Why Did Japanese Pearl Divers Come To Australia
. From about 1720 but possibly earlier it is known that pearl fishers and trepang fishermen from Indonesia were the first people from the outside world to discover the northern coast of Australia. When did the Japanese Pearl Divers come to Australia.
And aliens from Japan the Philippines Java Singapore India and New Guinea are employed as pearl divers in Australia. The largest of the immigrant groups was the Chinese who worked as pearlers cooks and shopkeepers. Were needed to source the shell from deeper waters.
Between 1900 and 1914 Australia was supplying over half of the worlds pearl shell to places such the United Kingdom America and Japan.
The Japanese community in Australia was somewhat little in the nineteenth century. However in the later part of the nineteenth century Japanese had begun to emigrate. Where in Australia did the Chinese Goldminers land and go. In Australia the industry started in the Torres Strait where the waters were shallow enough that the divers mostly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people could dive by holding their breath.
