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The Eureka Stockade. By Jessica. In 1851 people from all corners of the world came to Ballarat in Victoria, Australia for the gold rush. People started leaving their jobs so they could try for more luck on the goldfields. But the goldfields were about to change. .
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The Eureka Stockade By Jessica
In 1851 people from all corners of the world came to Ballarat in Victoria, Australia for the gold rush. People started leaving their jobs so they could try for more luck on the goldfields. But the goldfields were about to change.
It all started when the authorities tried to limit the number of people on the goldfields by making them buy a licence to mine. Men had to pay thirty shillings a month to renew their licences even if they hadn’t found gold. Twice a week there licences got checked so as a miner you’d have to carry your licence around all the time. After time theminers got angry about the unfair licensing system so more and more people started to try and hurt the authorities physically and with inappropriate language. To control these crowds the government had to recruit new policeman fast, but nearly all these new recruits were ex convict’s our guards. Police had so little time to fight crime and keep the city in order because of all the fee collecting and checking of the licences.
Things really started to heat up when a policeman purposely ignored a crime that his friend committed, once the miners found out about the murder they got angry. This was because the murderer killed three of there friends that also worked on the goldfields with the other miners. In protest three miners burnt down the hotel where the murder took place, but eventually the authorities had chased the down and locked them up in jail. To the miners the authorities had now declared war.
On the 11th of November 1854 ten thousand miners met and demanded for the three miners to be released along with a demand to drop the licence system and for the right of voting. A few weeks later, the government replied with a big fat no and refused all the demands. From then on, there were more protests against authority and public fights between the two sides. On the 29th of November there was a second large group meeting all the miners rose there flag, there flag showed the southern cross with stars on each point, then they all publicly burnt there licences and chose there rebellion leader. The leader was a man called Peter Lalor. The next day more miners showed there anger by yet again burning there licences.
Peter Lalor soon ended up leading everyone to bakery hill where they all ended up building a wooden fort that they named the Eureka Stockade. The Eureka Stockade surrounded at least one acre of land and inside one thousand rebels swore an oath under the Eureka that they would stand there ground and fight for there rights. Though over the next few night a couple rebels escaped the stockade. In the early hours of Sunday 3rd of December several hundred soldiers/police attacked the stockade highly equipped and defeated the rebels in twenty minutes.
A few months later in March 1855 a commission looked into the event and in the end saw the minerspoint of view about the situation and decided to meet all the minersprevious demands so now the licence only cost one pound instead of eight pounds a year. I think this was a significant event in Australian history because it made the government realise it was wrong to not give us votes and that the licences should not have that much effect on people.
I think it was very brave of these miners to stand up for what they thought was right and did not stop until it was fair, so I acknowledge those men and hope that we can all do the same in our lives to honour their bravery. Also we should all honour them because of what they did for our country Australia.
