Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Eureka Stockade Memorial park



This is the site of the famous Eureka Stockade uprising 


When the cost of gold licences jumped the diggers were outraged. A mass meeting was held at Bakery Hill in November 1854, where the miners burnt their licences & raised the Eureka flag, their symbol of freedom from repression, in protest of the unfair conditions.  They demanded licence abolition & the right of political representation.  They were refused


For protection, the miners barricaded themselves into a hastily erected stockade armed with a few guns & pikes.  But 300 soldiers & troopers attacked the stockade at dawn on 3 December 1854, killing 28 miners & wounding many more.  It was a massacre.  Public outrage broke the grip of Australia's pre-gold colonial establishment & led to the founding of a more democratic legislative assembly in Victoria.

The Eureka rebellion was the birth of democracy in Australia
 
 


Some friendly soldiers in the park!!!!
 
 
 


Eureka flag
 
 
 
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