We didn’t arrive Yesterday
In an article published in 1971 in Quaderni dell’Istituto Italiano di Cultura entitled “ltalians on the Pacific Frontier”, Professor Hugh M. Laracy of the Australian National University wrote: ”The ltalians achieved little in the South Pacific as their explorers left few names on maps, their missionaries made few converts and their settlers did not establish roots.” (1) Many years before Professor Laracy, Federico Gagliardi, himself a writer and migrant of the second half of the nineteenth century, had this instead to say about the Italians of that time in his book L’Australia e i suoi commerci: : ” … We have farming settlements which truly do Italy proud and are singled out as models … Furthermore, one finds Italians evcrywhere occupying responsible positions: they are to be found in the post and telegraph offices, in public e and private schools, in port carpentry workshops, in the press, the legai and medicai professions, in commerce and in industry … ” These are two diametrically opposed views: the one negative and the other positive. (2) It is not the aim of this work to arouse controversy, nor is it meant to be just a compilation of facts and figures, a task I am happy to leave to the statisticians.
CONTENTS
7 – Preface
9 – Introduction
14 – 1. The end of a legend
31 – 2. From prison to colony
35 – 3. Italian migration in the pre-unification era
57 – 4. From the unification of ltaly to the First World War
69 – 5. A tale of woe: the ltalian migrant at the beginning of the 20th Century
79 – 6. Populate or perish
II
NEW SOUTH WALES
93 – (Brief geographical and historical outline)
97 – 7. From free immigration to the census
110 – 8. A tragic episode
129 – 9. From 7887 to the Second World War
149 – 10 . The agricultural miracle of the Riverina
VICTORIA
161 – (Brief geographical and historical outline)
163 – 11. The discovery of Gold
177 – 12. The Italian rural communities of Victoria
211 – 13. The Italian community of Melbourne
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
226 – (Brief geographical and historical outline)
229 – The origins of the ltalian communtty in Western Australia
243 – Italians in the goldfields
263 – 16. The growth of farming and fishing
QUEENSLAND
274 – (Brief geographical and historical outline)
277 – 17. The first pioneers in Oueensland
287 – 18. The Italians replace the Kanakas
301 – 19. Italian migration to Oueensland between the two wars
III
323 – The Professional and Religious contribution
325 – 20. The professional contribution of the /talian doctors
339 – 21. he Italian contribution to music and the figurative arts
355 – 22. The Religious contribution
382 – Bibliography
391 – lndex