3 - Demographic Characteristics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Summary
The exact number of Greeks reaching Australia will never be known. Neither the Greek Government sources nor the shipping agencies maintained records of departures during the early years. Scattered and incomplete records could be found in some prefectures, newspaper archives and travel agencies. To make the matter more complicated, the definition of nationality for Greece is based on paternal principles, while Australian government sources employ as the criterion of nationality the person's place of birth. Thus, all Greeks arriving from non-Greek territories were not considered Greeks.
Before World War II, Greeks settled in Oceania in two main stages. First, during the phase of the early settlement (1829–1900) when approximately 1000 pioneer migrants, mainly curious fortune hunters and sailors from the Ionian and Aegean islands settled initially in the vast countryside of Australia and as from 1880 in the urban centres of the colonies. During the second phase (1901–45) the number of Greek immigrants increased to approximately 17,000. Greek migration to Australia inflated as a result of the ethnic cleansing campaigns (1908–19) against the Greeks, the Armenians and the Assyrians in Asia Minor by the New Turks regime and the tragedy of the Asia Minor Catastrophe (1923). These events led to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees and their settlement in Greece, Europe, North and South America and Oceania. Another contributing factor was the restriction on immigration quotas applied by the US government (1924).
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- The Greeks in Australia , pp. 59 - 66Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005