Ep. 371 | Choie Sew Hoy and the Sinking of the S.S. Ventnor

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Hey, Laszlo Montgomery here. Just a quick word before the episode. This one you're about to hear has been out on Patreon and CHP Premium for a while now. This and hours and hours of new stuff that I've been working on since last year are available there. And all this new CHP material will be coming out later this year. But for now, still a work in progress. Come see what you've been missing and relieve yourself of that FOMO. Thanks, everyone.
Hey, everyone, welcome back, Laszlo Montgomery again. Thanks for making time for me at this hour. You're listening to The China History Podcast. 16 years young, come June 2026 Who would have ever thought? I forgot who brought this topic to my attention. Maybe it was no one. But I was thinking this would be a good story that we could all enjoy. And up till now, to the best of my knowledge, I don't think I've ever showcased New Zealand in the CHP. And this country is front and center in what I have to present to you today. This will be a short episode. Today I wanted to mention about the 19th century experiences of Chinese New Zealanders and the lead up to the events surrounding the tragedy of the sinking of the SS Ventnor in 1902 After so many CHP episodes, we all know what kind of condition the Chinese nation was in following the commencement of the Century of Humiliation. The 1850s and 60s were among the worst years the Chinese people had seen since the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644
The Taiping Rebellion, the Nian Rebellion, the Bunting Hakka Wars, and all the extra stress overpopulation had caused, especially in the south of China. That's what mainly caused this epic mass exodus from China to the gold mines and railroads of America, to Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, India, Africa, and to all the major ports of Southeast Asia and elsewhere. There have been stories, movies, and theatrical works that have taught us about that time. In past CHB episodes, we've looked at a lot of the stories and the everyday heroes who emerged in Chinese immigrant history, especially in the US. It doesn't get the attention that it should, but the same old stories that we're familiar with in North America were also played out in Australia and New Zealand. January 1848, gold was discovered in Sutter's Mill that marked the start of the California Gold Rush. 1849 to 1852 were the peak years. Up in Canada, the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858 to 1860 and the Caribou Gold Rush of 1861 to 1867 brought thousands and thousands of Chinese to the Great White North. And over in Australia, from 1851 to 1858, plenty of gold was being mined in Bathurst and New South Wales, Ballarat and Bendigo and Victoria. And then, from 1861 to 1867, came the Otago Gold Rush in New Zealand. And that's what we're going to look at today. No matter where in the world Chinese migrated to in the mid-19th century, every country had their earliest pioneer heroes. In the USA, we were called Norman A. Sing, Wong Ching Foo, Chin Ke He, and many more. In New Zealand, they had Choie Sew Hoy, or Xiu Chao Kai in Mandarin. Choie Sew Hoy's date of birth is not known for certain, but I'm going to go with 1836 So he was perfectly slotted in life to become part of that massive migration during the second half of the 19th century. He came from Panyu County, where the ancient history of Guangzhou began. Choie Sew Hoy sure got around. He participated in the California Gold Rush, and after that, he got in on the Australian Gold Rush in Victoria. Choie Sew Hoy, he was too smart and entrepreneurial to engage in the backbreaking labor of mining. Plus, he spoke English, the great differentiator that separated the Cooley labor from the ones who made their living as a merchant or liaising with the locals. Choie Sew Hoy made a living by employing one of the most important and ancient skill sets known to humankind, buying and selling. He set up a shop that sold all the necessities of life to the Chinese community and to other local peoples, of course. And he got into other businesses and ran several mines on his own account. He also provided services to wherever a need arose among the New Zealand mining community. And because he was who he was, those Chinese who knew Choie Sew Hoy or knew of him, they deferred to him and respected him. They married a woman named Eliza Prescott and they had two children together. New Zealand history didn't record Choie Sew Hoy as the first Chinese to come to New Zealand. That honor went to a man named Wang He Ting or Wang Appu Hukton. He showed up in the town of Nelson back in 1842 That's the northern coast of the South Island on the Tasman Sea. He didn't come for the gold, which hadn't been discovered yet. Like most young Chinese in his position, he was a cabin boy or steward on a merchant ship. But he did well for himself, investing in real estate, starting businesses. And, according to his bio, lived to 100, dying in 1920 Just like California's boom towns along the motherload that ran along the Sierra foothills from Mariposa to Placer counties, New Zealand too had its center where most of the action took place. And this was in Otago. Otago. That's where our story took place. Well, most of it anyway. This is where the Chinese came. It was more than just the name of the second biggest region in all of New Zealand. Captain James Cook first saw it in 1770 Like everywhere in New Zealand, its name is derived from the Maori word for the place. And I'm guessing they don't pronounce it Otago. Outside of Wellington and Auckland, more Chinese ended up there than anywhere else. If you look on a map of New Zealand, it occupies the southernmost part of the South Island. The largest city was Dunedin, which was sort of like the San Francisco of Otago. At about 46 degrees south, Dunedin is one of the southernmost sizeable cities on the planet. It's similar in latitude to Patagonia, in southernmost South America. They found gold first in Gabriel's Gully on May 25th, 1861 And this attracted almost 20,000 European and Australian gold diggers to Otago. Four years into the gold rush in 1865, Choie Sew Hoy picked up and left Australia and moved to New Zealand to get in on all that excitement. Again, he didn't get his hands dirty out in the mountains and rivers. He had higher ambitions and the smarts to get in on other more lucrative opportunities. Like he had done in Australia, he was a merchant to the trade. English, Irish, and of course Australian miners thought they had picked the mines of Otago clean of gold. And then, gold was discovered on the northwest side of the island. So they picked up and moved there. And almost overnight, Hokitika, New Zealand, became the latest in a long line of mid-19th century boom towns. Watching in despair as practically their whole economy migrated to the northwest of the island, the Otago Provincial Council and Dunedin Chamber of Commerce sent out the call to the Chinese community and welcomed them to come mine for whatever the Europeans had given up on. After all, the Chinese miners had earned a good reputation in Australia and were considered suitable enough and disciplined enough to rework these abandoned claims that the European miners considered worked out. There was also a belief that these Chinese miners were temporary and would eventually go home rather than settle permanently in New Zealand. 1865, 1866, they started coming. San Francisco was called Jojinshan, Old Gold Mountain. New Zealand was called New Gold Mountain. At first, there were maybe about a dozen guys. It always started out that way. These fearless pioneers came and got a first look and took in the lay of the land and sent word back to their people about the prospects. That's all it took usually. By 1869, there were around 1200 During the peak years, late 1860s and into the 1870s, that number jumped to 4700, with 1878 witnessing the peak of Chinese immigration in New Zealand, about 5,000 Chinese. In that year, New Zealand was gripped by economic depression and the relations between the Crown and its Maori population was in a bad place. Things were brewing and Parihaka, where the largest Maori settlement was, and that would lead to a crisis in a few years. Wherever Chinese congregated in large groups, a camp would inevitably be established. With more than 500 men, the Lawrence Chinese Camp in the central part of Otago was the largest of the two major Chinese mining areas. To the south was a camp called Round Hill, where about 300 Chinese lived. Each settlement had the bare-bones elements of civilization, a hotel, merchant shops, and a temple. The men slept in tents, ramshackle lean-toos, or under the stars. Most Chinese miners reworked tailings left behind by European miners who were now digging on the west side of the island. They constructed networks of races, flumes, and sluices, closely coordinating with other men, usually from their clan or from the same home village. And like they did in California and surely elsewhere, they pooled capital, shared tools, looked after each other, and defended the group when threats came knocking. Their frugality and willingness to labor long hours on low-yield spots made them economically viable, whereas others had already given up and moved elsewhere.