The post-indenture of Chi, New South Wales, Australia, 1857–1908

Abstract

ABSTRACT Post-indenture has largely been neglected in historical examinations of Chinese indentured labour in colonial contexts. We know little about what happened to workers after their contracts expired. Through the life of one Chinese man, Chi, and his small farming community in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Illawarra, New South Wales, Australia, I consider this issue. Drawing chiefly on church and other records usually used for research into local and family history, sources in which Chi’s voice is often audible, this paper highlights a continuity between indenture and post-indenture. Indeed, Chi’s ‘freedom’ after indenture was qualified. This indicates, I argue, that further attention to post-indenture could enable us to better understand indenture itself, as a system that may have endured well beyond the expiration of the labour contract. Concentrating on the individual and small community, I also contend, holds value in this respect, as a way of further exploring the continuity between the two states, and as a means of incrementally forming a fuller picture of post-indenture in its own right.