Following on from my recent podcast, I want to talk a little more about why I think calling the Battle of the Eureka Stockade a rebellion is a misnomer.
In the twenty-first century, particularly in countries with generally robust democracies (Australia among them), there is a certain glamour attached to the idea of rebellion, yet true rebellions are bloody, violent and dangerous affairs, no matter which side comes out on top! Sometimes they prevail, but most often they do not and the consequences in the aftermath are often shocking! The modern misuse of this word, usually to glamourise a protest or argument (good things, by the way), has made it difficult to define in history, but I’m going to do my best here.
“Swearing Allegiance to the Southern Cross” by Charles Doudiet.1
A rebellion is an armed uprising against a government or representatives of a government by a group of people who intend to overthrow and remove that government from power. People who participate in rebellions are called rebels (another word that has been taken out of its original context) and, depending on what side you’re on, the rebel is usually either seen as a freedom fighter or a terrorist. Sustained rebellions can turn into revolutions, but this is generally a process that takes place over time, and a revolution requires far more foresight and planning than a rebellion.
In contrast, a protest – which can also be armed and violent – is a demand by a group of people to fix a particular issue or set of issues. Protests, like rebellions, can originate at either end of the political spectrum and are usually addressed to the government of the day. That is, I think, the fundamental difference between a rebellion and a protest: a rebellion is an attempt to unseat a government or ruling power, a protest is a demand that the ruling power fix an issue the protestors have identified – they don’t want to remove the government itself.
We can see excellent examples of this in modern history by turning to the United States of America, and the attempted coup in January 2021. What started out as an armed protest by various far-right and pro-Trump groups, who were demanding the government fix the perceived issue of voter fraud (of course, we all know that there was no voter fraud), devolved into an armed uprising against the United States government. Ultimately, it was a doomed attempt (I’ll talk about the ingredients for a successful coup another day), but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t fit the criteria for a rebellion. The people who stormed the Capitol would have liked nothing better than to dismantle the systems and put ‘their president’ back in the White House – probably indefinitely.
Far-right & pro-Trump rioters attempt a coup at the US Capital Building on 6 January 2021. Photo: Getty Images
This also leads into my next point, a rebellion doesn’t have to be a planned act. If we look at January Six again, the original protesters showed up heavily armed and were not there for a peaceful assembly. Whether they intended initially to go as far as they did I don’t know, and the evidence from court cases is conflicting, but they were certainly expecting violence and believed they were going into a fight. But, up until the moment when they began to storm the building, it was still a protest. Unplanned rebellions erupt when armed and angry people realise they are not going to get what they want and spontaneously decide to take on the system. They generally overestimate their own ability and support, and these rebellions are often the bloodiest and the easiest for authorities to overcome. Planned rebellions, usually instigated by a group of people who establish themselves as leaders, are a little different, but I don’t want to get caught up in that in this article, I just want to make sure you understand what a rebellion is, compared to an armed protest.
Because that is what Eureka was: an armed protest.
Remember, the diggers had specific demands:
- Abolish the licence fee and establish a fairer mode of taxation.
- Unlock the lands to allow working class families to settle in their communities.
- Change franchise laws to allow working class men to vote and stand for parliament.
- End violent licence hunts and establish a proper legal system on the goldfields.
- Fund services and infrastructure on the goldfields, such as schools and hospitals.
None of these things are unreasonable. Of course, some of them are steeped in the bias of their time (especially the point about voting), but overall they are demands which the government was able to meet and should have been willing to do so.
What stopped them was good old British classism. The established powers, backed by the colonial aristocracy of the squatters (more about them in the future), had entrenched beliefs about the structure of the world and believed they were due respect and deference as a matter of course by the working classes. In Britain itself, these ideas would continue to dominate until after the first world war, but they were already coming crashing down in Australia long before the first planks of the Eureka Stockade were thrown up.
Old Ballarat as it was in the summer of 1853-4, by Eugene Von Guerard.
Because Australia had been used by the British as a penal colony for decades before the first free settlers arrived, there was already inbuilt into the population a healthy distrust and skepticism of authority. Remember, someone could be sent to Australia for seven years penal servitude for offences like stealing a length of ribbon or a loaf of bread, and the authorities didn’t differentiate between children and adults; children as young as twelve were ripped away from their families, loaded like cargo onto ships and sent to the other side of the world. Many convicts were not dangerous or violent people on arrival to Australia, but after years of violent and dehumanising treatment they were often unable to integrate back into society at the end of their sentence.
By the 1850s as well, there was a big push to stop transportation to the colonies – not because people thought it was wrong (some did, but they were in the minority), but because people felt that convicts were a moral blight on society. Newspaper advertisements for work of all kinds stated that applications from ex-convicts would not be considered, and most agencies at the time which found jobs for the unemployed did not extend their services to former convicts either. Many convicts couldn’t find work, so it is hardly surprising that recidivism was so high among these populations; ex-convicts were banned from joining the army too, enlisting was often a fall back position for men at this time who could find no other work. These prejudices were attached to the Victorian-era idea that poverty was a type of moral failing, and ex-convicts often found themselves facing two equally awful options: go the the workhouse, or return to crime.
The discovery of gold upset this to some degree, and now ex-convicts who hadn’t been able to find work were often the only people left in the colony who could work. Some went to the goldfields, of course, but many didn’t have the initial capital needed to buy equipment, and with wages increasing by 50% in all sectors, why wouldn’t they take advantage of that? The majority of police officers during this time, for example, were former convicts and so it is hardly surprising that they delighted in being able to lord it over the type of people who had sent them to Australia and then prevented them from being able to participate in society after their release. This doesn’t make their brutal treatment of the diggers right, however, although does go some way towards explaining it.
But I’ve gone a little off track here – let’s get back to where we should be. As we know today, violent and poorly trained police are dangerous, and people tend to be averse to having them around. This was true on the goldfields too, particularly when they were the primary enforcers of a deeply unfair taxation system, among a people who had no voice in their government.
So, naturally, the diggers protested. Because they couldn’t vote, they organised petitions, including the famous Bendigo Petition, which was signed by more than 30,000 people, asking for an end to the licence fee and a better system of revenue collection. They even made suggestions as to what this could be… and the government did nothing. La Trobe, the Lieutenant Governor at the time, was sympathetic and could also see that the licence tax was not working, but he had a weak personality and could not overrule the squatters, who insisted that the only workable system was a direct tax on the diggers. Petitions became a standard feature of the goldfields as time wore on and the systems the diggers were living under became more and more unfair and oppressive.
The opening of the “Bendigo Petition” to Lieutenant Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe.
By the time James Socbie was murdered, tensions were at an all time high, so it isn’t surprising that the people of the goldfields exploded. But, despite burning down the Eureka Hotel (and, had they got their hands on Bentley – Scobie’s murderer – they undoubtedly would have murdered him!) this still wasn’t a rebellion. It was certainly a riot, if I may use that loaded term, but people without a voice are only prepared to be silenced for so long before they strike out. Again, that doesn’t make it right, but it is a historical reality that should have been clear even in 1854. After the burning of the Eureka Hotel, there was a split among the protesters. Those who believed in moral force continued to petition the government and were eventually able to meet with the Governor (by this time La Trobe had resigned and been replaced by Sir Charles Hotham), although he was offended by their use of the word ‘demand’ in a petition. Sir Charles was a born and bred aristocrat, and a former officer in the British navy who had been knighted by Queen Victoria, and refused to listen to ‘demands’ from people he considered his underlings. Those who believed that the time for petitions and talking had passed decided that physical force was the way to go, and it was this group which built the stockade.
But Scobie was murdered in October, and the Stockade wasn’t built until December. What happened in the intervening period?
Plenty, but it was the government’s decision to crack down on these now very angry and heavily armed men which really tipped things over the edge. They started using the military to assist with licence hunts, sending soldiers with bayonets to round-up diggers and hold them until police arrived to check their licences – the government hoped a show of force would make the diggers think twice, but it only escalated the anger.
More than 10,000 diggers gathered on Bakery Hill (if you go to Ballarat, you can still see the place they met today) and burned their licences in a massive show of defiance. It was at this time that the flag they had been working on was raised too, the now famous Southern Cross Flag, and an oath was sworn under it.
We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and defend our rights and liberties.2
In the face of open defiance, the colonial government did what colonial governments unfortunately did best: upped the ante.
They arranged a massive licence hunt the next day, although failed to arrest anyone as resistance was so strong. Around this time, the government started describing the diggers as being in a state of ‘open rebellion’ but this is hardly true. The diggers were angry, they were armed, they were prepared to face off against the authorities… but they were not rebels yet. Many of the men (and it was mostly men, although there is excellent research about the woman of Eureka) involved believed that British Law was on their side and that, as subjects of the Queen, who a great many of those even in the Stockade adored, they were entitled to fair and proper treatment. It is also worth noting that the majority of the diggers who had come from overseas were very much middle-class people, who could afford to get to Australia in the first place, and they were used to a certain level of respect from their social superiors: doctors, lawyers, engineers, civil servants etc. They disliked being treated as if they were from the working classes.
So why was the government describing them as rebels? I think it was because the government was laying down the groundwork to justify the use of the military. They had lost control of the situation in Ballarat because they were not prepared to negotiate or address any of the diggers’ concerns, so by calling them rebels and pretending that these men were planning to overthrow the government would justify the use of excessive force.
As I’ve mentioned in my podcast, the diggers were a belligerent force, who were also planning their own attack, although theirs never got past the planning stage. However, the primary purpose of the stockade, as it was originally envisioned, was as a place diggers could retreat to in the face of continuing licence hunts. The violent rhetoric began to escalate later, when the diggers inside decided they too were a military, and this is when they began looting stores and stealing weapons.
But still, not a rebellion.
Throughout all of this, it was only a very small portion of those inside the Stockade who truly believed they were fighting for independence. Most of the stockaders were fighting for those original five aims I mentioned at the top, none of which meet our criteria for rebellion. They wanted Australia to stay British, because they could then continue to enjoy the privileges they had of being British men. The small but vocal minority in the stockade who truly believed they were fighting for independence actually did a disservice to their comrades. Those who felt the movement had got away from its original aims just up and left, meaning that when the military did launch an attack, the stockaders numbers were dangerously low.
”Eureka Stockade Riot” by John Black Henderson
So now I come back to my original point about why calling Eureka a rebellion misses the point. It wasn’t a rebellion, planned or otherwise, because there was no real or serious intent to overthrow the government. It was a protest – a violent protest, certainly, and an armed one at that – by people who had had enough of being ignored and ruled by an out of touch minority. The government of the day, following the standard playbook of governments who overreact to civilian movements, called it a rebellion to try and justify their own overreach and cover up their inaction – they failed. As discussed in the podcast, Sir Charles’s attempt to have thirteen diggers convicted for High Treason backfired when the juries refused to convict. A committee, which had been set up shortly before Eureka to examine the causes of unrest on the goldfields, released its findings shortly after the acquittals, recommending everything that the diggers had been asking for be granted, and the land monopoly be broken up immediately.
By calling the Battle of the Eureka Stockade a rebellion, even in romantic terms, we strip it of its true meaning. It was a protest against government mismanagement that should never have descended into violence. The military shouldn’t have been there, the battle itself shouldn’t have happened and, if the government had been sensible, the most exciting thing about the Victorian gold rush would have been all the wealth that flowed into the colony from it! We shouldn’t be talking, still, about a violent, twenty-minute clash between diggers and soldiers, because it should never have descended into that in the first place!
But we are talking about it, and we will continue talking about it, so let’s make sure we’re talking about what really happened, and skip the flowery language.
Remember, if nothing else, that people died that day; and they didn’t die rebelling against the system. They died asking the system they put their faith in why it had failed to protect them.
Juliana at original memorial to the dead of the Eureka Stockade, erected in 1855. Photo by the author.
- Doudiet was a witness to the events of 1854 and recorded many of them in his sketchbook. ↩︎
- Lalor, P., ‘To the Colonists of Victoria’, The Argus, 10 April 1855, p. 7, (accessed 20/05/2023) ↩︎
Sources
Primary Sources
Author Unknown, ‘Causes of Revolt’, The Argus, 6 December 1854, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4801370?searchTerm=ballarat%2C%20eureka%2C%20rebellion%2C%20disturbance, (accessed 11 March 2023)
Author Unknown, ‘Geelong, From Our Correspondent’, The Argus, 1 December 1854, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4801111?searchTerm=ballarat%2C%20eureka%2C%20rebellion%2C%20disturbance, (accessed 11 March 2023)
Bastin, J., ‘Eureka—An Eye-Witness Account’, The Australian Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, 1956, p. 76-83.
‘Gold Lisence’ [photograph], https://www.oldtreasurybuilding.org.au/gold-licence/, (accessed 17/03/2023)
Lalor, P., ‘To the Colonists of Victoria’, The Argus, 10 April 1855, p. 7, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4806503?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FA%2Ftitle%2F13%2F1855%2F04%2F10%2Fpage%2F186412%2Farticle%2F4806503 (accessed 20/05/2023)
Thomas, J., ‘The Ballarat Disturbance’, Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 20 December 1854, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/91863047?searchTerm=ballarat%2C%20eureka%2C%20rebellion%2C%20disturbance, (accessed 11 March 2023)
Thomas, J., ‘Disturbances at Ballarat, The Age, 8 January 1855, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/154853393?searchTerm=ballarat%2C%20eureka%2C%20rebellion%2C%20disturbance, (accessed 11 March 2023)
Secondary Sources
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Beggs Sunter, A., ‘Remembering Eureka’, Journal of Australian studies, vol. 25, no. 70, 2001, p. 49-56.
Beggs Sunter, A., ‘Contested memories of Eureka: Museum interpretations of the Eureka Stockade’, Labour History, no. 85, 2003, p. 29-45.
Beggs-Sunter, A., ‘Eureka: Gathering “the Oppressed of All Nations”’, Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 10, no. 1, 2008, p. 15-34.
Blake, G., To pierce the tyrant’s heart : a military history of the battle for the Eureka Stockade : 3 December 1854, Australian Army History collection, Loftus, NSW, 2009.
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Smith, N., Soldiers Bleed Too : The Redcoats at the Eureka Stockade 1854, Gardenvale, Vic, Mostly Unsung Military History Research and Publications, 2004.
Wickham, D., Deaths at Eureka, Ballarat, Vic, D. Wickham, 1996.
Wright, C., The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, Melbourne, Victoria, The Text Publishing Company, 2013.