
The legend of the Eureka Stockade
AS dawn approached on the Ballarat goldfields on Sunday December 3, 1854, a makeshift stockade, hastily built by diggers at Eureka, was overrun by government troops. The Battle of Eureka Stockade was brutally short, but defeat would rapidly turn into victory for the diggers and, many believe, democracy for a young Australia. Mining has been a central figure in the fight for national identity and political equality in Australia’s history. The Eureka Rebellion, a revolt by Victorian diggers against heavy taxation and regulation by the colonial authorities, remains a powerful political symbol even today. As one of the only armed insurrections in Australia’s short history post-European settlement, it has taken on a mythology far greater, and longer lasting, than the…