The privilege of employing natives’
The Quan Sing affair and Chinese-Aboriginal employment in Western Australia, 1889–1934
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11963522 |
|---|---|
| Authors | V Haskins (0000-0002-4226-2151, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Publication date | 2011-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Aboriginal History Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0314-8769 • E-ISSN: 1837-9389 |
| Publisher | ANU Press (PUBLISHER • AU) |
| DOI | 10.22459/ah.35.2011.07 |
| OpenAlex | W1521331472 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
In September 1921, two permits to employ Aborigines were forwarded to the Western Australian Chief Protector of Aborigines, AO Neville. The permits allowed Miss Yuanho Quan Sing of Derby in north-western Western Australia to engage the services of two individuals: 'Bobbydol' and 'Roebourne Annie'. The permits had been authorised by the Resident Magistrate and local Protector of Aborigines, William Hodge. 'Miss Quan Sing was told you could not grant her a permit to employ [A]boriginals', explained the covering note, 'but not withstanding this & the cancellation of her permit last year, she persists in her endeavour to obtain the privilege of employing natives'. 1 Neville immediately directed Hodge to cancel the permits, telling him, 'Quan Sing and his family have made numerous efforts from time to time to employ natives, all of which have been frustrated '. 2 Indeed the 'privilege' of employing Aboriginal workers had been fought hard for by the Quan Sing family, initially by Quan Sing snr, and subsequently by his eldest daughter Yuanho Quan Sing, who was, as she would repeatedly point out, Australian-born. Tracing the long-running confrontation of this Chinese-Australian family from a remote north-western township with the racial politics of Western Australia's Aboriginal administration offers a rare, detailed glimpse into the significance of Aboriginal employment control for constructing categories of inclusion and exclusion in the Australian colonising project. 'Quan Sing's affair', as one official termed it, also highlights how local politics of race played out on the frontiers of white Australia in the early twentieth century, revealing the instability and fragility of colour-coded citizenship, and the role of 'Aboriginal protection' in the development of Australian citizenship in the early twentieth century
Economics · Management · Media studies · Political science · Privilege (computing · Project commissioning · Publishing · Sociology · Australian History and Society · History · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |