1586 - Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Columbia
1736 - Astronomer Anders Celsius takes measurements that confirm Newton’s theory that the Earth was an ellipsoid rather than the previously accepted sphere
1775 - 1st official US flag raised (Grand Union Flag) aboard USS Alfred
1854 - Eureka Stockade: in what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Victoria are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licenses (pictured)
1868 - 1st blacks on US trial jury appointed for Jefferson Davis trial
1911 - Willis Carrier presents his influential “Rational Psychrometic Formulae” on air conditioning to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
1984 - “Do They Know It’s Christmas” single by Band Aid is released in the UK
1989 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George HW Bush declare the Cold War over
2018 - 7 yr old Ryan of Ryan Toysreview is the years highest paid Youtube star earning $22 million
Brief Australian History - The Eureka Stockade (Gold Rush)
Well! I’m procrastinating, and am going down to Sovereign Hill next week, and knowing it’s been brought up on my feed recently, I felt compelled to educate a little today on the Eureka Stockade. Forgive me as a lot of my knowledge is aged and coming from text books I have from school. But, it’s an interesting thing and if I bore you, I pray you look it up elsewhere and it won’t. The Eureka Stockade is an important part of Australian history, and is strongly symbolised in our pop culture.
// Also, specifically for the Hetalia fandom, the gold rushes were mentioned in the strips with little Australia and Canada. It’s said his character aged drastically due to the gold rushes and wool industry. (Chapter 201 / 202)
Background Information…
First findings of gold was discovered in Clunes, Victoria in 1850. The excitement travelled, and by August the rush had spread into Ballarat, where Yule’s Diggings was situated. It then spread a month later into Castlemaine and Bendigo. The goldfields within Ballarat proved to be profitable, and it’s stated that Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe, the first of Victoria and whom of which La Trobe University in Melbourne is named after, witnessed men uncover over a hundred ounces of gold within a single day.
This new influx of immigration into Australia created a significant change between the initial colonies, specifically convict colonies. They progressed into being their own towns and cities. The population within Australia raised in a space of 20 years from 430,000 to 1.7 Million, and this is where Australia’s infamous multiculturalism began, but also the traits of racism within Australian culture was introduced. In particular, there was a huge rift between Australians and the Chinese. The Japanese pearl divers up in Queensland weren’t treated with such distain although held for their labour the same way Aborigines were, yet they weren’t deemed the same way the Chinese were when arriving upon the gold fields. The Chinese immigrants’ unique, and non-European techniques and differential appearances led Australians to being greatly unsettled in what is quoted as the fear of the unknown.
In 1855, over 11,000 Chinese immigrants made their way through to the goldmines through Melbourne. These led to many violent anti-Chinese protests that took place in numerous sections of the gold mines. This led to Victoria enforcing the Chinese Immigration Act of 1855, which limited Chinese passengers per 10 tons. It didn’t work as well as hoped by those enforcing the law, as Chinese immigrants made their way through South Australia onto the lands anyways. (Australia’s a bit well known for their white-only policies.)
This brings us to the beloved Eureka Stockade of 1854, which occurred on the 3rd of December. The Eureka Stockade was a rebellion started by gold miners against the English authority over the rise of the mining license.
In August 1851, Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe had installed a mining free of 30 Shillings that would start on September 1st that same year. The first protest, consisting of around 50 men, was held on the 26th against this new fee, that only raised from there on. A statement announced in December of that year announced there was to be a raise on the fee, from 1 Pound to 3 Pounds and would be effective as of the 1st of January 1852. In reaction, the miners around Ballarat had started arming themselves in spite, and the initial plan was there forth wavered. In 1853, there was permission granted for personnel to search an owner for their license, which were as frequent as a couple times per week. Bendigo and Ballarat miners reacted to this unsettlement, as well as strict laws on liquor, with threats of violent rebellion.
Further unrest was confirmed when Scottish miner James Scobie was murdered outside the Bentley Hotel in Ballarat after breaking a window and being hunted down and murdered with an axe. Despite all the evidence poured by eyewitnesses, the Supreme Court found bar owner James Bentley and his staff innocent, and angered Ballarat miners further - They took matters in their own hands, and burnt down Bentley Hotel. More soldiers were sent to Melbourne, inspections were increased, and the rumours of a drummer boys murder had resulted in miners rioting back against the reinforcement.
In result, soldiers increasingly arrested more members of the community. In relation to the burning of Bentley Hotel, Thomas Fletcher, Andrew McIntyre and Henry Westerly were sentenced to jail for up to 6 months of imprisonment, which was resented amongst the miners - who met up together in a mass of 4,000 attendees, and established a group to protect their rights, known as the ‘Diggers Rights Society.’ On Bakery Hill, (situated in front of government establishment,) another meeting was called on November 1st with 3,000 miners in attendance over the arrest of another 7 thousand miners in relation to the fire. 10 days later, shit got real when 10,000 miners gathered upon the same hill, where John Basson Humffray created the Ballarat Reform League. He recycled principles set out by the British Chartist movement, of which he was a member of. They all agreed upon the right as man to have a voice in the laws being created, and swore to remove themselves from the United Kingdom if the current ordeal wasn’t solved. They wished to negotiate with the Governor of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham, over the jailing’s of men related to the Bentley riot, and the injustice of James Scobie’s death. They also stressed the removal of gold commissions, the mining license, and a democratic representation on the fields. Sir Charles Gotham reviewed these situations and appointed a Royal Commission, but Commissioner Rede reacted with an increase of soldiers and called in more reinforcement from the city of Melbourne.
On November 28, soldiers marching in from Melbourne were lynched by a group of miners. The rumour of drummer boy John Egan’s death began with this group attack, although he wasn’t actually murdered but instead shot in the thigh. It is said that a soldier who had died within an Benevolent Asylum claimed that a man of dark complexion had murdered their drummer boy with a stone - likely accusing an Aborigine - but this settlement of the drummer boys demise was laid upon the concept that, these men weren’t worth credibility nor equal rights.
The next day around 12,000 miners agreed upon open resistance, starting with a public burning of the licenses. Following that, Commissioner Rede had ordered a new check - knowing full well that men had burnt theirs - and eight different miners were arrested. A vast majority of the military personnel employed had to escort the arresting officers from a mob.
Feeling they weren’t being represented enough, the Ballarat Reform League appointed Peter Lalor. They settled with a military-based structure, featuring significant roles such as captains. More licenses were burnt, and on the 1st of December, the miners held a meeting and swore an oath around a newly constructed flag, where they swore allegiance to the Southern Cross and to stand for their rights. The Eureka Flag, claimed to have been designed by a Canadian miner, was then flown. The flag was said to have been risen at 11 o'clock, and was considered at the time as the Australian Flag by the community.
During December 2nd, discourse was caused upon Vinegar Hill with claims that the Union Jack had to be flown underneath the new flag, with miners protesting their rights as British men. I’m touching on this briefly, as I do not know the accuracy of this event. The same day, a group of 200 American men under the leadership of James McGill arrived carrying weaponry such as revolvers and Mexican knives, and provided horses. These men were known as the Independent Californian Rangers, and were led to interfere with a rumoured set of British reinforcements. They were followed by men commissioned by Commissioner Rede, and when these men were convinced that no military forces were to be sent and returned to their tents for the night, the spies reported their findings back to Rede.
At 3am on a Sunday morning, 276 soldiers stormed upon the shabbily made Stockade that had been crafted over a short period of time and wasn’t thought to be used in military pursuits. A war broke out immediately.
It was vastly violent, and wasn’t a fair fight by any means. There’s no direct knowledge on whom actually shot first, but the blood certainly spilt. Women were said to have laid over injured men to prevent any more death, Canadian 'Captain’ Henry Ross was shot dead - a notable figure whom had requested the construction of the flag - and Peter Lalor was hidden and had his arm amputated after being shot in his left arm. 34 men were said to have been casualties, and 22 had passed away - including, for some reason frequently noted, Prussian Lemonade seller and leader Edward Thonen. The flag was removed by police mid-battle. Captain Charles Pasley, absolutely disgusted by the carnage of the men, saved a few prisoners by threatening the lives of any policemen or soldiers whom continued to kill anymore. Amongst the prisoners held were 114 miners, who were held in a barn.
Peter Lalor, the Irish Australian man who had escaped, said “There are two things connected with the late outbreak (at Eureka) which I deeply regret. The first is, that we shouldn’t have been forced to take up arms at all; and the second is, that when we were compelled to take the field in our own defence, we were unable to inflict on the real authors of the outbreak the punishment they so richly deserved.”
Commissioner Rede ruled the mine fields here on out with an iron fist, and Peter Lalor returned to Ballarat and was elected unopposed in 1855. He stood against democracy, asking the Legislative Council in 1856 and asked the council their views, “Do they mean Chartism or Republicanism? … I am not now, nor do I ever intend to be a democrat. But if a democrat means opposition to a tyrannical press, a tyrannical people, or a tyrannical government, then I have been, I am still, and will ever remain a democrat.”
The Eureka Stockade is a tale of man fighting, the unity of so many backgrounds… save for the Chinese, and the absolute carnage man can cause. Australian’s love their criminals, love their rebellions - and trust me I’ll write a piece on Ned Kelly when I get around to it - but the Eureka Stockade is a tale of resistance and want for representation. The strength of the women is a fantastic thing to analyse if you ever want too. The Eureka Stockade is mentioned in a lot of press, Melbourne’s well known 'Eureka Tower’ was designed solely off the concept of the Eureka flag. If you visit Australia, or come down by Melbourne, the car trip north to Sovereign Hill is a historical trip back in time worth it.
Sources: My Grade 4 textbooks/notebooks, Sovereign Hill lectures, an essay my friend wrote a few months back (I fact checked before inserting them), (stupidly) eurekapedia, and The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright. Don’t just trust what a kid posts on the internet, research for yourselves lovelies. x
1586 - Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Columbia
1736 - Astronomer Anders Celsius takes measurements that confirm Newton’s theory that the Earth was an ellipsoid rather than the previously accepted sphere
1775 - 1st official US flag raised (Grand Union Flag) aboard USS Alfred
1854 - Eureka Stockade: in what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Victoria are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licenses
1868 - 1st blacks on US trial jury appointed for Jefferson Davis trial
1911 - Willis Carrier presents his influential “Rational Psychrometic Formulae” on air conditioning to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
1984 - “Do They Know It’s Christmas” single by Band Aid is released in the UK (pictured)
1989 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George HW Bush declare the Cold War over
2018 - 7 yr old Ryan of Ryan Toysreview is the years highest paid Youtube star earning $22 million
