The Eureka Stockade: an International/Transnational Event by Gregory Blake Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts School of Humanities and Social Science University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy July 2013 i ii iii Table of Contents Table of Contents iv List of Plates v Abstract vi Declaration vii Introduction 1 Chapter One ‘We were bosses!’ - The Battle for the Stockade. 14 Chapter Two ‘To be bullied by the bayonet’ - The foundational 44 ideology for armed resistance at Eureka. Chapter Three ‘At the hazard of our Lives’ - The British protest model of the early nineteenth century and Eureka. 68 Chapter Four ‘I’ll die before I run!’ - The Americans and Germans 96 at the Eureka Stockade. Chapter Five ‘To defend their rights and liberties’ – Eureka, a Transnational exemplar of civil armed resistance. 128 Chapter Six ‘A magic pudding’ – the remembrance of Eureka. 156 Conclusion 189 Bibliography 195 iv List of Plates Plate 1: Land of Liberty 125 Plate 2: Two Californians 126 Plate 3: Joseph Sharp of Sharps Flat 1850 127 v Abstract The battle for the Eureka stockade is an event in Australian history that has been misunderstood and misrepresented by popular and academic historians almost since its inception. The historiography of the battle for the stockade has been in general one that perpetuates a tale of gratuitous massacre of poorly prepared innocents by a ruthless military. The historiography has also omitted to consider Eureka as part of an established international model of civilian armed resistance to oppression. This thesis challenges both this characterisation and omission. Primary sources such as government reports, private correspondence, personal memoirs, trial transcripts, and court depositions have been examined. Newspaper reports contemporary to Eureka, both foreign and domestic, have been extensively consulted. Secondary sources have also been widely consulted to provide insights into events as well as elicit technical details, such as military tactics and weaponry, knowledge of which is important to understand the dynamics of the battle for the stockade. Secondary sources have also been consulted to recognise, where applicable, the extent of misunderstanding extant in the available literature. This thesis establishes that the battle for the stockade was conducted by both protagonists as a military engagement. This thesis examines those international concepts of individual independence and the right to self defence that provided a rationale and motivation for the Eureka miners’ actions. This thesis demonstrates that the battle for the stockade was a unique event in the context of British and Australian protest. The significance of the contribution of the Americans and Germans to the miners’ preparations for conflict and defence of the stockade is recognised and acknowledged. Eureka’s place as an exemplar of civilian armed resistance within an international context is demonstrated. This thesis finds that consistent with the diverse narratives characteristic of Eureka the remembrance of Eureka is one where there is no common narrative. This thesis corrects these long standing misunderstandings and mistaken narratives related to the Eureka stockade. By doing so it adds to the knowledge of the event and establishes a basis upon which a more nuanced and correct interpretation of this important event can be constructed. vi Declaration I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published, or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. Gregory Blake July 2013 vii INTRODUCTION At dawn on 3 December 1854 on the Ballarat gold diggings 276 soldiers and police, acting under the authority of the Victorian colonial government, stormed a roughly built stockade defended by more than one hundred dissident miners. The action fought was brief but resolutely contested resulting in at least forty nine killed. The battle for the Eureka Stockade is an event the like of which is unparalleled in Australian history. Its importance to that history is reflected in the depth and extent to which it has become entrenched within the fabric of the Australian collective memory and folklore. Eureka is all but universally embraced as an example of resistance to despotism by ordinary people. It is without question an enduring image and powerful exemplar through which Australians can gain a sense of themselves. Contemporary understandings of the course of events at Eureka are based on a set of well established yet questionable presumptions. Since the time of the event itself Australia’s collective remembrance of what occurred at the Stockade has been dictated by a ‘script’. The story line is well known. Innocent gold miners protesting against the harsh regime of a tyrannical government are set upon by hundreds of soldiers and police. No warning is given, and the aggrieved diggers, lacking proper arms and taken completely by surprise, are routed in a few brief minutes. Claims that the majority of the defenders of the stockade were, ‘drowsy, half drunken men‘, and ‘the firing from the stockade was an intermittent splutter’, are examples of how the traditional narrative sets the scene for what was to follow.1 Once the stockade had been stormed a fearsome bloodletting then unfolded as the military and police lost all control and ran amuck, visiting murder and desolation on any unfortunate they managed to catch. It was in this aftermath of the attack on the stockade that the narrative gives full flight to its condemnation of events. Examples such as, ‘Here begins a foul deed, worthy of devils, and devils they were’, and ‘the police in particular had lost their heads, 1 Hocking, G., Eureka Stockade – the events leading up to the attack in the pre-dawn of 3 December 1854, Five Mile Press, Rowville Victoria, 2004, p.138; Eureka Reminiscences, Ballarat Heritage Services, Ballarat, 1998, p.32. 1 killing and burning in hysterical frenzy’ are typical of many that describe this stage of the conflict at Eureka.2 Accounts such as these, written by Raffaello Carboni a notable participant in events at Eureka figure, are the foundation upon which rests the most commonly accepted interpretation of the conflict at the Eureka Stockade. This foundation is, however, a dubious one and has contributed to the serious historical misinterpretation that the Eureka miners were poorly armed, ill prepared innocents wantonly and quickly massacred by unusually bloodthirsty soldiers and police. Similarly, the historical narrative portrays the non-British participants at Eureka, when they are mentioned at all, as either saints or villains, little more than bit players adding spice to some kind of Opéra Bouffé. In the same manner this misunderstanding of the actual character of the conflict at Eureka has resulted in Eureka’s place within a contemporary international continuum of civilian armed resistance to oppression remaining unexplored. It is the first aim of this thesis to provide a corrective to these misunderstandings and omissions. Such misunderstandings of Eureka, despite the depth of their conviction or power with which they resonate, are problematic in that they do nothing to help us understand the actual nature, importance and significance of the event. From the historiographical perspective despite its place within the Australian historical narrative, serious and rigorous revision of the fighting in and around the Eureka Stockade as an event itself, as opposed to the social and political prequel and sequel to the event, have been noteworthy by their absence. Even when serious academic historians have touched upon the moment of conflict they have done so in a manner that is cursory and unquestioning of the accepted narrative. This has resulted in a glaring gap in the published record of Eureka which itself has encouraged the perpetuation of myth, fallacy and misunderstanding. It is, therefore, the second aim of this thesis to help fill such a historiographical shortfall. This thesis will have six chapters. Each will examine a specific aspect of Eureka and examine how well the accepted interpretations hold up to critical 2 Carboni, R., The Eureka Stockade, Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2004, p.99; O’Brien. B., Massacre at Eureka – The Untold Story, Sovereign Hill Museums Association, Ballarat, 1998, p.97. 2 analysis. The organisation of the chapters will be thematic. Chapter One examines the battle for the stockade. The nature, dynamics and character of the armed struggle for possession of the stockade is examined in detail. Doing so enables a fuller understanding of the event itself and provides a point of reference for the following chapters. By focussing on the details of the battlefield event, long overdue corrections can be made to a number of accepted but erroneous ‘truths’ of Eureka. Chapter Two considers the intellectual heritage that inspired the armed uprising at Eureka. Links will be investigated to domestic and transnational thought and tradition of civil armed resistance directly relevant to the participants at Eureka. Establishing the importance for the Eureka diggers of such concepts and convictions provides a counter balance to the traditional narrative’s general focus on economic and legalistic causes as the primary motivations for the uprising. Chapter Three examines the British model of civil protest contemporary to Eureka. The character of British civil protest is examined with reference to the various strains running through that movement, including the call for armed resistance to oppression.