The Sunken Coffins of 499 Chinese Gold Miners | The Lost Voyage of 499 | Absolute History

i'm alice loxton and i present documentaries over on history hit tv if you're passionate about all things history sign up to history hit tv it's like netflix but just for history we've got hours of ad-free documentaries about all aspects of the past you can get a huge discount from history hit tv make sure you check out the details below and use the code absolute history all one word when you sign up now on with the show over a century ago a tombship bound for china is shipwrecked and sinks the ss ventnor has a ghostly cargo the remains of 499 chinese gold miners [Music] all packed in coffins that never made it home the ship still lies at the bottom of the ocean somewhere off the coast of northern new zealand the ship's manifest goes down with the coffins so the names of the miners are erased from history along with their bones but the name of one man has been preserved choi soo hoy and it still calls to his family through time he is buried at the moment in a watery grave and from chinese superstition that's not good [Music] choice ohio was my great grandfather and that's my creative wish that i could be able to do something to complete his general health choihoy was one of the first and greatest chinese pioneers in new zealand and his name holds a rightful place among the founding fathers of modern new zealand [Music] choice remains were in one of the 499 coffins lost when the vent north sank of hokianga on that fateful night more than a century ago this is the journey of his modern day kiwi descendants to find a home for choi suhoy's spirit and possibly his body 1861 and the rush is on gold has been discovered in otago's gabriel's gully spurring a frenzy of gold fever felt the world over miners rush from australia the us and europe [Music] but the otago gold rush was over almost as soon as it had started the quick men who came in search of easy riches fled at the end of that time between 1861 and 1864 the gold rush had seen the departure of thousands of european miners either going back to victoria or going off to the west coast gold rushes and the population went down so quickly from about 19 000 european miners in early 1864 to 6000 in late 1865. what new zealand needed was a new group of men willing to work harder for their riches invitation went out from the otago provincial council for chinese gold miners to come to new zealand to work the available gold fields one local who was attracted was a 30 year old merchant choi soo hoy choi came from pony in guangdong province and it turned out that the earliest chinese arrivals to otago came from upper pony they had taken part in the red turbine rebellion they're part of the county was devastated by the government revenge so it was in a disturbed state and in the poor state and they had to flee and he came along with that first group and they saw an opportunity in otago when choi suhoy arrived in dunedin the merchant in him immediately saw opportunity he set up a general store in stafford street dunedin to provide for the chinese mining community they would come off the boat and make for his store which was in lower stafford street just opposite the rattray street wharf he provided the chinese provision the gold mining equipments like the gold painting and diggers and so on choi su hoy's store became a mecca for the chinese miners in otago he wasn't actually a gold miner himself he was a businessman as a merchant and he actually supplied the gold miners and helped them with a lot of their affairs and how he did that was he was probably a lot smarter but he knew english and that was his key to being able to do business also to translate for the gold miners um and all those sorts of affairs equally if not of prime importance was that he had the resources to give miners equipment and food to tie them over their initial state before their earning well and he would receive them give them advice break them into parties give them initial clothing and get them away in there it was into forbidding hills like these and the kawaro gorge more than 200 kilometers inland from dunedin that the chinese miners had to trek often on foot to search for gold duncan sue hoy and his son peter are retracing their steps they're heading for one of the old caps in the cowardo gorge to discover just how tough life was for the chinese miners as they dug for gold in this remote hinterland historian les wang is an expert on the chinese miners experience in new zealand the miners built their huts out of schist rocks that they found in the riverbeds they brought the rocks up from the river after the gold had been washed the rocks were cleaned and they put it together often when goods came from dunedin they were wrapped in sacking from the surhoy stores so that sacking was then reused again for insulation on the huts that's a good idea what other supplies would the gold miners have got from him they brought mainly dried foods there was chinese food like rice dried fish dried plums ginger and there was even liniment and ointment that they could use when they got hurt but other than that there was no medical service and only herbs that they could use to ease their pain from the hardship that they had on the gold fields it would take two weeks for the suhoi's horse and cart to get up here from dunedin with supplies and for those chinese miners who had to trek here on foot it would take a month of hard walking [Music] it was back-breaking work getting at the gold shoveling sand into sluices separating the tiny grains of gold embedded in the court's rocks it wasn't only the work itself that was challenging the central otago climate was unforgiving in summer they could be cooking out here alive in 36 degree heat and in winter the opposite extreme with temperatures dropping to as low as 20 below sickness was a constant companion those who were so sick got left behind as the others moved on because taking them with them would have been a burden and they staffed a death and died a very lonely death despite the hardships on the gold fields nobody prospered as much as the men who supplied the miners was the top merchant in dunedin acknowledged by europeans and chinese alike when they reacted against the chinese later on they were called celestials and mongolians and that kind of name but it was always mr silhoue he married a european woman eliza prescott and had two children with her he also invested in gold mining buying and operating two gold dredges choice evoy had about a dozen mining ventures and he had two uh quartz mines for example then he had sluicing ventures of which the one that nakamai was a top public company in new zealand for sluicing for several years off the back of the gold miners and the mechanization that choi soo hoy introduced dunedin grew to become one of the wealthiest cities in the southern hemisphere the grand buildings that line its streets today are all in part the result of choi suhoy's business acumen and vision he of all people would have been the closest chinese person in otago to joining the european elites generosity and tradition was at the heart of choi su hoy's business model in 1882 as the leader of the chinese community in otago he founded a charitable society the chongxington to assist the gold miners with their spiritual needs really there was an insurance policy for the chinese gold miners should they pass away in new zealand then there was money available for their remains to be exhumed for the remains to be shipped back to china and re-buried in their home villages duncan suhoy still has some of the original society donation letters sent by gold miners to his great grandfather's store this is a letter dated the 19th of july 1882 sent in by one of the chinese gold miners from central taco lawrence to silhouette and closing seven pounds 50 cents this is another letter sent to silhoue in 1882 in the letter there is three pounds sent into the xiang xin tong the different society and from the mana ko yipman and this came from central taco morning area in 1883 the society successfully arranged for the shipment of 230 bodies from new zealand back to china in 1901 choi suhoy began arranging for a second shipment of chinese miners bodies back to their homeland some of the chinese graves dug up were from here in dunedin's southern cemetery there were over 40 cemeteries right throughout the country where they were exhumed from the bulk of them were around the otago and west coast area they began exhumations in early 1901 and they concluded towards the end of 1902. the europeans at the time must have been horrified to hear of what the chinese wanted to do to to dig up the remains of their fellow countrymen and take them back to china to get re-buried how did they get permission to do that everybody in new zealand knew about it and they just did not like it they were horrified they were petitioning against the chinese carrying out this practice but the health department said that they had issued a permit for the chinese to go ahead and do this particular task i heard from my family mentioned that the bodies from the christ round here were sent into my great great grandfather choices farm in caico valley yes your father's quite right it was a very unpleasant process their bones were individually washed and each bone was counted and the small bones were put into individual wrappings of calico the bigger bones were put into a larger calico bag and they're all put together and from that they actually put the name of the person inside the bag and the bag was tied then the bag was put into a coffin and they were stacked in the sheds and they were stored there until all the coffins were ready to be shipped digging up the bodies for the second shipment was disrupted when choi su hoy died suddenly in july 1901 just a year before the second shipment was due to set sail back to china as a respected city leader choi su-hoy was given a prominent burial here in dunedin's southern cemetery his death was a major setback for the chongxing tong society's body repatriation plans into which stepped his son choi kum poy who took over running both the society and the shipment [Music] the ss ventnore with its cargo of 499 coffins set to see from wellington bound for hong kong on the 26th of october 1902 choi suhoy's body now was also part of the cargo most of the coffins were stowed below the ship was refitted to take those chinese coffins together with the chinese who were supervising the voyage as well so there were live chinese accompanying their ancestors back to china [Music] the chinese remains on their last great journey home whenever to make it the ship struck rocks on the west coast of the north island of new zealand approximately halfway up the island the ship was far too close to the coast the sea conditions were good and the coast was pretty well lit it shouldn't have happened the captain reversed the vessel and got off the rocks but instead of limping to the nearby port of new plymouth he made a fateful decision the captain decided that the damage wasn't as severe as they thought and they thought they could actually make it up to auckland but unfortunately damage was severe and they took on water and the boat sank off the hokkien heads i believe it's 10 miles out in i think 150 meters of water so it's in a very very deep place 499 coffins sank to the ocean floor a tragedy of such immensity and consequence that an official board of inquiry was convened three boats got off the vent north safely with most of the crew and passengers the fourth did not no one survived from that boat that was the one with the master so he was carrying on the traditions of the british merchant marine by being one of the last of the ship itself thirteen men perished when the ventnor sank including five elderly chinese attendants who had been given free passage home by the chong sing tong society in exchange for looking after the coffins on board the official court of inquiry was clearly a little bit frustrated it identified the main cause which was very obvious navigational error incompetence there was some debate about whether booze had contributed to that the officers stood by the master and said no no no no sign of drinking many but not all of the crew said yes he was known to take a drop we could smell it on him he was red-faced on the day though they probably decided saying he was dead in this you know the way of the day not to cancel a certificate and keep his name clear the chinese community in new zealand were devastated by the vent north sinking it was especially harrowing news for dunedin restauranteur duncan suhoy's family at the time they'd lost their elder choi su hoy whose coffin had gone down with the ship [Music] for our family that was really set and then my grand uncle chartered vessels to come here to look for the bottle for the coffins choi's son kum poy immediately initiated a search for the stricken vessel when he heard of the vietnam sinking my great uncle was obviously devastated the society immediately charted another boat i think it's called the islamic energy to come down to this area and search for any remains or any other coffins that may be floating my grand uncle was crying saying my poor father died twice it was in a sense a second death for these people the chinese believe that human remains should be buried a watery death or submergence is a second death [Music] with the suhoy family today they had lost their family leader for good to the sea and his watery grave was a doubly bad resting place in chinese belief systems here in dunedin's chinese gardens a memorial to the chinese gold miners contribution to the early history of otago duncan and peter suhoy know just how important it is spiritually to the chinese that their dead be buried back in their homeland this is especially important for the chinese as the living descendants can tend to the graves of their descendants to ensure a good afterlife for the deceased but also ensure success for the living descendants the wreck of the ss venting has never been officially located it still lies in its watery grave thought to be 10 miles off hokianga harbour in 160 metres of water one of the deepest wrecks in new zealand's maritime history in the months after the ventnor sank in october 1902 a bag containing several bones washed ashore at mitimiti north of hokianga harbour [Music] [Applause] peter's taking the four and a half hours drive north from auckland to discover what happened to those remains that washed up on the land of the tehrarawa tribe i'm off to meet one of the elders mingo he's going to tell me the story of what his uh what his ancestors did when they discovered the bones and buried the bones i'm really excited to hear her stories [Music] peter is given a traditional welcome on to the mirai at mitimiti to meet tribal elder ming ol martino [Music] [Music] can i just ask you just a few questions about the the vent noir that sunk and the bones that washed up onto your beaches can you can you tell me how they were found and what happened to the bones there was no roads in those those days and and the beach was the main highway and of course they used to pick up from about five k's down down the beach there pick up all the cream they would bring all their cream cans down to the beach and this particular morning he they were growing up picking up their cans and they found these uh bags on the beach so he picked one up opened it i had a look in it and saw it was just bones so he had no uh idea what you know what was going on with where these bones came from so they buried them in that cemetery in in rowani which was not a maori cemetery but a pakistan cemetery one very very good thing that's come out of it it's brought the the local maori yeah who've found the bones and the chinese together we respect you as people we respect your culture respect your custom it doesn't matter who they are what color they were a person whose disease is a person who's deceased and they always respected the disease but we have a saying it is a person that is a person that is a person we are like chinese i mean we we have this copa as you call it when they are dead die we assume like the chinese if you don't go back to china you you know your spirit doesn't reach uh which is a spiritual world that a small number of the miners have a final resting place on dry land and are respected in a similar way by the maori people is heartening to the suhoy family but with his curiosity fired up peter learns that remains floated ashore months later south of hokkien harbour in the lands of the te rorowa tribe [Music] one of my elders made me aware of the existence of some burials in the sandhills here of the remains of chinese gold miners the general locale is known but not the precise site or the precise position where the internments occurred but the documented record states that there are 33 coffins washed up here the local emmy or my family basically would have been very surprised to find those things on the beach they would have very quickly undergone some sort of ritual process and interred them where they washed up they would have had no idea where they had come from and so the thing would have been to bury them quickly [Music] what is remarkable is that the terror people took it upon themselves to bury strangers not of their tribe on their own sacred land they would have been obligated to deal with the remains in the way in the fashion that they were accustomed to that would be being respectful the whole process of re-entering them i think was i would have thought common to humanity not just maori or our people a hundred and eleven years after the tragic sinking of the venting the terror tribe invite more than a hundred members of the chinese community onto their mirai to honor their ancestor's passing [Music] [Applause] as rain begins to gently fall 36 members of the suhoy family are present for this special day of commemoration some of them pilgrims from as far afield as hong kong and australia welcome everybody into our beautiful mirai that god has has made for us today we have our why do the spirit of our ancestors and your ancestors they're all up there they're all looking down and they're probably saying it's about time you fellas turned up it's been over 100 years and for the one day that we could have picked to come here and do this special commemoration to those people who were tragically lost to us out here in the ocean we couldn't have picked a better day here they are crying on us i know you believe that too that these are the tears of our ancestors that are raining down on us now and of course your culture is acted exactly the same as ours wants to repatriate them back home we called it the ukaipor where they were actually born and we wanted to take them back home just like you people were [Music] [Music] [Music] i think most of us most of the chinese people are here today to send their thanks to our cousins by cousins i mean the local maori people after the tragedy of the access event some bones of the 499 bodies were washed upshot and the local maori people find them and bury them here i sincerely thank the maori people our cousins for the noble deeds in helping the chinese community [Music] it was just such an emotional experience for us to be up here to speak to the descendants of the maori that actually buried the remains and have cared for the remains all these years i could see that it was a relief for them to see us and they did make mention of why did it take so long our tremendous fulfillment feels very emotional excited and felt the warmth and generosity from the tribes we have three generations here with me to pay respect to my quacking father and somewhere i think he would probably feel very humble and very honored very pleased that we are here able to be here together [Music] we chose this time because it's the the ching ming festival the chimney festival is also called ancestors day or two sweeping day it's a day where families get together and come to the grave sites and the cemeteries to clean the stones and the sights but mainly to spend time and pay respects to the ancestors with choi soo hoy it's the first qingling ever that the family have been able to come to where choi souhou actually lies they bring offerings they bring food chicken pork buns chinese tea and wine to offer it to their to the ancestors they also offer money they burn money so that their ancestors can have these up there in heaven so that ensures a good afterlife for our ancestors and in turn prosperity for their living descendants [Music] they want us back every year anyway to celebrate chiang ming and they're very happy to see us because it's important for them to tend to their deceased just as it is important for us [Music] the chinese visitors unveiled a plaque in a forest grove on the marae to thank the teruro tribe for respecting and caring for their ancestors remains [Music] this is just another step for relationships between almighty people and chinese people it's taken over 100 years but it's been done they weren't forgotten and you can imagine yourself even in in the human form when things have been put right and done in that proper way you two will shed tears you know can't help it so yeah yeah it's huge the spiritual side is huge in nothing like this with the knowledge that some of their countrymen made it ashore and have found a safe and caring resting place peter and duncan suhoy now have a vision can the rest of the miners and their family patriarch choi suhoy also be rescued and perhaps returned to china peter suhoy meets with the former minister of maori affairs peter sharples and the chinese consul in new zealand new xing bao to discuss the vent north sinking and we have a saying only when one is buried in the earth he or she can rest in peace well same until he's buried even though he's dead he's like a [Music] a ghost wandering around without home a burial is his or her home that's exactly the same as maori you know always two the other thing is to locate them in their own area so when i die my tribe will come and get me or i'll haunt them for a hundred years i think with the vietnam tragedy it's the inability of the living descendants in china to actually have the remains go back and be buried so that they can worship their ancestors so that the the ancestors can have a good afterlife and also bring good fortune to the living descendants i think that's more with the with the tragedy well see you've just described what it is like for maori people who cannot get there uh they're dead if you like back home and buried in the proper way in the proper place they feel exactly like that yes duncan suhoy's dream is that the ventnor is located and salvaged so the chinese remains can be returned home i wish and be part of my family honor to be able to complete his journey home the new zealand navy has offered the services of its dive ship the hmnz manawanui to dive for and locate the wreck of the ss venting it is standing by for suitable weather conditions to complete the mission until that day comes duncan su hoy great grandson of choi suhoy has one other important journey to complete he will close the circle and make the ancestral journey back to guangzhou that choi suhoy never got to complete i'm really really very excited that i can start going back on the route and my wish was to complete the journey home now i am going that route [Applause] finally duncan's off to china heading for guangzhou to commemorate with his chinese relatives his revered ancestors life wow we finally arrived in china [Music] he's taking with him his son peter and daughter-in-law janice to share the experience guangzhou today is a bustling dynamic metropolis of almost 40 million people located on the pearl river 120 kilometers north of hong kong guangzhou is china's most populous city when duncan was born in the 1930s guangzhou's population was just a little over 200 000 people a very different world the changes in guangzhou is massive the economy is thriving 30 years ago the streets were full of bites now everyone has a car it's incredible how the city in the people's lives has transformed and grown duncan emigrated to new zealand when he was 12 years old in 1946 it's really important to me that i'm accompanying my father back to the village for the very first time to meet some of our family but more importantly pay respect to our ancestors i can see who changes since the 70 years when i first traveled along this narrow gravel road in 1944 under the japanese occupation there were rice and vegetable fields stretching far and wide on both sides of this world today rice is still being harvested in the fields outside the village the urban expansion is fast approaching now in 2014 i see many large farming areas have disappeared to make room for bigger villages and townships buildings and bikes and cars are now everywhere eating into the countryside i miss the clean fresh country air the buffaloes working in the rice fields in the blue sky the sioux hoys have arrived in their ancestral village of kung the birthplace of duncan's great grandfather choi soo hois the children of the civil family all around this area duncan and his family's pilgrimage to their ancestral village is a time for reflection but also one of celebration tonight the suhoys are hosting a special dinner for over 200 of their relatives from the village to mark their return and to thank them all for their support over the years it was a chance to pull out the family tree and to rejoice in their family connections i had to use a family tree book to write them to which generation and how we are related and this is very exciting all our members and families they say oh i'm so so some of them i have to call you grand uncle and kanye [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the food was really delicious especially that suckling picnics it was good over 10 dishes especially make us very happy to see so many realtors that we have not even met before and this is very exciting and i'm really overwhelmed as well to see so many relatives that live in the village that i don't know and if i've got an opportunity tonight we'll go around and meet some more of them [Music] [Applause] [Music] along with renewed connections it's time to finally visit choi su hoy's original village home so generous yes here we are finally arriving at el great grandfather house and i realized my dream was becoming true and this is one that there is is to us there have been when frequent fallacy was born here i've been still here in you my younger days and this is it i'm very emotional okay listen so we've got we've got um cousin wayne and cousin mike from bong joe yes uh to show us through the house so i'm just gonna knock on the door and all right we'll see if they're there okay oh hi wayne oh how are you doing welcome my god almost in tears and she finally comes in there and my dream is almost at the end now realizing that no that's beautiful you haven't been here let me show you your own home okay and this house is uh lived in by the cohort chao silhouette in the 1860s before he went to uh australian new zealand picking up gold this part is delivered by his family and also his first and second cousin live on the other side and inside there's a sort of a lunch you come in here this the original house yes is this the first first first the first house of silhouette uh bill bill yeah so i think so you know this is why it's so important you know and for the family yeah yeah [Music] up there you know just used somehow it says the airship store and the cabinet out there so there's still some ashes in those three valves yeah you can see that on the top corner and of course it's much higher coming into the silhouette's house and seeing open the door they are so emotional that i felt a tears of joy i was really happy to show peter and janice at last i could see my dream come true [Music] the culmination of duncan and his family's journey has dawned more than 40 of their chinese relatives have arrived at choi su hoy's chinese gravesite to honor him in a by sun ceremony for duncan peter and janice it is a momentous occasion it's been a long long journey we've been in dunedin we've been to hokianga and now here it's amazing to come here i think he'd be so happy with all the offerings that we've given him and just us being here knowing that choi suhoy's body was unlikely to ever return home his chinese relatives used a spiritual leader to lure his spirit into a funeral jar that jar is buried here in his chinese grave after a century of worry it may be that choi suhoy's spirit has been at rest all along safe in the care of his family [Music] great great grandfather i'm peter and this is my wife janice we're flown thousands of miles from all the way from new zealand to be here today we pay honour to you we're here to pay our respects to you thank you for coming to new zealand all those years and years ago had you not come to new zealand i would not be here today rest in peace [Music] okay [Music] [Music] make up [Music] dad i am your great grandson duncan from new zealand i am 80 years old now this is my [Music] first time to come here to pay respect to you knowing that my dream to bring you home and your friend or friends come to china and to lay you here in peace forever i feel so honest so proud and so emotional i can't hold back my tears of happiness [Music] at last duncan's journey is over he's returned to his great grandfather's ancestral village and paid homage to the great man and his legacy duncan's ultimate wish is that one day he will stand here on the banks of the pearl river in guangzhou along with five thousand members of his extended family from all around the world all dressed in white and welcome home choi su hoy's body to the land of his birth and lay him to rest forever

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 78,502

Keywords: history documentaries, absolute history, world history, ridiculous history, quirky history, full documentary, history documentary, chinese history documentary, chinese new zealander, ss ventnor, ss ventnor wreck

Id: ExNEA7OagS0

Length: 47min 45sec (2865 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021