Newspapers and Race Relations During the Sydney Smallpox Outbreak of 1881
“Considerable uneasiness prevails in the public mind respecting the supposed case of small-pox reported in the Chinese quarter in Lower George-street … Several of the Chinese habitations hereabouts have been recently visited by the Corporation officials, and some of the worst description have been condemned. The Chinese population in this locality is very dense, and every house is crowded with them. Owing to the stench caused by the defective sanitary arrangements, the disease, should it prove to be small-pox, will most likely spread, and cause great mortality in the neighbourhood.”¹
And “great mortality” followed. During the ensuing epidemic, which lasted from May 1881 to February 1882, 154 cases of smallpox were recorded in Sydney, including 40 fatalities.² ‘Patient zero’, as widely reported, was the son of prominent Chinese merchant On Chong, although the first definite victim of smallpox was in fact a European man. Still, the government, the press, and the wider population blamed the outbreak on the local Chinese. Unhygienic living conditions and the overcrowding of Chinese residential areas, as described in the article above, were commonly regarded as the root of the problem. Indeed, in April and May of that year three thousand Chinese immigrants had travelled through Sydney, with roughly two-thirds staying in the colony.³ Finally, in December 1881, the New South Wales Parliament passed the Influx of Chinese Restriction Act to stifle the arrival of Chinese immigrants.
However, this legislation was not conceived in exclusive response to the smallpox outbreak. Rather, prejudice against the Chinese had existed in Australia for decades. Three weeks prior to the outbreak, one contributor vehemently voiced some of the grievances commonly directed towards Chinese immigrants in The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate:
“By the mighty and resplendent sun, by the venerated and august moon, by the revered Lee Cum Suok, and the nose of Chow Chow, we will bring muohee [sic] opium, plenty varioloid, and many lepers, so that your young women shall be everlastingly drunk with opium, your men shall die of smallpox, and your hospitals crowded with lepers; then the land shall be ours for ever and ever.”⁴
Underscoring the Chinese's supposed susceptibility to disease, the implied threat to British racial purity, and the fear of opium dens, was the notion that the Chinese brought immense competition for resources and labour.⁵ This sentiment had persisted since the gold rushes in New South Wales and Victoria during the 1850s and early 1860s. Regardless, the smallpox epidemic of 1881 reinvigorated these anti-Chinese anxieties. In the following weeks and months, the newspapers were flooded with letters, editorials, and articles that fanned the flames of these fears. The racist attitudes and rhetoric of The Newcastle Morning Herald contributor proliferated accordingly.
And yet, only three Chinese were confirmed to have been infected with smallpox.⁶ This exhibition aims to highlight and investigate the various ways in which the Australian press shaped and reflected race relations during the 1881 Sydney smallpox outbreak. It will track the development of the discourse surrounding the epidemic and Chinese immigrants across the months in which panic and hysteria were at their greatest. By focussing on this particular event, it aims to shed light on how the press contributed towards Australia’s national mythology and history of racism against Chinese immigrants. It will reveal the inflammatory rhetoric - both verbal and visual - frequently employed by these newspapers and magazines. And ultimately, it will forward that these press entries uncovered, connected with, and exploited larger underlying Sinophobic sentiments of the times.
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