Eureka Flag

Under the flag the men burnt their licenses to show the governor that from now on they would defy (бросать вызов) the law. But the Governor was determined to defeat the miners. On the morning after the licenses were burnt, mounted soldiers charged a gathering of diggers injuring several.

That afternoon the diggers met again on Bakery Hill. Peter Lalor, an Irishman, wrote later: "I looked around me; I saw brave and honest men, who had come thousands of miles to labor for independence. The grievances under which we had long suffered, and the brutal attack of that day, flashed across my mind; and with the burning feelings of an injured man, I mounted the stump and proclaimed "Liberty".

Peter Lalor

With Lalor as their leader the men armed themselves with guns and pikes. They marched to the Eureka field and built a stockade (укрепление, форт). They swore to defend the stockade against any attack. There were only about 150 men at the stockade at dawn on Sunday, 4 December 1854. A lot of them were asleep when about three hundred soldiers charged. Ten minutes later about thirty miners and six soldiers lay dead or dying. The soldiers rounded up the surviving diggers who had not fled and marched them off to jail. Peter Lalor was wounded in the battle but managed to escape. That night he hid in the house of a priest and his wounded arm was amputated.

The miners at Eureka had lost the battle but most people in Victoria were on their side. The newspapers condemned the soldiers' brutality and said the governor should not have ordered the attack.

The miners who had been arrested and charged with high treason were found not guilty. Outside the courts crowds gathered and cheered when the verdicts were announced. A new government was elected in 1855. The license fee was abolished. In future miners would pay just one pound a year for a 'miner's right' - the right to dig for gold and the right to vote.

... I think [Eureka] may be called the finest thing in Australasian history. It was a revolution – small in size, but great politically; it was a strike for liberty, a struggle for a principle, a stand against injustice and oppression. It was another instance of a victory won by a lost battle. Mark Twain, American author

The diggers were subjected to the most unheard of insults and cruelties in the collection of this tax, being in many instances chained to logs if they could not produce their license. Peter Lalor

Peter Lalor, who lost an arm in the Eureka Stockade rebellion that he led, later went on to become a Member of Parliament.

“Foreign devils”

There were about two thousand Chinese people in Australia when the gold rush started. They had been brought out by squatters to work on their runs (фермы) as shepherds and laborers. Others worked as cooks and household servants.

Thousands more Chinese came when news of the gold discoveries reached them. A lot of Chinese who sailed for Australia never saw the goldfields. Conditions on the ships from the Chinese ports were as bad as any convict ship. Hundreds died on the voyage. White settlers in the colonies were amused by the Chinese migrants. They joked about the pigtails (косичка) they wore. The Chinese all seemed to dress in the same blue jumpers and trousers, shoes made of silk with wooden soles, and wide straw (соломенные) hats.

The Chinese worked very hard on the goldfields. A very large Chinese camp was established at Guildford in Victoria. At one time there were more than five thousand Chinese there, all of them working over an abandoned (заброшенная) mine which the European miners had given up. At first the Europeans did not mind the Chinese coming. But as the gold ran out (истощилось) they started to resent (ненавидеть) them - particularly as they seemed to be able to find gold where Europeans could not. The Europeans began to say that the colonies of Australia should only be open to other Europeans.

The Chinese were described as a threat to British civilization in Australia. It was said that they were opium smokers. They were portrayed as dirty and disease-ridden (зараженные болезнями). Newspapers had pictures of Chinese men looking like hideous fiends (ужасные злодеи). Readers were told that they made a habit of stealing European women. In Victoria a special tax was put on the Chinese. They were made to pay a fee when they arrived in the hope that this would stop them coming.

In some places the Europeans attacked the Chinese and beat them viciously. The tents of the Chinese were pulled down and burnt. Some Chinese were killed. The worst attack was at Lambing Flat in New South Wales in 1861.

Hatred for the Chinese became a way of thinking in Australia. Eventually all the colonies passed laws to keep them out.

‘The Mongolian Octopus’ in “The Bulletin”, 21 August 1886

This cartoon portrays opium smoking, disease, corruption and sexual immorality, alongside cheap labor, as Chinese vices.

The bushrangers

The bushrangers of the 'gold rush' era were active around the goldfields areas. Some were ex-convicts, but many were just unfortunate victims of hard economic times who took to the roads as an easy way to exist. Many were born in the bush and had an expert knowledge of horses and firearms, and the plains and mountain ranges they roamed in search of fortune and adventure. They had little regard for authority and no sympathy for weakness. The rush for gold following massive discoveries in Victoria in the 1850's presented ideal circumstances for them to exploit their skills.

Law and order in the colonies had been hampered by the mass exodus of law enforcement officers from jails and the police force to the goldfields. Thousands of head of livestock (скот) went unattended as shepherds and farm workers walked off the land to seek their fortunes. A bush-ranger found this easy pickings (воровство), supplying stolen horses, cattle and sheep to the earnest diggers, while the depleted law enforcement authorities had little chance and few resources to restrain them.

They next turned to the easier business of stealing gold as it was transported from the diggings to the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne. It became dangerous to travel the roads around the diggings and even well-armed parties were under threat if it was know they were carrying bullion (слиток золота).

While few of the bushrangers ever achieved the riches to enable them to escape their circumstances, many gained notoriety, and some even achieved the status of folk heroes. Sections of the poorer classes in Australia identified with the bushrangers's contempt for authority.

The names of Ben Hall, Ned Kelly, Frank Gardiner, 'Mad Dan' Morgan, Johnny Dunn, Johnny Vane, Martin Cash, and the Gilbert brothers are names linked with the rich, colourful and dangerous history of the gold rush.

Originally, the term bushranger referred to any person who worked in or made a living from the bush. It included hunters, wood splitters, etc. Eventually it came to mean any criminal who lived in the bush and made his living out of plundering travelers and bush dwellings.

Today, the word bushranger has adopted a more romantic meaning, referring to skill in bushcraft, knowledge of the bush, horsemanship, daring and gallantry and the concept of roaming the bush, wild and free, in defiance of authority‚ rather than the emphasis of banditry, robbery, murder, plundering, horse and cattle duffing (воровать скот, менять клеймо) and other serious crime which more properly defines the real activities of the bushranger.