Friday 21 August 2009

The battlefield


We are in the gardens just outside the Eureka Centre. This is where the battle is said to have taken place lasting only 15 minutes, killing 30 diggers and injuring at least 60. On the troopers' side, 5 were killed and 20 wounded. On a plaque nearby you can read the following:


At this place in the early hours of Sunday 3 December 1854, there was a defining moment in Australia’s history. Without warning, a superior government force attacked a makeshift stockade built by a few hundred angry men to defend themselves from further armed hunts to enforce the unpopular licence tax to dig for gold.



Reproduction of the attack on the stockade at the Eureka Centre

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