Ngā taha e rua o tētahi tapukara

The mixed blessing of a fingerprint

Bound in modest booklets, it’s hard to imagine the Chinese poll tax certificates cared for in Wellington symbolise an uncomfortable but important part of our history. Administered by Customs, these documents are now stored as part of the memory of our government. They bear the names, ages and birthplaces of Chinese immigrants between 1888 and 1930, and also include the ships they arrived on and their photographs or fingerprints. Each one can unlock powerful stories of adversity and bravery.

Describing the moment he saw his grandfather’s certificate, Colin Young (楊慶年)says:

“…to see my Grandad’s fingerprints was so amazing, it brought tears to my eyes. I remember putting my fingers over his fingerprints, stepping back in time, feeling his presence and wondering what he must have been thinking or feeling when he cast his thumb prints 100 years ago.”

Most descendants of Chinese immigrants who paid the poll tax can trace their whakapapa (ancestry) to the Pearl River Delta district of the Guangdong province. Nigel Murphy, a respected poll tax historian, wrote that although this region was “rich and fertile, the land producing three crops per year, and the people resourceful, frugal and independent, several factors conspired to turn nineteenth century Guangdong into a place of poverty”[*]. He goes on to describe a perilous time that included a steep rise in population, an unbalance of renters and landowners, political upheaval, and war with the British, as well natural disasters like droughts and flooding.

Due to Britain’s presence in the province’s capital city Guangzhou, this area was also seen as a gateway to the West. With reports arriving of gold, people affected by poverty — and who were able to — set off for ‘Sun Gum Saan’ (New Gold Mountain). This name, used to refer to Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, evokes the sense of hope many men had as they left the life they knew for a foreign place to support their families.

Chinese workers were initially invited to Aotearoa New Zealand by The Dunedin Chamber of Commerce to work in the Otago goldfields. The first group of 12 arrived in 1866 from Victoria, Australia. Chinese migrants continued to come in support of their families, who sometimes followed later. But after about 20 years the gold began to dwindle. Chinese people started to move away from rural mining towns to Wellington and Auckland. There they began small businesses such as market gardens, fruit shops and laundries.

At around this time the accumulated anti-Chinese sentiment from the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand had grown significantly. Often rooted in false information that favoured keeping immigrants white and Christian, political action was taken to make it as difficult as possible for Chinese people to move to these colonised countries.

In New Zealand, the government passed the Chinese Immigrants Act of 1881. Amongst other conditions, which no other ethnic groups were subject to, every Chinese person had to pay a £10 fee or poll tax on arrival. This increased to £100 in 1896 — the equivalent of $20,000 NZD in current times. The poll tax certificates were issued as proof that each person had paid their fees. The enforcement of the poll-tax reduced after 1930 and the last known one was issued in 1935. The law was abolished in 1944 following Japan’s conflicts with China in World War II, confirming China as an ally to the Commonwealth.

As part of Archives New Zealand’s digitisation planning, the poll tax certificates were identified as high-use records, which means people request to see or get copies of them relatively often. Over a period of 4 months, these information-rich books were carefully brought out from storage. After this, their pages were individually photographed with a high-end DSLR Nikon D850 camera on our Kaiser book cradle. From there they received some post-capture adjustment and quality checks. Finally, they were ingested into the government digital archive and our website. Altogether, this project saw the digitisation of over 3000 images.

One of our Digitisation Assistants, Laurence (蔡滨恩), describes the books as being in very good condition for their age. He reflected how, in the later certificates with photos (from 1921 onwards), men were usually dressed in European attire. Sometimes brothers were pictured with the same jacket — wearing the clothes of the photography studios to look more Western. Very rarely, a person signed their certificate with their Chinese characters. Laurence goes on to say that “participating in this project really opened my eyes to how many Chinese immigrants arrived in this period. For me personally, as an immigrant who has struggled to use Mandarin in a day-to-day context, I can imagine that seeing the names handwritten in Chinese characters, would be a meaningful connection to your past, a good shock for a Chinese New Zealander looking for their ancestor.”

It’s clear there is the potential for thousands of personal accounts to be entwined with these significant archival records. In March this year, the TVNZ 1 program “Passengers” featured an episode on Moon Bin who arrived in 1920. His story was uncovered via in-depth research that included accessing records held at Archives NZ. Here are the family stories of 2 other individuals, who have used records in Wellington to learn more about their heritage.

In 2018, Colin Young’s family decided to hold a reunion to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the arrival of their grandfather, Man Bing Young (楊文炳), to Aotearoa New Zealand. It was by chance that he decided to drop into Archives NZ on Mulgrave Street one day. There, with the help of staff, he was able to find the information he was looking for. Simply searching his grandad’s name brought up his certificate and personal details, but Colin says:

“…the real gem was discovering the name of the ship — Moeraki — and where it departed from — Sydney. Working backwards led me to different articles in Shipping News, Australian Archives, DIA documents, Department of Labour, Immigration etc. As well as tracing his travels to New Zealand, on this discovery of mine I’ve found so many other parts of my family history…deaths no one knew or talked about, escaping China during the Great Famine, miscarriages that were kept hidden, stories of travelling by boat for 11 days and being seasick for 10 of them. The stories uncovered by that one poll-tax certificate goes on and on. By the time we had our family reunion, I had so many stories about grandad, his travels, his life in Levin during the 1920s, living in New Zealand and then his passing in 1983. All people need is just one ‘little thread’ to unpick and it’s amazing what you can find.”

During the time that the poll tax was enforced, Chinese immigrants were also unable to be naturalised (become British citizens in Aotearoa New Zealand). As recently as 1952, Kate Gear’s grandmother, Mabel Lum, was the first Chinese person to be become a New Zealand citizen after the poll tax officially ceased.

Kate’s Taai Gung (great-grandfather), Jack Lum (林澤勝), arrived in Wellington when he was 19. She began to research his story for an Anthropology paper assignment about rituals at Victoria University. This led her to complete a Masters in Migration Studies, where she wrote about her experiences of racism in Aotearoa. In 2021, Kate summarised her thesis in this honest and heartfelt article for the Pantograph Punch.

Her interest in the poll tax comes from wanting to understand her family’s history — how they fit into Aotearoa New Zealand’s wider history, and how now defunct anti-Chinese laws continue to affect Chinese New Zealanders today. Considering what the poll tax represents to her, Kate says that these:

“symbolise both pain and pride for me, knowing how much my great-grandparents and so many other Chinese immigrants financially sacrificed to enter Aotearoa. They remind me that my family and I were not wanted here, which is haunting. Furthermore, the poll tax’s associated acts that implied Pākehā culture was superior, resulted in my family assimilating to Pākehā culture and much of my cultural roots and connections being lost. This creates a constantly painful feeling that I am neither Chinese enough nor Pākehā enough to fit on one ‘side’. Simultaneously, the certificates represent the adversity that my ancestors overcame — they paid the poll tax, passed their English language tests, and made a successful life for themselves, their whānau and their future generations.” Kate goes on to say:

“By digitising and making these documents publicly accessible, I hope that more people can learn about the poll tax, to understand how many people it affected and how dehumanising it truly was. My family and I hope that by having the poll tax certificates digitised we can find my Taai Por’s (great- grandmother’s) certificate, which we have never seen. We just need to figure out how her name was documented”.

Liz Ngan (颜美杏) is a poll-tax descendant on both sides of her family and her grandfather, Wong Wei Yin (黃渭賢), arrived in New Zealand when he was just 14 years old. Liz has served on the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust and contributed to the research, editing and publication of several books on this subject. A librarian by trade, she gives some good tips for searching these records online. Her advice reflects the barriers Kate Gear and her family are finding in the search for her Taai Por’s certificate. Liz says:

“The main issue of government records for the early Chinese settlers is the use of Romanised names for ancestors. These may be recorded incorrectly, in a village dialect, transposed or partial. Additionally, registers and indices could contain transcription errors that could be confusing. For example, my great-grandfather, Chin Moon Ting/James Chin Ting (陳滿田) may be listed under Chin, Chan, Chun, Ching, Ting. To find the correct record can take a lot of searching and corroborating information. Names written in characters are much more clear and generally indisputable.” Liz goes on to say:

“The beauty of having digitised poll tax records online is the ability to check quickly if this is the correct record. For example, I’d never located the poll tax certificate of my maternal great-grandmother, Ng Shee Ting (陳吳氏), though she paid the poll-tax in 1898 and, 7 years later, was one of the few to have it refunded after a petition to Parliament by my great-grandfather. This week, I found it online (Mrs Ching Ting) and realised the original index reference listed her as Ching Ping. I hadn’t made the connection before having the ability to see them online.”

If you have an ancestor who you think had to pay the poll tax, why not try searching their name to see if you can find them? If you need a little help delving further, please feel free to ask an Archivist.

The poll tax certificates represent a part of our collective memory that is difficult for many of us to accept or understand. Sometimes, this kind of memory feels easier to keep hidden. But it is vital to continue to revisit this history — as shown in the recent re-reading of Helen Clark’s Government apology in Cantonese (the language spoken by this group of immigrants) in February this year.

Today, most of us associate taking fingerprints with criminals. We would consider it a breach of our human rights to have ours taken if circumstances beyond our control led us to a new home. In the twenty-first century though, the poll tax certificates that bear fingerprints of the ancestors of our Chinese New Zealand whānau can act as a mixed blessing with both advantages and disadvantages. Reflecting on the power inherent in these humble looking little books, Liz Ngan says:

“Knowing the records exist, are cared for and accessible is a relief that our past and government missteps will not be forgotten. They are a treasure trove of family and social history, representing an opportunity to understand individual lives, hardships and family connections. The gift of the anti-Chinese legislation is a well-documented ethnic group with information available to be reclaimed into new understanding and purposes”.

[*] This quote, and the majority of info from the sections “Leaving China for Sun Gum Saan” – New Gold Mountain” and “What are the Chinese poll tax certificates?” have been gleaned from Nigel Murphy “The Poll-tax in New Zealand, 2002. Commissioned by the New Zealand Chinese Association Inc, Pub by Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington. Pgs 1-2 and 89.