Goldfields Settler or Frontier Rogue? The Trial of James Acoy and the Chinese on the Mount Alexander Diggings

Provenance : The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria

Keir Reeves¹ 

[1] University of Melbourne;

关键词: Chinese history;    goldfields history;    Castlemaine;    multi-culturalism;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Too often in Chinese-Australian history there is a preponderance of generic commentary on the Chinese as a group of people and a commensurate absence of individual life stories. This article, drawing on trial records held at Public Record Office Victoria, aims to redress this impersonal approach by providing a biographical sketch of James Acoy, the Castlemaine court interpreter, businessman, miner and settler who was imprisoned for corruption in 1869. It argues that Acoy’s imprisonment had its antecedence in events surrounding the collection of a poll tax levied on the Victorian Chinese community a decade earlier. It also aims to provide a broader interpretation of goldfields Castlemaine society during the late 1850s and the 1860s and to suggest that it was a more culturally complex and ethnically diverse community than has previously been assumed.

【 授权许可】

Unknown