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under the heading of 'other European'. The reason for the omission of Italian as a
separate category may indicate that they were few in number, or that there was
difficulty in establishing what constituted an Italian before the end of the 1860s.
The regions of Ticino most affected by the economic and political problems of
the 1850s were the districts of Valle Maggia and Locamo. The remaining six districts
of Leventina, Blenio, Riviera, Bellinzona, Lugano and Mendrisio (ref figure 3)
contributed far smaller numbers to this particular emigratory episode.^" Within the
district of Valle Maggia, the two valleys most affected were Valle Maggia and Valle
Verzasca ~ both of which fan out from the city of Locamo (ref figure 4) ~ two areas
of low economic growth: they comprised 41 per cent of Ticino's total surface area but
held only 25 per cent of its people.^^ The districts of Valle Maggia and Locamo each
contributed close to 850 emigrants to the Australian goldfields, which represented an
eleven per cent loss to the Valle Maggia and a three per cent loss to Locamo.^^ Apart
from the inhabitants of the larger centres of Bellinzona, Locamo and Lugano, many
Ticinesi knew only a village existence, some residing in townships with as few as 109
people.^ Dotted along numerous valleys, the villages to Ticino were separated by only
a few kilometres and easily reachable on foot. News could be transmitted along the
valleys but less easily to those adjacent. This isolation of some villages had resulted in
unchanging and closely-knit communities where the permanency of generations of
families had perpetuated the community's traditions.
It was not an easy life for these villagers in the 1850s. The valleys mnning out
from Locamo were bounded by stark, unproductive mountains, with almost all the
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