their convict past and their colonial status. “In England ‘colonial’ meant ‘second rate’… ‘Australian colonialist’ also suggested ‘convict’ (Hirst, 2006, p.207) However the Australian was typically described as someone physically superior to their English counterparts. There was also appeared to outsiders that Australia contained a culture of egalitarianism These interpretations were somewhat simplistic and did not take into account the complexities of early Australian society.

7. Australian Society before Federation According to Robert Engwerda (1991) Australian society in the 1880s still considered “Britain as ‘home’ while Australia as identity was largely undefined other than being a convict ‘convict dumping place’. Nationalist movements promoted a separate identity to Britain. Others were more aware of Australia’s uniqueness Some felt torn loyalties between Australia and Britain. Others did consider themselves to be Australian

8. Australian Society before Federation However openly anti-British views were never popular despite the best efforts of the republican movement. Australia was too deeply linked to British culture and tradition to easily disassociate and there was no great desire to do so. Republicanism was a minority made of largely young men. The Imperial Federation League sought to strengthen ties to Britain but also lacked popular support.

9. Australian Society before Federation Many realised that they could Australian and still loyal to Britain. Mirams (2001) argues, “Most of them [Australians] admired Britain and its civilisation and wanted British interest and approval” According to Sir Henry Parkes a federated Australia would allow the colonies to have a “higher stature before the world.”

10. Racism and National Identity Nationalism implies a narrow, well-defined interpretation of the national character. A shared religion, language, cultural origins and values and in many ways a general commonality in physical characteristics. Australian nationalism was also defined by the belief in white superiority and especially in Anglo-Saxon superiority. 1859: Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species which discussed evolution and inevitable decline and extinction of weaker species to stronger superior ones.

11. Racism and National Identity ‘Social Darwinism’ gave scientific and moral legitimacy to occupation and expulsion of native cultures from their lands in favour of western imperial expansion. Grimshaw et al (1994) argues that Social Darwinism provided the platform for the “intensification of racist sentiment” as a means of scientifically justifying the violence and aggression that settlers used towards the non-white population of Australia. These lesser races were “behind on the evolutionary scale”.

12. Racism and Australian Identity The Chinese were seen as a threat to working-class men and on account of their vast population that could potentially over-run Australia (Hirst, 1991). Workers saw the Chinese as a labour force that would undermine their struggles for better pay and conditions. They were also portrayed as being immoral: smoking opium Gordan Greenwood (1987) argues that non-white labour was never a part of the egalitarian vision for Australia. Subsequently anti-Chinese immigration was legislated in various colonies to limit their influx.

13. Racism and National Identity Kanakas (Pacific Islanders – New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Britain, the New Hebrides and Fiji) were indentured (work where someone contractually agrees to work as a servant to someone else) to work in Queesnland’s sugar plantations. They were exploited for their cheap labour and endurance of the hot tropical weather. Suffered harsh treatment including kidnapping Trade Unions protested their presence as a means to undermining white labour and wages.

14. Racism and National Identity Humanitarians were concerned with the mistreatment of Kanakas Others were concerned that white women could be potential ‘defiled’ by these ‘savages’ According to Cole (1971) the fear of “blemishing ‘racial purity’ was a national obsession as the contaminating of the purity of the superior white race would result in “mental, moral and physical decay”.

15. The ‘Crimson Thread of Kinship’ By the late nineteenth century Australian identity was explicitly linked to an intense pride in being both white and of British origins. Cole calls this the ‘crimson thread of kinship’ It was based on the grandeur of British civilisation and by association all those tied to the Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage. The British empire and its colonial subjects have proven to be the logical occupiers of non-western land and improve it based on the principles of progress and their vastly superior civilisation.

16. The Crimson Thread of Kinship Sir Henry Parkes: “We are all one family…literature of England is ours as much as it is the possession of the British Islands…the glory, the incomparable beauty of her traditions are all ours as much as if we had been born on British shores.”

17. Bibliography Cole, D. “The Crimson Thread of Kinship”, Historical Studies, Vol. 14, No. 56, April 1971. Engwerda, R., Southern Voices, Rigby Heinemann, Port Melbourne, 1994. Greenwood, G. (ed.), Australia: A Social and Political History, Angus and Robertson, Australia, 1977. Grimshaw, P. et al, Creating a Nation, McPhee Gribble, Melbourne, 1994. Hirst, J. (ed.), The Chinese on the Australian Goldfields, Dept. of History, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 1991. Hirst, J., Sense & Nonsense in Australian History, Black Inc Press, 2006. Mirams, S., The Road to Federation. A Teachers’ Guide to The Sentimental Nation, OUP, South Melbourne, 2001.