International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Ballarat, in the British colony of Victoria, Australia, burst into life as an instant city in 1851, following the discovery of gold. Adventurous men and women from all over the world descended on Ballarat in the 1850s, feverishly attacking the sticky clay at Golden Point. The diggers followed the gold underground, along the course of the ancient rivers, buried by the volcanic eruptions of Mounts Warrenheip and Buninyong. On the flat, 30,000 diggers collected into small cooperatives of “mates” and desperately searched for their personal Eldorado. From the first discoveries in 1851, relations between the miners and the police sent to administer the goldfields were uneasy. The government attempted to collect a monthly license fee for the right to search for gold, but the tax conferred no rights, and licenses were inspected at the point of a bayonet. The more outspoken miners, schooled in the ways of the 1848 revolutions in Europe, led a movement to protest against the gold license. The cry of “No taxation without representation” was raised, echoing the rhetoric of the American Revolution and the Chartist movement for democratic rights in Britain. At Bendigo in the winter of 1853 protesting diggers wore red ribbons, refused to pay their licenses, and collected a monster petition which was presented to the governor, seeking immediate reform of government administration, the right ... log in or subscribe to read full text