Most racism on the goldfields was directed at either the Aboriginal or the Chinese people. They were seen as inferior by Europeans because of their different appearance, different culture and more successful ways of living.
Racism towards the Chinese
The Chinese miners would work together in large groups. They set up their own camps, ate their own food and spoke their own language. They had a religion, clothing and customs that were completely different to anything the Europeans had ever known. The Chinese worked more carefully than the Europeans, and would often find a little gold in places that Europeans had given up on. By 1858, there were more than 45,000 Chinese people on the goldfields!
The other, more unlucky diggers, began to resent the Chinese because of how much gold they were finding. Europeans disliked the Chinese because everything about them was different. Many Europeans thought of Asians as inferior, they same way they thought of Aboriginal people. They used this as an excuse to work of their jealousy. Many anti-Chinese meetings were held, and there were savage attacks on Chinese camps.
Racism was common on the goldfields, and anti-Chinese feelings strengthened amongst the European diggers. On July 4th 1857, in Victoria's Buckland Valley, around 1000 diggers attacked a Chinese camp. The mob destroyed 500 tents, and, armed with clubs and whips, drove 2400 miners out of the area. Many Chinese would have been killed if a group of armed English diggers had not saved them. There were no troopers in the valley to protect the people or control the fight, but the rioters were later imprisoned for their crimes.
On the diggings, rich and poor people worked together for the first time. The idea of 'mateship' grew as the diggers worked side by side in tedious conditions. However, their collective dislike of the Chinese miners led to the creation of the 'White Australia Policy', which banned Asian immigrants for more than 100 years.
Diggers urged their governments to stop the Chinese from coming to the diggings. At that time, racism was everywhere. Australians were terrified that their 'British' way of life would be overtaken by millions of Chinese immigrants. Workers also feared that the Chinese would work more cheaply, and thus lower the wages for all. In 1855, the Victorian government passed the first anti-Chinese law in Australia. A special tax was placed on every Chinese person who was entering Victoria. In 1858 South Australia did the same, and the other colonies soon followed.
By the 1880's, the majority of Australians wanted to ban all non-whites from the country. At Federation in 1901, the Immigration Restriction Act was passed, and made it nearly impossible for anyone non-European to enter Australia. This was known as the 'White Australia Policy', and was not completely abolished until 1971.
The anti-Chinese las of the late 1870's and 1880's, the White Australia Policy of 1901, declared that the Chinese were a threat to mainstream Australia. For individual people this could mean discriminatory violence, unfair arrest, being committed to a lunatic asylum, forced vaccination, eviction from the farms they had worked so hard to build up, and refused re-entry to Australia.
It was only after World War II, with various changes to immigration policies, that the White Australia Policy was quietly dismantled. However, it was only in 1973 that Australia had the full introduction of official policies that declared multiculturalism, 100 years after the first anti-Chinese laws.
Chinese and other Asian influences are very much a part of Australia's multicultural approach to the 'Modern Australian' dishes served in most restaurants to day.
Racism towards the Aboriginals
Aboriginal peoples also suffered because of the discrimination, and were driven their sacred land by the greedy diggers.
as the search began to move to the more distant parts of the country, many Aboriginal groups bravely resisted, but the diggers soon overcame them and took their land. Aboriginal women did no receive the benefits of the gold found in they precious homelands. They suffered terribly during the gold rushes.
Some miners would 'abuse' Aboriginal women, who then gave birth to children that were half Aboriginal, half European. white people called thee children 'half-castes', and are determined to take them away from their Aboriginal families and raise them in a European world.
In 1869, Victoria set up the first "aborigines Protection board" in Australia, allowing children to be kidnapped from their Aboriginal tribes. Western Australia followed in 1886. Part European children were brought up in special institutions, often in abhorrent conditions. Many Aboriginal mothers never saw their children again. Aboriginal people are still suffering today from the harm done to the 'stolen generation' and their families.