The Eureka Rebellion has an almost iconic status in dominant constructions of the Australian identity and nation. This year is its hundred and fiftieth anniversary and, accordingly, this offers a good opportunity to look again at some of its facts and myths.
Beginning at the End
On Sunday 3 December 1854, at 4 am in the morning, near Ballarat in Victoria, 300 state troops (two regiments of soldiers, followed by mounted and foot police) attacked the Eureka stockade, an area of about one acre, barricaded by timber slabs and dirt, which was defended by about 150 lightly-armed independent gold miners. After about fifteen minutes the troopers breached the stockade. About 30 of the stockaders, lacking guns, fought with pikes against muskets with bayonets to slow the government advance. This allowed many of the diggers to flee the stockade. The pikemen seem to have suffered the greatest proportion of casualties. The government assault soon killed, disabled, dispersed or arrested the stockaders. That was the end of the Eureka stockade. However, the Eureka rebellion continued for a few months afterwards, as we’ll see. A hundred and fifty years later, the Eureka rebellion has a double significance.
