Croatian Immigration To New Zealand

The Short Story

The gum diggers

From the 1890s, in the wake of their countrymen seeking gold, Dalmatians banded together in the gumfields of the far north. Their new home – mānuka huts with sacking. Their work was to dig in mud: the prized kauri gum lay buried, often under waterlogged land. It was in demand for varnish and linoleum until the 1930s, when synthetics appeared. Thousands of Dalmatians came out to New Zealand, but after such hardship, many returned home.

Farmers, winemakers, fishermen

In time, the land offered a better life. Some diggers became farmers in the north. Others started vineyards, and today you’ll find their names on wine labels: Babich, Nobilo, Delegat. From early days netting mullet in Kaipara Harbour, fishing became a tradition too.

Later immigrants

Others came in the 1920s and 1930s, and over 3,000 arrived between the 1940s and 1970s. In the 1990s there was a larger wave of immigrants, fleeing the turmoil of the wars in the Balkans.

Racism

Prejudice and ignorance hounded the Dalmatians for many years. Harsh rules that favoured the British made it increasingly difficult for them to dig for gum. During the First World War they were mistakenly called ‘Austrians’ and treated as enemies. Their wine was scorned as ‘Dally-plonk’. But Māori accepted them, nick-naming them ‘tarara’ – fast talkers.

Culture

Group loyalty kept the gum diggers strong, and proud of their heritage. They even taught some Māori to play the stringed tamburica. As relatives came out to join them, communities in Northland and Auckland grew. It became easier to celebrate their customs: Catholic festivals, playing bowls, singing, and joining in a circle for the lively kolo dance.

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HISTORY OF THE DALMATIANS IN NEW ZEALAND

The history of the Dalmatian people has brought changes to their name, and to their country.

In the 1880s when the first Dalmatians came to New Zealand, the Austro-Hungarian empire ruled Dalmatia, which is on the Adriatic coast of the Mediterranean. This is why they were often mistakenly called ‘Austrians’ in New Zealand.

After Austria-Hungary was defeated in the First World War, Dalmatia was incorporated into the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 1929 this was renamed Yugoslavia.

In the early 1990s, the wars in the Balkans tore Yugoslavia apart. Eventually Dalmatia became part of the new country of Croatia.

Immigrants from this part of Europe have been known not only as Dalmatians but also as Yugoslavs and Croatians.

Political beliefs

Many early immigrants to New Zealand hated the Austro-Hungarian empire, and when Dalmatia became part of Yugoslavia they proudly called themselves Yugoslavs. But those who arrived after the Second World War had lived in Yugoslavia and did not share this enthusiasm.

As the war atrocities in Yugoslavia mounted during the 1990s, factions developed in the Auckland community. For some, the sight of the Yugoslav flag became offensive. Others disliked the word ‘Croatian’ because Croatian fascists had supported Hitler in the Second World War.

But if they were not Yugoslavs or Croatians, what were they? The Auckland Yugoslav Society met to debate the issue. The term ‘Dalmatian’ was eventually reinstated, being the most neutral.

LEAVING DALMATIA

Dalmatia is a province of the central Adriatic coast of Croatia. For centuries it was exploited by the city-state of Venice and the Austro-Hungarian empire. Opportunities for illiterate peasants, living on rocky islands and a ribbon of fertile coast, were limited to subsistence farming, grape-growing, quarrying, fishing and seafaring. In the 1880s a population increase put pressure on scarce land.

In 1892 Austria-Hungary signed a trade agreement with Italy that excluded Dalmatia. Around the same time the pest phylloxera arrived in Dalmatia, decimating vineyards. In search of better opportunities, men sailed for the far corners of the world. Many were also escaping the Austrian army’s conscription, introduced in 1881.

The first Dalmatians in New Zealand probably arrived via the Californian and Australian goldfields. By the early 1860s they were prospecting South Island diggings. In the 1880s some began pulling golden kauri gum from Northland’s gumfields. Wayfarers returning home described ‘Nova Zelanda’ as a land of good prospects.

Work and war: 1890 to 1930

The gum diggers

Landing in Auckland, Dalmatians lodged in boarding houses run by their compatriots, before venturing north to the gumfields. They lived in rough huts constructed from mānuka poles and sacking, and bought supplies on credit from the local store. Their days were spent deep in trenches and swampy holes.

Dalmatians stood out, camping in huts and working in gangs. In 1896 Pārengarenga near North Cape was termed ‘a little Vienna’, as Dalmatians were often labelled Austrians. Census returns for Mangōnui County, which included Whangaroa and the far north, show just 54 in 1896, and 241 in 1906. But in 1898 the Bay of Islands member of Parliament claimed there were 2,000 Dalmatians in the county. Although gum diggers moved around and some might not have been counted, this exaggeration is best explained as prejudice towards non-English immigrants.

Gum in the ground was seen as an income source for settlers trying to develop the land, and Dalmatians methodically mined an entire area. British settlers resented them sending money home, and their unsettled ways. Referred to as ‘birds of passage’, some 60% returned to Dalmatia.

Anti-Dalmatian sentiments were expressed in Parliament and local newspapers. In the election year of 1893 ‘the Austrian question’ became politicised and the government appointed a kauri gum commission to hear evidence.

Anti-Dalmatian sentiment

In 1898 a second commission described Dalmatians as ‘hardy, sober, industrious, law-abiding people’ who ‘would make admirable settlers. But nothing was done to encourage settlement – instead the discriminatory 1898 Kauri Gum Industry Act was passed. It established kauri gum reserves exclusively for British subjects, and a licensing system with a three-month qualification for new arrivals.

Further restrictions followed. Under an act passed in 1910, British subjects alone could hold gum-digging licenses. As a result, Dalmatians’ applications for naturalisation were delayed, shipping companies were pressured to prevent further arrivals, and Dalmatians had to find work on private gumfields.

The First World War

When war broke out in 1914 people defined as Austrians (which included Dalmatians) were declared enemy aliens. Auckland’s Dalmatians publicly demonstrated their support for Serbia, which was at war with the Austro-Hungarian empire. Many wanted to enlist, but the British government was reluctant to accept ‘alien enemies or descendants’. The majority were required to work for soldier’s pay on land clearance, drainage, and road and rail projects.

 Farming, fishing, winemaking

Farming

As the gumfields became depleted, a desire to settle emerged. Rural labouring enabled the gum diggers to purchase small scrubby plots – often damaged by holes from gum digging – with clay piled over topsoil. Early Waiharara settler Mrs Vica Srhoj recalled a visit by the minister of lands: ‘He said the land was worthless and advised us and others not to waste our time. He was wrong.’ ¹

Settlement increased in the early 1900s. Turiwiri West Road near Dargaville was commonly known as ‘Dally-Alley’. Monday to Saturday, farmers rose early and seldom returned home before sundown. On special occasions mutton and spare ribs were roasted on spits – basted with the padded end of a mānuka branch soaked in olive oil, mint and spices, and washed down with home-made wine.

Fishing

Lacking capital to buy farms, some Dalmatians reverted to traditional skills. They netted mullet on the Kaipara Harbour and opened a cannery at Batley in 1896. Thirty years later on the Waitematā Harbour they introduced seine netting from new types of trawlers. Many fishing companies, such as Talley’s (founded in 1936 by Ivan Talijancich in Motueka), are Dalmatian in origin.

Restaurants and fish shops became popular family businesses in Auckland and Wellington. Many Dalmatians still worked in family groups, whether in a Henderson vineyard or a Mt Wellington quarry.

Winemaking

In the late 1890s Dalmatians were growing grapes at Herekino. By 1906, 14 vineyards were producing 2,000 gallons of wine annually. The three Frankovich brothers planted vines on the Whangaparāoa Peninsula in 1899. Naturalisation papers from the early 1900s listed ‘vintager’ among Dalmatians’ occupations. Disciples of the temperance movement disapproved, and early vintages, mainly fortified wine, were dubbed ‘vile Austrian wine’ and ‘Dally-plonk’.

Small farms with vineyards and orchards also emerged in west Auckland. Today the founders’ names read like a who’s who of New Zealand wine – Babich (1919), Selak (1934), Yukich (Montana Wines, 1944), Nobilo (1943) and Delegat (1947). By the mid-1950s, the majority of the 80 vineyards were operated by Yugoslavs or their descendants. Such names as Vella, Marinovich and Sunde are similarly renowned in the fruit-growing regions of Oratia and Henderson.

Dalmatians replaced hybrid grapes with single varieties that produced higher quality wines. They also helped form the Viticulture Association, which lobbied successive governments to deregulate the wine industry. Winemaker George Mazuran’s idea – an annual field day for politicians – became an institution, and by the mid-1950s the government was reducing red tape. The wine industry boomed.

Immigration restrictions

Urbanisation brought greater assimilation, but government attitudes were slow to change. In 1926 the government introduced an upper limit of 3,500 Yugoslavs, after which only wives, fiancées and young children could be admitted. Dalmatians continued to come, although many were now proxy brides destined to marry men seen only in photographs.

Immigration since the Second World War

In the late 1940s, Yugoslav leader Marshal Tito appealed to expatriates to return to build a united, communist Yugoslavia. Around 290 answered the call. One was 17-year-old Aucklander Gordon Sunde. On arrival in the port of Split he was overwhelmed by the ethnic divisions and devastation – ‘the people … had killed more of their own than the Germans.’ ¹

Sunde voluntarily laboured on motorway construction. Because he spoke English, he was questioned by secret police. Visiting a Dalmatian village he saw ‘the poverty of the place. It was sheer rock, and I understood why people had to leave’. Like many, he returned to New Zealand, disillusioned by the atmosphere of partisanship and mistrust.

Others were getting out. In the 1950s people displaced by war began arriving in New Zealand, including former prisoners of war interned in Germany and Italy. Around 18% of New Zealand’s post-war Yugoslav immigrants were displaced persons. Typically they were married with dependants.

Refugees, another new group, made up 16% of the inflow to New Zealand. Many had risked their lives escaping from communist Yugoslavia into Austria and Italy in the 1950s, for political or religious reasons.

1960s onwards

As the Yugoslavian regime became more liberal, emigration was allowed. In the late 1960s, 238 skilled workers came to New Zealand, recruited for Northland’s Marsden Point power station and Southland’s Manapōuri hydroelectric scheme. Young men in this group tended to settle, while those with families returned. Many later arrivals could not comprehend the pride early migrants took in their ‘Yugoslav heritage’. Having lived in Tito’s Yugoslavia they did not support a united Slavic state.

During the 1990s more than 4,500 people from the former Yugoslavia were approved as permanent residents. Many had fled the wars in the Balkans.

Dalmatian culture

Dalmatians got on very well with Māori of the far north – Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kahu and Ngāti Kurī, who dubbed them ‘tarara’ – ‘fast talkers’. Some intermarriage occurred, producing some significant figures such as Dame Mira Szászy, who was president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League. A few Māori even learnt to play the Croatian national folk instrument, the tamburica.

Of a Sunday on the gumfields men gathered for religious observance. The women who emigrated missed the Catholic festivals of their homeland. Writer Amelia Batistich recalled her mother believing that ‘there were no Sundays in New Zealand’. In the 1930s, on Kuma Martinovich’s first Sunday in Te Kopuru she asked her husband, ‘Where are the bells?’ His reply: ‘Only bells you will hear here are cowbells’.

Nine Croatian-language newspapers were published between 1899 and 1919. Urbanisation fostered the development of clubs, which became important meeting places and avenues for keeping alive customs such as kola dancing. Successful clubs were formed in Auckland, Dargaville and Wellington in the 1930s.

Unlike some immigrant groups, the Dalmatians married within their community for generations, helping to preserve culture and language. But sometimes families would anglicise their surnames, as Kiwis had trouble pronouncing them.

Some Dalmatians are keen bowls players. National title winner Nick Unkovich is not so far removed from the gum diggers and their Sunday games with baked mud-balls.

Dalmatians and others from the former Yugoslavia are proud of their heritage. Their hard-working attitude and contribution to the country is well recognised, especially in Northland and Auckland, where the term ‘Dally’ is now one of affection.

Facts and figures

Country of birth

The New Zealand census figures listed here show the number of residents born in countries which included Dalmatia.

Austria

• 1874 census: 257

Austria-Hungary

• 1901 census: 1,874

Yugoslavia

• 1921 census: 1,588
• 1951 census: 2,901
• 1976 census: 3,625
• 2001 census: 2,616

Croatia

• 2001 census: 2,280
• 2006 census: 2,070

Bosnia and Herzegovina

• 2006 census: 486

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

• 2006 census: 795

Slovenia

• 2006 census: 162

Serbia and Montenegro

• 2006 census: 1,170

Ethnic identity

In the 2006 census, people were asked to indicate the ethnic group or groups with which they identified. The numbers include those who indicated more than one group.

• Croat: 2,550
• South Slav: 891

Croatian Immigration To Canada

The first Croatians who set foot on what is today Canada were two sailors; Ivan Malogrudic from the city of Senj and Marin Masalarada, from Dubrovnik. They were part of the crew on Jacques Cartier’s third voyage to New France in 1541-1542. There is evidence that a Croatian mineworker was part of the team that travelled with the explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1606. Croatian soldiers, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Army, were sent as enforcement for the French Army to defend New France, in the war against the British in 1758-1759. In the 1860’s, the Croatians started to participate in the fishing industry of British Columbia  and took part in the Caribou Gold Rush and Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890’s. The first big wave of Croatians immigrated to the western part of Canada, at the beginning of the 20th century.  The first chapter of the Croatian Fraternal Union in Canada, the largest Croatian association in North America, was established in Ladysmith B.C in 1903. In 1930, the Croatian Pasents Union was established. The Croatian Catholic Parish was established in Windsor, Ontario. After the collapse of the gold rush, only a few Croatian fishermen, mostly from the island of Lošinj remained in Ladner, BC. A few Croatian families also settled on Vancouver island, notably in the town of Nanaimo. They were employed in the coal mining industry.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the first agricultural settlements were established, mainly in the proximity of Kenaston, Saskatchewan. Those immigrants were almost exclusively from the Lika area of Lovinac. By the end of WW I., the Croatian population rose to 28.000 people. It should be noted that the ratio of Croatian returnees to Croatia was large, because the majority of the immigrants were young single men who worked in Canada for a few years and decided to go back to there Croatian homesteads. (every 4th Croatian moved back home).

The post WW II. immigrants were on average better educated and came from urban areas. This wave of Croatian immigrants, came to Canada for political reasons, as well as economic. Many of the immigrants had spent time in refugee camps in Austria, before getting an immigration visa to enter Canada. In the period between 1945 and 1956, on average 1,500 Croatians entered Canada per annum, almost all of them political immigrants. Between the years 1957 and 1961, the number jumped to 25,000, of which 8,000 were refugees.

However, on the other hand, some 2,000 Croatians decided to migrate back to Croatia after the establishment of a socialist Croatia. After experiencing the harsh reality of a socialist Croatia, 1/3 of these migrants immigrated back to Canada.

 

Economic Life

 

In the early years, Croatians were mainly farmers, fishermen and labourers in the lumber and mining industry. In accordance to this fact, many Croatians were engaged in the early stages of the union movement in Canada. Marko Vidulic was one of the founders of the Fishermen’s Union on the Fraser River in B.C., back in the 1900’s. Mike Čanić and Peter Pavelich were prominent individuals of the Workers Union during the 1930’s depression.

 

Early on self-help societies were established because of the dangerous working conditions and deaths in the workplace. In 1903, Bill Keserić established the first self-help society called the National Croatian Society St. Nicholas, in Ladysmith, B.C (he later died in a mining accident in 1915). After this, these societies were established in Trail and Grand Forks, BC, in 1907, Thorold, ON, in 1909 etc. The first lodge of the Croatian Fraternal Union (CFU) in Canada was established in Welland, ON, in 1923. By 1930, the CFU had 27 lodges throughout Canada with more than 2,000 members.

The postwar immigrants had very different job traits then their fellow compatriots from the first immigration wave. Only 2 % were employed in agriculture, and 5 % in the fishing and mining industry. The majority worked in blue-collar jobs (25 %) and in construction (ca. 13 %) in Canadian urban centers.

Community Life

The first Croatian newspaper was Croatian Voice (later called Canadian Voice). Petar Stanković was the editor from 1929 to 1977, in Winnipeg, which was closely related to the Croatian Peasant Party. More left oriented Croatians read the short-lived newspaper „Struggle“(Toronto 1930. – 1936.) edited by Petar Žapkar. During the interwar period, many community halls were built, and some communities, such as Sudbury and Windsor, ON founded tamburica orchestras, choirs and women’s societies.

 

After WW II. the first sporting clubs were established, mainly soccer clubs- the great love of almost every Croatian. Adria Club from Sudbury was one of the first clubs founded in 1950. The Croatian National Soccer Club was founded in Toronto in 1956, in Hamilton in 1957. Toronto Croatia won the city title in 1959, the Ontario title in 1970, the national title from 1971 to 1974 consecutively. After the club merged with the Toronto Metros in 1974, into a new club the Toronto Metros-Croatia, the club won the North American title in 1976.

Canadians of Croatian heritage have greatly enriched Canadian sports  history. To mention a few: brothers Frank and Peter Mahovlich and Joe Šakić in hockey, as well as George Chuvalo in boxing.

Religious life

Croatians in Canada, like their fellow compatriots back home, are to a vast majority Roman Catholic. The first Croatian Catholic parish “Francis of Assisi “was established in Windsor in 1950. After that followed Sudbury and Hamilton in 1958, Nanaimo in 1960, Toronto in 1961 and 1965, Sault Ste. Marie in 1962, Montreal in 1964, Vancouver in 1968, Calgary in 1970, Winnipeg in 1974 and Thunder Bay in 1977.

Political Life in Canada

Many Croatians and their descendents became members of the Canadian political system. On the municipal level, Joseph Mavrinac served as the Mayor of Kirkland Lake, ON from 1967-1979. Frank Krznaric served four terms as a Timmins city councilor from 1981 to 1993. On the provincial level, Peter Sekulic was elected a liberal member of the legislative assembly of Alberta in 1993. John Sola was elected a member of the provincial parliament of Ontario in 1987. Anne Markovich-Hemingway was president of the New Democratic Party in Alberta in 1977. David Stupich was elected as a member of the legislative assembly of British Colombia in 1963. He served as a New Democratic Party Cabinet Minister from 1973 to 1975. He also was a member of parliament in 1988. On the federal level, other Canadian-Croatians who were elected as members of parliament in 1993 are Janko Peric from Cambridge, Ontario, Jan Brown from Calgary, Roseanne Skoke from Nova Scotia and Allan Kerpan from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.