The Smallpox Outbreak 1881
UnMonumental
On 29 April 1881, the smallpox virus entered the colony of Sydney via the British owned ship 'Brisbane’, which arrived in Port Jackson from Hong Kong. On board were 106 Chinese passengers and cargo of oil, preserves, tea, cigars and opium. One man was diagnosed with smallpox and several others were quarantined, but were later transferred to a hospital ship in the bay. The remaining crew and passengers on the ship were given a clean bill of health and were allowed to enter the colony.
Three weeks after the arrival of the 'Brisbane' a suspected case of smallpox was reported in the public. A child of Chinese merchant On Chong had a fever and rash, but after an inspection of On Chong’s child by a Government Doctor the diagnosis was unclear. In fact, the first confirmed case of the disease was a European man.
Nevertheless, fuelled by existing racial tensions between Chinese and Europeans in Australia, the press openly blamed the outbreak on Chinese people. The Chinese community was vilified as overcrowded, unhygienic and morally corrupt. European Australians openly spat on Chinese people walking in the streets of Sydney.
Public hostility toward the Chinese community led to the the New South Wales Government forcing mandatory smallpox inoculation of all Chinese people in the colony during the epidemic. In April and May of 1881 roughly three thousand Chinese immigrants had travelled through the Port of Sydney. As a result of the epidemic in December 1881, the New South Wales Parliament passed the ‘Influx of Chinese Restriction Act’ to restrict the arrival of Chinese immigrants.
Between May of 1881 to February of 1882 the smallpox outbreak infected 154 people and killed 40 people. However, only 3 Chinese people were actually infected during the epidemic, showing that the racial targeting was unfounded.
REFERENCES
https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/smallpox_epidemic_1881
https://smallpox1881.omeka.net/exhibits/show/1881exhibit
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09581599908402942?src=recsys
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/smallpox-epidemic