In Australia, in 1851 men left their homes and families and headed into the bush. They went willingly... eagerly.
There was a Gold Rush on and they all wanted to get rich.
But, life on the gold fields was not easy.
They had to walk to the fields, carrying their belongings. If they were lucky, they had a wheelbarrow. The richest men had camels or horses to carry their loads for them.
On the fields, they lived in tents. Campfire smoke filled the air as the men boiled billies for tea and cooked damper.
There was limited water as the men muddied the streams in their search for gold.
The food on the fields was never good. By the time it was carried to the goldfields, it was already rotting.
The cost of the miner’s licence was high... very high and the work they needed to do was difficult. Toothache, broken bones and other injuries were common.
If they found gold, they sold it to the Assay Officer. The Assay Officer stole specks of their gold. How? They had long fingernails and scooped gold specks into them. They ran fingers through greasy hair – then through the miner’s gold (where it stuck to his fingers) and they then ran their fingers through their hair again (trapping the gold specks in the greasy hair) and the Assay Officer greased the sides of the weighing dishes, causing specks of gold to stick to the sides of the dish.
With the arrival of a new governor (Charles Hotham) the miners hoped that their conditions would improve... but they didn’t. Hotham doubled the frequency of the dreaded licence checks. He also increased the number of troopers to complete these tasks. The troopers were often cruel and dishonest.
As many disgruntled Australian men would, the miners turned to alcohol.
There was a fight and James Scobie was killed at the Eureka Hotel. James Bentley, the hotel manager, was arrested but later released. Apparently, he was friends with the judge. Not surprisingly, the miners were angry about this and the hotel was burned to the ground.
Three miners were arrested.
By November 1854, extra troopers were sent to watch over the miners. The miners were becoming angrier and angrier.
On the 29th of November, the miners met at Bakers Hill. Many of the men burned their dreaded Miner’s Licence. Peter Lalor led the men in their protests. The Eureka flag was flown for the first time.
Lalor encouraged the men to build a stockade – using any scraps of timber they could find. The stockade was built to protect the men as they protested. By the 1st of December, over 1000 men had gathered. Some had guns, others made weapons. During the night of the 2nd of December, most of the men had returned to their tents. About 150 men remained. By 4am on the 3rd of December the military attacked. 30 miners were killed. 5 military men were killed. The “battle” took 15 minutes. Lalor was trapped under fallen timbers and the troopers could not find him. The miner’s hid him. Lalor lost an arm in the battle. While the miners lost the battle at Eureka, they won the bigger battle. Hotham and his rules were overthrown, conditions improved remarkably and Lalor went on to become a parliamentarian... they even named a Melbourne suburb after him.
Last week was the anniversary of the Eureka Stockade.
No comments:
Post a Comment