Eureka Rebellion

Uncommon card · No. 183415

The Eureka Rebellion was a rebellion by gold miners against the Colony of Victoria during the Victorian gold rush. It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat between the rebels and colonial forces and, according to official records, resulted in 27 deaths and many injuries, the majority of casualties being rebels. There was a preceding period beginning in 1851 of peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience on the Victorian goldfields. The miners had various grievances, chiefly the cost of mining permits and the officious way the system was enforced. Tensions began in 1851, with the introduction of a tax on gold mines. Miners began to organise and protest the taxes; miners stopped paying the taxes en masse. The October 1854 murder of a gold miner, and the burning of a local hotel (which miners blamed on the government), ended the previously peaceful nature of the miners' dispute. Open rebellion broke out on 29 November 1854, as a...

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