On the overseas Chinese secret societies of Australia

In the period since the 19th century over 20 million Chinese have migrated overseas. Many of the earliest of these migrants worked initially as coolies in mines and goldfields, on road construction sites and plantations and pastures throughout Southeast Asia, North America, Australia and New Zealand. L.A. Mills has claimed that: “Wherever the Chinese coolie came the Hung League followed”,3 and this seems to be an accurate reflection of the situation amongst the overseas Chinese migrant communities in the 19th century.

3.L.A. Mills, British Malaya, 1824-67 (1925; reprinted Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University
Press, 1966), p. 211

Page 1

"In Australia, the majority of Chinese secret societies also referred to themselves as the “Yee Hing Company”, indicating that the League had spread there from Southeast Asia. We must conclude, therefore, that there existed two channels for Hung League expansion to Australia: one flowed directly from Mainland China; the other was by way of Southeast Asia."

Page 5

It remains difficult to establish a precise date for the founding of the Hung
League in Australia. As a secret society, the Hung League’s organisational
activities were conducted through clandestine channels and were never
disclosed to outsiders. Of one thing can we be sure, however, and that is that
the Hung League entered Australia during the Gold Rush years. During that
period of time, large numbers of Chinese came to Australia in search of gold.
As the Chinese flooded in, the Hung League followed.
During the 1850s, gold mines continued to be discovered in Australia,
and the news of these new finds spread rapidly to Europe and throughout the
rest of the world. As a result, hundreds and thousands of Chinese gold rushers
swarmed to these “New Gold Mountain” fields in Australia. Most of these
gold rushers were poor peasants or indigent labourers from the coastal areasof Guangdong and Fujian Provinces. Specifically, they were Cantonese from
the countryside around Canton and from the Pearl River Delta who arrived in
Australia via Hong Kong or Fujianese from Xiamen (Amoy).
The rapid population increase in these regions from the mid-Qing period onwards had
exacerbated the crisis in the supply of available arable land. Taking the Pearl
River Delta region as an example, the 13 counties that made up this region
occupied an area of some 20,000 square kilometres, comprising 10% of the
total territory of Guangdong Province. Yet the population reached upwards of
18 million, that is 50% of the total population of the Province.
The population density was even higher in the See Yap (Siyi) region and Chung
Shan (Zhongshan) County, with between 1,500-1,600 people per square
kilometre.15

These regions were amongst the most densely populated areas in
the world at the time. The shortage in arable land displaced from these areas
many peasants who had little or no land, forcing them into vagrancy in other
provinces and overseas. Life was far from easy for them, afflicted as they
were also by both natural and man-made disasters, and oppression at the
hands of foreigners. In keeping with their need for mutual support, their
desire for an association based on sworn brotherhood and which maintained
the principle of “All for one and one for all” was a pressing one. It was
precisely this historical context that gave rise to the Hung League. Research
has revealed that once the Hung League had been established in Zhangzhou in
Fujian Province in 26 the year of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1761),
16 it spread rapidly in the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.
By the 1850s, the League: “had spread throughout [Guangdong] and had reached as far as Guangxi Province”, “infecting also the Wu and Chu regions”.
17

Large numbers of poor peasants and indigent labourers joined the
Hung League in order to obtain mutual aid and to safeguard their livelihoods.
Even more did the Hung League of this period speak to the needs of the
migrant Chinese communities, and it appears that it held especial attraction to
Chinese collies and workers. As large numbers of Chinese labours arrived in
the goldfields of Australia, so too did the Hung League, spreading widely throughout the Australian Chinese community. A point that very much needs to be borne in mind is that during the 1850s the Taiping Rebellion broke out in Southern China, along with the Hung League led Red Turban Rebellion. Upon the defeat of both these
uprisings, the Qing Imperial authorities launched a cruel campaign to suppress both the remnant Taiping army and the Hung League. Many of the key
leaders of these movements joined the gold rush and fled to Australia. It is recorded that in 1864, after the defeat of Taiping Rebellion, the Southern Conquering King Huang Deci(a man from Xinhui County,Guangdong Province) led his remaining soldiers and: “fleeing in dozens of boats, crossed the South China Sea, and finally arrived in Darwin Harbour in northern Australia. Their arrival coincided with the opening up of the New Gold Mountain, and thus they proceeded to this place and became gold
miners”.
18

According al so to the memoirs of an earl y overseas Chinese named Yang Tangcheng
, of the six brothers of his great grandfather Yang Shenglong’s I generation, two participated in the Red Turban Rebellion in Poon Yee (Fan’ou) County of Guangdong Province, led by Gan Xian of the Hung League. Both were executed by the Qing armies after the defeat of the uprising, and in order to avoid guilt by association, one other brother fled to New Zealand to join the gold rush. Some years later, Yang
Tangcheng’s grandfather Yang Xiongda. and two of his brothers also fled overseas. The eldest went to Australia to become a gold miner, the two other men to New Zealand and America respectively as coolies.
19

As key members of the Hung League, these men had all proved themselves to be able
organisers. It is said that once Huang Deci had established himself in the New
Gold Mountain area of Australia, he immediately established the Hung League
run “Yee Hing Company”, and that the present office building of the “Yee Hing Company” in Bendigo (on the site of a former Guan Yu Temple) was
actually built by Huang Deci.20

In my view, the course of the Hung League’s dissemination and development amongst the Chinese migrants to Australia may be broadly divided into three phases.
First Phase (1851–75): This was a period when the influx of Chinese
migrants into Australia as part of the gold rush reached a peak; it was also the
period during which the Hung League membership become widespread amongst the Chinese labourers. About 55,000 Chinese arrived in Australia during this period,
21 most of whom gathered at the gold fields of New South Wales and Victoria. At the time, the gold production of areas like Ballarat and Bendigo in Victoria led to a concentration there of Chinese people

Page 7

According to statistics, in 1853 there were 2000 Chinese labours in Ballarat;
three years later this figure had increased to 25,000, the Chinese population
comprising a quarter of the total population of the area. By 1859, the Chinese
population of Victoria had reached a total of 42,000. In New South Wales
there was a Chinese population of 21,000 Chinese in 1861, comprising 1/6 of
its total population.
22
In large groups, these Chinese crossed mountains and
forded rivers in search of gold, setting up their huts whenever and wherever
they discovered a mine. Exposed to the harsh climate and the depredations
of wild beasts, they were also subject to attack by both the aborigine
population and the white colonialists, occasionally resulting in loss of life.
Apart from relying for mutual aid on their fellow townsmen and fellow
clansmen, the Chinese also welcomed the expansion of the activities of the
Hung League, an organisation that displayed the strongest cohesive power and
which conducted most of its activities in a clandestine manner. At present it is
impossible to know the exact number of the League’s membership in this
period, but comparison with what we know of Hung League development in
Southeast Asia and North America, along with statistics from the later stages
of the development of the League in Australia does permit us to make some
conjectures. According to Victor Purcell, of the 27,000 Chinese in Singapore
in 1850, 20,000 were members of the Hung League; that is, almost 80% of
the Chinese population of Singapore had secret society affiliations.

numbers of Chinese quit mining and turned to other forms of employment,
many of them removing to the cities to take up jobs in the industrial or
commercial sectors of the economy. Sydney and Melbourne became the two
most important centres of Chinese population concentration. In 1881, the
Chinese population of Melbourne had totalled 1,057, that of Sydney, 1,321.
By 1891, however, the Chinese population of Melbourne had reached 2,143,
and that of Sydney 3,499; in other words, the Chinese populations of these
cities had doubled within the decade.
27
Chinese guild and clan halls were
established one after another within the Chinatowns of these cities. The office
building of the “Yee Hing Company” too shifted in to Chinatown. During
this period also, leadership of the Hung League in Australia was assumed by
experienced members of the League and by successful businessmen and
industrialists, such as Lee Yuan Sam
in Melbourne, Moy Sing
and James A. Chuey
in New South Wales and so on.
28
Third Phase (1901-21): This period saw an increasing sense of
nationalism within the Hung League in Australia and was a period also when
the social and political activities of the Hung League reached a high point.
Firstly, during this period, immediately after the establishment of the
Federation of Australia in 1901, the Australian Federal Government passed the
Immigration Restriction Act, an Act that served to give both systematic and
legal expression to the “White Australia Policy”.
Racist sentiment spread
throughout society and the frequency of anti-Chinese and anti-coloured
incidents increased.
Naturally, these anti-Chinese incidents could not but
serve to arouse the nationalist sentiments of both the Chinese in Australia at
the time and the Hung League.
Secondly, at the beginning of the 20
th
century a revolutionary movement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty developed
in China. The propaganda campaign on the part of the revolutionaries, led by
Dr Sun Yat-sen, encouraged Hung League members in Australia to express
widespread anti-Manchu sentiment. For the first time, they came to realise
that it was necessary to make a connection between their own fates and that of
the future of their motherland and they began to participate self-consciously in
social and political activities:
(a) They initiated a campaign against the “White Australia Policy” and
petitioned for the establishment of a Chinese Consulate in Australia.
(b)They supported Dr Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary programme for the
overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of a republic,
working together with the republicans to set up a Young China League and
otherwise actively seeking to raise funds for the revolutionary cause. In
1911, a sum of £1,300 was raised and sent to Dr Sun Yat-sen personally.
27
C.F. Yong, The New Gold Mountain: The Chinese in Australia, 1901-21,pp. 218-20.
28
Ibid.
Page 10
Secret Societies
39
After the Wuchang uprising, the Hung League continued to collect
contributions for the revolutionaries and in partnership with the Young
China League, the “Yee Hing Company” raised £4,700 in Melbourne,
£4,758 in Sydney, whilst £1,900 was raised from the Chinese in Western
Australia. Between June, 1912 and 1913, Chinese in Australia and
throughout the South Pacific region raised altogether the sum of £26,000
for the Nanjing revolutionary government, as an expression of their
patriotic support for the Republic.
29
(c) They actively participated in anti-Yuan Shikai activities and supported the
Northern Expedition of the Guangdong Military Government. In China,
Yuan Shikai’s usurpation of power after the 1911 Revolution sparked off
the “Second Revolution”. Apart from publishing “The China Republic
News” in order to denounce Yuan Shikai’s actions, leaders of the
Australian Chinese Hung League such as James A. Chuey, Moy Sing and
the others also enthusiastically raised funds to support the anti-Yuan ShiKai
movement in Southern China. In 1916, the Chinese Masonic Society in
Sydney established a “Hung League Fund Raising Committee”, and James
A. Chuey and Moy Sing embarked upon a tour of Victoria and Tasmania
in order to rally the support of “Yee Hing Company” members for this
cause. The sum of £2,900 was raised and sent to Dr Sun Yat-sen to
support the Southern China revolutionaries. In 1918, in order to support
the Guangdong military government’s expedition against local warlords,
the Chinese Masonic Society of Sydney raised a further £2,300.
30
(d)As social and political circumstances changed, the Chinese Hung League in
Australia also began to adapt its organisational structure and nomenclature.
Firstly, the “Yee Hing Company” began to accept membership from all
sectors of the Chinese community; rich merchants and poor vegetable
gardeners alike, carpenters as well as street vendors, all met the
requirements for membership of the “Company”. Generally, however,
although there was a higher percentage of working class members, control
of the “Company” remained in the hands of rich Chinese merchants. In
1912, the headquarters of the “Yee Hing Company” was established in
New South Wales, later on becoming the headquarters of the Aligned Yee
Hing Company, and adopting the English name: “The Chinese Masonic
Society”.
In 1914, “Yee Hing Company” in Melbourne underwent
reform and adopted the same English name. During the period 1916-18,
once the Chinese Masonic Society had opened up its activities to the public,
branches of the Chinese Masonic Society appeared throughout Australia,
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid.
Page 11
Cai Shaoqing
40
publicising their activities and membership lists in the local Chinese-
language newspapers. All these branches took their direction from the
Sydney headquarters.
Between 1918-21, the Sydney headquarters
convened four Interstate Chinese Masonic Society Consolidation
Conferences, and inaugurated its own newspaper, “The Chinese World
News” in 1921. This latter served as a forum for important political issues
and gave expression to the increasing influence of the League. The Hung
League of Australia had by now completely escaped from its clandestine
past, and its history as a secret society had come to an end.
The Nature, Characteristics and Social Role of the
Chinese Hung League in Australia
It has now been more than 150 years since the Heaven Earth League first
arrived in Australia along with the large number of Chinese labourers who
came to Australia to join in the gold rush from 1851 onwards. Although the
original slogan of the League had been “To overthrow the Qing and Restore
the Ming”, it had in essence been an association by, of and for indigent
labourers seeking mutual aid and support. Once it had commenced its
activities overseas, the entire context of these activities changed fundamentally;
no longer did it have to contend with the Qing imperial government or the
feudalistic control of the Scholar-gentry class, but rather the discrimination and
oppression of a Western colonial power. As a consequence, the Hung League
in Australia could no longer be said to be defined by the slogan “To
overthrow the Qing and Restore the Ming”, and the League’s original nature
as an association devoted to resistance to tyranny and to mutual aid came to
the fore. Large numbers of Chinese labourers, finding themselves now in a
foreign land, without relatives or acquaintances to turn to in times of need,
swore oaths of brotherhood and joined the Hung League in order to
undertake mutual aid activities to protect the economic rights and common
interests of the Chinese and to oppose the oppression and discrimination of
both the Western colonial government and the European settlers. Under
normal circumstances, the Hung League arranged jobs for them, mediated
their disputes, and assisted with the everyday difficulties of birth, old age,
sickness and death and so on. One source records that: “in their initial phases,
the “Yee Hing Companies” of both New South Wales and Victoria undertook
a great many good works on the behalf of their members. The companies
encouraged amongst their members a sense of brotherhood and helped them
find employment, all to protect the interests of members”.
31
31
Ibid., pp. 112-116.
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Secret Societies
41
During times of anti-Chinese violence, they sought legal protection for
their members through petitions and appeals to public sympathy. When a
violent anti-Chinese incident broke out in the Baklan gold fields in Victoria in
July, 1857, and the colonial government began to impose a resident’s tax of
£1 per person per month, the Chinese gold miners rallied to petition the
government of Victoria with a statement of their plight. As a result of their
efforts, the Victorian State Parliament decided to reduce this tax to £1 per
person every three months.
32
In 1861, when another violent anti-Chinese
incident occurred in the lowlands of Lanming in New South Wales, as many as
600 Chinese joined the Chinese speaking interpreter James Henley in
petitioning the colonial government for legal protection. Driven by his strong
sense of social justice, Henley presented a report to the Australian authorities
demanding legal protection for Chinese labourers.
33
In an editorial dated 2
nd
August, 1861, the Sydney Morning Herald also
expressed its sympathy for the suffering of the Chinese, stating: “In all respects,
they are excellent; one does not see them wallowing on the ground drunk; one
does not see them shabbily dressed, and nor do they make a display of their
poverty in order to gain public sympathy; they have their own broadly based
organisation to provide mutual support and help, and although they earn very
little, they still save some to send back to support their families”.
34
To my
mind, in terms of its resistance to the oppression of the colonial government
and its protection of the interests of the Chinese, the Hung League served
something of the role of an unofficial Chinese consulate.
In the course of its century or more of development, and in comparison
to similar Hung Leagues elsewhere, the Hung League of Australia, has two
obvious particularities. Firstly, in contrast to the circumstances that prevailed
in Southeast Asia and America, Australia was essentially without the type of
gang fight and Tong Wars between branches of the League which proved so
injurious to the social order of both the Chinese community and the local
society more generally. The main reason for this was because of the diversity
of the origins of the overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and
America. Although the majority came from Guangdong and Fujian Provinces,
these overseas Chinese communities included also men who came from
Guangxi Province as well as ex-members of the “Three Rivers Gang” secret
society from throughout China. The communities they formed part of were
fragmented by dialect differences and, as a consequence, their Hung Leagues
too were divided.
In Malaya for example, during the 19
th
century, the Chinese community
was comprised of five main dialect groups and the Hung League there divided
32
Zhang Qiusheng, Aodaliya huaqiao huaren shi,p. 126.
33
Liu Weiping, Aozhou huaqiao shi [A History of the Chinese in Australia] (Taibei:
Xingdao chubanshe, 1989), pp. 112-16.
34
Quoted in Zhang Qiusheng, Aodaliya huaqiao huaren shi,p. 127.
Page 13
Cai Shaoqing
42
into groups like the Ghee Hin Society
, the Hai San Society
,
the Ho Seng Society ^, the Wah Sang Society
and the Toh Peh
Kong Society ..
35
Mutual misunderstanding, suspicion and hostility
often arouse between these groups as a result of differences in dialect, custom,
personality and nature of employment, occasionally resulting in conflict and
bloody strife. The secret societies played leading roles in these battles. Such
internecine struggles caused, in the case of Malaya, the two infamous Larut
Wars of 1862 and 1872.
In contrast, the Chinese in Australia, especially those who migrated
there during the gold rush period, were mainly from the Pearl River Delta of
Guangdong Province, whilst others came from the southern part of Fujian
Province. They lived in communities based upon their places of origin.
Although there is no detailed statistical record of the numbers of the earliest
Fujianese and Cantonese migrants to Australia, we can gain an impression of
the origins of these men from the existing Chinese gravestones of Ballarat.
480 of these gravestones provide clear record of origins of those buried. 250
of the gravestones record Ningyi (Xinning County) as the place of origin, this
representing over 52% of the total number. A further 123 gravestones give
Sun Hui in Gangzhou (Xinhui County) as place of origin, this in turn
representing another 26% of the total. The remaining 107 gravestones belong
to men from counties such as Tot shan (Taishan), Chang Shen (Zengcheng),
Xiangshan, Hoi Ping (Kaiping), Poon Yee (Fan’ou), Tung Kuan (Dongguan),
Soon Tack (Shunde), Ho Shan (Heshan) and so on. Not one gravestone is for
somebody from any other province.
36
The impression gained from such records is of a community which
spoke the same dialect of Cantonese and which was made up of men of very
similar physical features, ideology and character, thus reducing the likelihood
of mutual friction and conflict. With the exception of battle that took place on
Little Bourke Street in Melbourne in 1904 between the “Yee Hing Company”
and the Bo Leong Association over the profits from the opium and gambling
business, the history of the League in Australia is almost completely free of
violence or conflicts that derived from the existence of Chinese secret societies.
In fact, the reputation of the Bo Leong Association was so affected by this
fight that it was disbanded in 1912.
37
The second particularity of the Hung League in Australia was that it
became unified at an early stage, making use of English title “The Chinese
Masonic Society” to refer to the aligned headquarters of the “Yee Hing
35
L.F. Comber, Chinese Secret Societies in Malaya: A Survey of the Triad Society from
1800 to 1900,pp. 35-36.
36
Linda Brumley, Lu Bingqun & Zhao Xueru, eds., Fading Links to China: Ballarat’s
Chinese Gravestones and Associated Records, 1854-1955, Melbourne University History
Research Series # 2 (1992).
37
C.F. Yong, The Chinese in Australia, 1901-21,pp. 159-60.
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Secret Societies
43
Company”, in order that the Australian public understand the nature of the
“Yee Hing Company” and thus helping to facilitate the assimilation of the
league into Australian society. As is widely recognised, within many overseas
Chinese communities, the various secret societies were divisive elements which
inhibited any sense of unity within these communities. This remains the case
in a number of regions. The situation with the Chinese secret societies of
Australia is different. With the exception of the early gold rush period when
Hung League members were scattered throughout the various gold fields,
once the majority of Chinese had moved to live in the cities, the League too
moved the centre of it activities into the cities. By the end of the 19th century
and the beginning of the 20th century, two “Yee Hing Company” headquarters had been established; one in Sydney in New South Wales and the other in Melbourne in Victoria.
The Sydney headquarters was the first established, in Blackburn Street in 1908; this headquarters was later moved to Mary Street. The Melbourne headquarters was established in Little BourkeStreet.
The two headquarters co-operated frequently, and the connection between them was an intimate one. When the “Yee Hing Company” in New South Wales celebrated the opening of its Blackburn Street headquarters, the heads of the “Yee Hing Company” of Melbourne and Bendigo all attended the ceremony. When in 1912 the “Yee Hing Company” of Sydney adopted “The Chinese Masonic Society” as its English name, the “Yee Hing Company” of Melbourne followed suit in 1914. On the cover of the extant
Bendigo Hung League Pamphlet are written the words “Masonic Society”. In 1916, an aligned headquarters was established in New South Wales. In the same year, the aligned “Yee Hing Company” called on all “Yee Hing Companies” across Australia to become affiliated branches of the Sydney
headquarters. Between 1918-21, the Sydney headquarters convened four Interstate Consolidation Conferences of the Chinese Masonic Society and laid the foundation for a unified Australian Hung League in Australia. The change of name for the Hung League from “Yee Hing Company” to “The Chinese Masonic Society” not only won support from the Chinese community in Australia, but also facilitated an understanding of the League on the part of the Australian public, for the term “Free Mason” was one that they were familiar with. Although the Chinese Masonic Society did not undertake any of the rituals associated with the Australian Masonic Society, the sense of brotherhood and fraternity that the societies sought to foster were very similar. This served towards the greater purpose of the acceptance of the Chinese into Australian society. Apart from the similarity in the origins and backgrounds of members and a consequent reduction in the possibility of conflict, another characteristic of the League that allowed it to become unified at an early stage was to do
with its leadership. Men such as Lee Yuan Sam, Moy Sing, James A. Chuey and Lee Yuan Xing
were not only capable organisers, but they also had enormous prestige within the Chinese communities in Australia, and the trust of Australian society in general. Lee Yuan Sam whom I had occasion to
mention earlier, was born in China in 1831 and came to Australia in 1862, initially as a gold miner in Ballarat. Later on, he established a business inMelbourne. He travelled frequently throughout New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, and gained a lot of experience of life in Australia. He had
maintained a long-term relationship with the “Yee Hing Company” of Victoria, becoming a leader of the Yee Hing Company of Melbourne early last century. By 1911, under his leadership, the “Yee Hing Company” had attracted a membership of 3,000. He was a popular figure in the Chinese community of
Victoria and played an important role in the 1891 Revolution against the Qing Dynasty. He played a critical role in the unification of the Hung League of Australia. Moy Sing was born in the See Yap region of Guangdong Province in 1831. He migrated to New South Wales in 1852 and served as leader of
the “Yee Hing Company” there for 55 years. During his term as leader, the Yee Hing Company had a membership of 3,000. He died in 1919. James A. Chuey, who was also from the See Yap region, migrated to Australia in 1878. He settled down in Junee in New South Wales, running a wheat farm and exporting wool. A faithful follower of Moy Sing, he was a sociable, modest, honest and generous man and became one of the most popular members of the Chinese communities of New South Wales and
Victoria. He made many friends, both Chinese and Australian. W.A. Holman, an Australian who was elected as premier of New South Wales between 1913-19, was amongst his closest friends. He was one of the top leaders of the Aligned Chinese Masonic Society during the first three decades last century.
Under his leadership, the Chinese Masonic Society of New South Wales was united and became an important social and political power within the Chinese Community of the state throughout the 1920s,
39 whilst he also played an important role in the process of unifying the Chinese Masonic Society across Australia. It has now been more than 150 years since the large-scale initial wave of
Chinese migration to Australia. During this period, Chinese migrants have undertaken all kinds of work; gold mining, vegetable farming, furniture manufacturing, industrial business and city construction. Though they suffered at the hands of anti-Chinese movements and from the ill treatment and discrimination of the “White Australia Policy”, with perseverance and hard
work, they made a great contribution to the economic development and modernisation of Australia.
At the same time, their Chinese cultural background served to make Australian society more culturally pluralistic. Throughout this process, the Hung League of Australia played a very significant role in uniting the Chinese community, undertaking mutual aid measures, and promoting the integration
of the Chinese with Australian society. This circumstance needs now to bemore fully appreciated by the general public

New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 4, 1 (June, 2002): 30-45
CAI SHAOQING
Nanjing University

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