Guardians at the gate: quarantine and racialism in two Pacific Rim port cities, 1870–1914

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines the ambivalent relationship that San Francisco and Darwin developed with Asia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On the one hand they presented themselves as gateways that facilitated trade with Asia. On the other hand they acted as sentinels that protected Europeans from Asian immigration. This quirky behaviour is encapsulated in the quarantine regulations that were applied in both ports to Asian commodities and people. The two case studies suggest a broader paradox in the history of port cities. Their prosperity and vitality rested upon the free flow of goods and people, but those flows generated enormous frictions.