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In the late 1840s and early 1850s around 3,000 Chinese indentured
labourers mainly from the Amoy district in China were brought to
pastoral properties in regional New South Wales. They were used
to fill the shortage caused by the stopping of convict labour. Later
in the nineteenth century, as the opportunities on the goldfields
disappeared, Chinese pastoral gangs were contracted to clear land.
This was especially the case around Riverina towns like Narrandera,
Hay and Deniliquin. They were a mobile workforce who set up camp,
worked and moved on. Time out was usually spent in the Chinese quarter
of the nearest town. Individual Chinese labourers continued to work
on rural properties across the state into the early twentieth century
 Chinese
sucker cutters camp on Moroco West station, near Deniliquin, early
1920s.(Private collection)
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