Envisioning Greek Refugees as ‘Farmers for Australia’: Christy Freeleagus, Land Settlement and Immigration Restriction in White Australia

Abstract

In the early 1920s the Greek Consul General in Queensland, Christy Freeleagus, attempted to persuade Australian politicians, diplomats and immigration officials to grant assisted passage and allotments of land to Greek refugees. Making representations in the United Kingdom and Australia, Freeleagus claimed that Greek refugees, who were displaced due to an imposed transfer of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1923, would make ideal agricultural settlers. While Freeleagus’ representations for a Greek land settlement scheme were ultimately unsuccessful, his advocacy reveals how Australia’s preference for British immigration overshadowed any likelihood that displaced Greeks could be humanitarianly assisted to immigrate and resettle in Australia as farmers. By focusing on Freeleagus’ advocacy and the refusal of Australian immigration officials to assist displaced Greeks, this article ties Australian history to studies on Greek-Turkish population exchange. It also reveals how the interwar dynamics of land settlement and immigration restriction in White Australia were interlinked.

Acknowledgements

My appreciation foremost to Marilyn Lake, Ian Coller and Emma Robertson for engagement with this research from its inception. The anonymous reviewers and journal editors for this article have been inimitable in their generosity and encouragement. Thanks are also due to Nicholas Hoare, Joy Damousi and Zora Simic for discussions to refine the argument, and to the staff at National Archives of Australia and the National Library of Australia. I would also like to thank the organisers of the ‘History at the Edge’ Australian Historical Association conference at the University of Tasmania and the organisers of the ‘Empire, Armistice and Aftermath: The British Empire at the “End” of the Great War’ conference at Nanyang Technological University for inviting me to present earlier versions of this work. Finally, I wish to thank Nick Dallas, head of the organising committee of the Cultural Seminar Series of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria, for inviting me to present a version of this paper to a lively and engaged audience. In each case, I greatly benefited from the feedback I received.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Sydney Morning Herald, 27 February 1923, 8; Townsville Daily Bulletin, 28 February 1923, 5; Morning Bulletin, 28 February 1923, 8; Maitland Daily Mercury, 27 February 1923, 6; Daily Telegraph, 27 February 1923, 4; Brisbane Courier, 27 February 1923, 7.

2 Joy Damousi, Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War: Australia’s Greek Immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 29–34; see also, Joy Damousi, ‘Humanitarianism in the Interwar Years: How Australians Responded to the Child Refugees of the Armenian Genocide and the Greek-Turkish Exchange’, History Australia 21, no. 1 (2015): 95–115.

3 ‘Greek Refugees. Anxious to Come to Australia’, Maitland Daily Mercury, 27 February 1923, 6; and ‘Greek Immigrants. Eyes on Australia. Thousands Ready to Come’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 February 1923, 8.

4 ‘Greek Immigrants’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 February 1923, 8.

5 On the ‘catastrophes’ of the Greek-Turkish War, see Nicholas Doumanis, Before the Nation: Muslim-Christian Coexistence and Its Destruction in Late Ottoman Anatolia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 131–69; ‘Greek Refugees’, Maitland Daily Mercury, 27 February 1923, 6.

6 On Australia’s desire to coax and cajole the British government to financially assist British emigrants, see Eric Richards, Destination Australia: Migration to Australia since 1901 (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2008), 80–100.

7 Thomas Gallant, Modern Greece: From the War of Independence to the Present (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 189.

8 On Greek representations at the Paris Peace Conference, see Michael Llewellyn Smith, Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919–1922 (London: Allen Lane, 1973), 62–85.

9 Erik Goldstein, ‘Great Britain and Greater Greece 1917–1920’, The Historical Journal 32, no. 2 (1989): 339–56.

10 Sarah Shields, ‘The Greek-Turkish Population Exchange: Internationally Administered Ethnic Cleansing’, Middle East Report 267 (2013): 5.

11 On the social life of Asia Minor refugees, see Renée Hirschon, Heirs of the Catastrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus, 2nd edn (New York: Berghahn Books, 1998); and Emine Yeşim Bedlek, Imagined Communities in Greece and Turkey: Trauma and the Population Exchanges under Atatürk (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016).

12 Gallant, 206.

13 On settling agricultural refugees, see John Hope Simpson, ‘The Work of the Greek Refugee Settlement Commission’, Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs 8, no. 6 (1929): 583–604.

14 Gallant, 206.

15 Simpson, 586.

16 Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 99.

17 Segments of the article published in Ethnikon Bema were reprinted in various mainstream Australian newspapers. See ‘Greek Migrants: Plea for Refugees’, The Richmond River Express and Casino Kyogle Advertiser, 5 June 1925, 3; ‘Greek Migrants’, Tweed Daily, 5 June 1925, 2; ‘Greek Immigrants’, Queensland Times, 5 January 1925, 4; ‘Greek Immigrants’, Brisbane Courier, 5 January 1925, 6.

18 Cited from ‘Christy and Ariadne Freeleagus’, an address given by Alexander Freeleagus (son of Christy Freeleagus) to the Solomos Greek Australian Cultural Society, Brisbane, 20 April 1994, Kythera-Family.net, www.kythera-family.net/en/people/notable-kytherians/christy-ariadne-freeleagus (accessed 18 August 2016).

19 The family name is derived from the name of the village of Frylingianika on Kythera. Frilingos was the original Greek family name. It was anglicised when Christy applied to become a naturalised Australian in 1907, cited in Maximilian Brandle, ed., The Queensland Experience: The Life and Work of 14 Remarkable Migrants (Brisbane: Phoenix Publications, 1991), 114. See also Christy Freeleagus’ naturalisation papers, ‘Freeleagus, C K A – Naturalization’, National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA): A1 1920/24172.

20 Chris Cunneen, ‘Comino, John (1858–1919)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (hereafter ADB), National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/comino-john-6320/text9727 (accessed 7 April 2020).

21 For a comprehensive analysis on Greek cafés in Australia, including the Comino business endeavours, see Leonard Janiszewski and Effy Alexakis, Greek Cafés and Milk Bars of Australia (Canberra: Halstead Press, 2007); Hugh Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks: Volume 1, The Early Years (Sydney: Halstead Press, 1992), 192–7; Charles Price, Southern Europeans in Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1963), 166–8.

22 Price, 183.

23 On Freeleagus’ business endeavours, see Alex Freeleagus, ‘Freeleagus, Christy Kosmas (1889–1957)’, ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/freeleagus-christy-kosmas-6243/text10747 (accessed 7 April 2020); Toni Risson, Brisbane’s Greek Cafés: A Million Malted Milkshakes (Brisbane: Teacup Books, 2019), 61–79. On the commercial advertising of Freeleagus Bros., see: ‘Just Landed’, Telegraph, 9 September 1911, 9; ‘Imported Fish’, Brisbane Courier, 8 September 1911, 8; ‘Importation of English Fish’, Brisbane Courier, 19 January 1912, 9.

24 Alex Freeleagus, ‘Freeleagus, Christy Kosmas (1889–1957)’.

25 See Michele Langfield, More People Imperative: Immigration to Australia, 1901–39 (Canberra: National Archives of Australia, 1999); Michele Langfield, ‘Attitudes to European Immigration to Australia in the Early Twentieth Century’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 12, no. 1 (1991): 1–15.

26 See, for example, ‘Greek Card Players in Court’, The Daily Telegraph, 21 September 1904, 9; ‘In an Oyster Saloon: Proprietor and Waiters Found Guilty’, The Australian Star, 28 February 1907, 6; ‘Unlawful Possession of Iron: Greek Fishermen in Court’, Southern Times, 21 September 1907, 6; ‘Dirty Dagoes’, Truth, 21 November 1903, 2.

27 ‘CHRISTIE COMINO’, Truth, 5 September 1909, 10.

28 On the racialisation of people from the Mediterranean region, see Warwick Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005), 159–60; Catharine Dewhirst, ‘The “Southern Question” in Australia: The 1925 Royal Commission’s Racialisation of Southern Italians’, Queensland History Journal 22, no. 4 (2014): 316–32; and Barry York, Empire and Race: The Maltese in Australia 1881–1949 (Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1990).

29 Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos, Indigenous Sovereignty and the Being of the Occupier: Manifesto for a White Australian Philosophy of Origins (Melbourne: rePress, 2014), 83–9.

30 Ibid., 88.

31 Marilyn Lake, Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and Transpacific Exchange Shaped American Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 6.

32 See, for example, Andonis Piperoglou, ‘“Border Barbarism”, Albury 1902: Greeks and the Ambiguity of Whiteness’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 64, no. 4 (2018): 529–43; Andonis Piperoglou, ‘Migrant-cum-Settler: Greek Settler Colonialism in Australia’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 38, no. 2 (forthcoming 2020); Andonis Piperoglou, ‘Favoured “Nordics” and “Mediterranean Scum”: Transpacific Hierarchies of Desirability and Immigration Restriction’, History Australia 17, no. 4 (See here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2020.1796495, 2020).

33 Nicolacopoulos and Vassilacopoulos, Indigenous Sovereignty, 91–4.

34 On Greek Australian pro-British loyalism, see Joy Damousi, ‘“This Is Against All the British Traditions of Fair Play”: Violence Against Greeks on the Australian Home-Front during the First World War’, in Australia and the Great War: Identity, Memory, and Mythology, eds Michael J.K. Welsh and Andrekos Varnava (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2016); Piperoglou, ‘“Border Barbarism”’, 529–43.

35 ‘The Feeling in Greece’, Brisbane Courier, 1 December 1914, 8.

36 Ibid.

37 John Yiannakis, ‘Kalgoorlie Alchemy: Xenophobia, Patriotism and the 1916 Anti-Greek Riots’, Early Days: Journal of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society 11, no. 2 (1996): 203.

38 ‘Souvenir and Address Mr. Christy Freeleagus’, Protestants’ Sentinel, 13 December 1918, John Oxley Library.

39 For a detailed discussion on Freeleagus and the memorial service, see Andonis Piperoglou, ‘The Memorialisation of Hector Vasyli: Civilisational Prestige, Imperial Association and Greek Migrant Performance’, in Australia, Migration and Empire: Immigrants in a Globalised World, eds Philip Payton and Andrekos Varnava (Gewerbestrasse: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 253–76.

40 Marilyn Lake, Limits of Hope: Soldier Settlement in Victoria, 1915–1938 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1987), 24. See also Bruce Scates and Melanie Oppenheimer, The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia 1916–1939 (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Michael Roche, ‘World War One British Empire Discharged Soldier Settlement in Comparative Focus’, History Compass, 9, no. 1 (2011): 1–15.

41 Richard Waterhouse, The Vision Splendid: A Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia (Fremantle: Curtin University Books, 2005), 201.

42 Stephen Garton, The Cost of War: War, Return and the Re-Shaping of Australian Culture (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2006), 64.

43 Lake, Limits of Hope, 13–14.

44 Richards, 87–104; David Pope, ‘Empire Migration to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, 1910–1929’, Australian Economic Papers 7 (1968): 167–88; and Michele Langfield, ‘Recruiting Immigrants: The First World War and Australian Immigration’, Journal of Australian Studies 23, no. 60 (1999): 55–65; Paula Hamilton and Barry Higman, ‘Servant of Empire: The British Training of Domestics for Australia’, Social History 28, no. 1 (2003): 76–82.

45 On the Empire Settlement Act 1922, see Stuart Macintyre, The Oxford History of Australia: Volume 4, 1901–1942: The Succeeding Age (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2006), 204; Keith Williams, ‘“A Way out of Our Troubles”: The Politics of Empire Settlement, 1900–1922’, in Emigrants and Empire: British Settlement in the Dominions between the Wars, ed. Stephen Constantine (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 22–44; and Michael Roe, ‘“We Can Die Just as Easy out Here”: Australia and British Migration, 1916–1939’, in Constantine, 96–120.

46 Catherine Dewhirst, ‘Colonising Italians: Italian Imperialism and Agricultural “Colonies” in Australia, 1881–1914’, Journal of Commonwealth and Imperial History 44, no. 1 (2016): 23–47; see also Catherine Dewhirst, ‘Collaborating on Whiteness: Representing Italians in Early White Australia’, Journal of Australian Studies 32, no. 1 (2008): 33–49.

47 Richards, 89.

48 Mai Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 7. On how the US quotas influenced Australian immigration policy and Australian immigrants to the US, see Piperoglou, ‘Favoured “Nordics”’; and Anne Rees, ‘“Treated Like Chinamen”: United States Immigration Restriction and White British Subjects’, Journal of Global History 14, no. 2 (2019): 239–60.

49 Richards, 106–7.

50 Ibid., 112.

51 Argus, 26 January 1921, 10.

52 Ibid.

53 Michael Roe, Australia, Britain, and Migration, 1915–1940: A Study of Desperate Hopes (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 32.

54 ‘Trade with Greece’, Brisbane Courier, 1 May 1920, 4.

55 Gallant, 201–2.

56 ‘Turkish Atrocities: Nurse’s Story of Smyrna Fire’, Herald, 11 December 1924.

57 ‘Lausanne Treaty: Changing Populations’, Western Star and Roma Advertiser, 17 October 1923, 5.

58 ‘Colossal Treks: Changing Population’, Chronicle, 20 October 1923, 41.

59 ‘Egypt and Greece – Present Conditions – A Visitor’s Impressions’, Brisbane Courier, 28 December 1921, 7.

60 Ibid.

61 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Senate, 20 September 1922, 8th Parliament, 2nd Session, Senator Edmund Alfred Drake-Brockman, 2395.

62 A. Freeleagus, ‘Christy Freeleagus 1887–1957’, in Brandle, 118. Freeleagus was himself a member of the Greek Geographical Society. See also A. Freeleagus, ‘Christy and Ariadne Freeleagus’.

63 A. Freeleagus, ‘Christy Freeleagus 1887–1957’, 118. It was also later published in pamphlet form.

64 Christy Freeleagus, ‘The Settlement and Development of Australia and Its Culture’, cited in A. Freeleagus, ‘Christy Freeleagus 1887–1957’, 119.

65 Ibid., 121.

66 ‘In Germany – Cheap Railway Travel’, Brisbane Courier, 16 November 1922, 14.

67 Ibid.

68 ‘Eyes on Australia: Greek Agriculturalist’, The Daily Mail, 28 February 1923, 7.

69 Clogg, 99.

70 Commonwealth of Australia, Memorandum from Acting Director of the Commonwealth Immigration Office to the Director of the Commonwealth Immigration Office, 22 February 1923, NAA: A1, 1936/13639.

71 On the European peoples that were able to receive fare-grants to Australia, see Roe, Australia, Britain, and Migration, 34.

72 See, for example, ‘Anti-Greek Demonstration’, The Register, 13 December 1915, 5; ‘Anti-Greek Feeling, Sydney’, Sunday Times, 12 December 1915, 1; ‘Anti-Greek Demonstration at Perth’, Barrier Miner, 7 December 1916, 2.

73 Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos, ‘Discursive Constructions of the Southern European Foreigner’, in Placing Race and Localising Whiteness, eds Susanne Schech and Ben Wadham (Adelaide: Flinders Press, 2004), 75; and Andonis Piperoglou, ‘Greeks or Turks, “White” or “Asiatic”: Historicising Castellorizian Racial-Consciousness, 1916–1920’, Journal of Australian Studies 40, no. 4 (2016): 387–402; Michele Langfield, ‘“White Aliens”: The Control of European Immigration to Australia 1920–30’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 12, no. 2 (1991): 1–14.

74 Brisbane Courier, 27 February 1923, 7.

75 Sydney Morning Herald, 27 February 1923, 8.

76 Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1923, 8.

77 Commonwealth of Australia, Memorandum from Acting Director of the Commonwealth Immigration Office to the Director of the Commonwealth Immigration Office, Melbourne, 22 February 1923, NAA: A1, 1936/13639.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1923, 8.

81 Ibid., 8.

82 Ibid.

83 Memorandum from the Prime Minister’s Department to the Commonwealth Immigration Office, Melbourne, 22 May 1923, NAA: A1, 1936/13639.

84 Memorandum from the Deputy Director of the Commonwealth Immigration Office to the Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department, Melbourne, 24 May 1923, NAA: A1, 1936/13639.

85 Letter from the Secretary of the Prime Minister to the Consul-General for Greece, 25 May 1923, NAA: A1, 1936/13639.

86 ‘Greek Refugees’, The Advertiser, 30 April 1923, 10.

87 ‘The Terrible Turk’, The Herald, 20 October 1923, 22.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council as part of the ARC Discovery Project ‘Managing Migrants and Border Control in Britain and Australia, 1901–1981’ (ARC DP 180102200).