Eurka Gold Stockade

Some Info (A brief description) The Eureka Stockade was the best known incident in the quarrel between the Victorian government and the gold miners of Ballarat. During 1854, the gold miners became increasingly restless. They were angry because they had to pay for a gold licence to search for gold.

People People were very mean, nasty and cruel to the Chinese and the Aboriginals because they were different. The white people teased, threatened and insulted different people to them. It was terrible for the children on the goldfields. Most families could not afford to by shoes for there kids only the rich families. Many children on the goldfields caught sicknesses because they didn’t wear proper clothes.

Transport People on the Goldfields mostly traveled by foot for four million man miles through swamps, deserts and mountains each day. All the poor families could only get to places by foot because they couldn’t afford horses because they were very expensive. The rich families that found gold traveled by horses and carriages. Some people came to the goldfields by donkeys because they can carry large amounts of weight. People from other countries came to the goldfields by ship because there was no other way to get to Australia in the Gold Rush

Tarnsport 2 Most of the miners used wheelbarrows to transport gold to other destination on the gold fields or to carry stuff to their tents like food and equipment. In the mines the other miners used steam trains to get out of the mine or to transport gold to the end of the mine.

Food Food on the goldfields was very poor and most of the people ate damper. Damper was a food that miners made themselves. Fruit and vegetables were rare and not many people ate them.

Clothing Because the miners worked for long hours their clothes got really worn out. They really only wore White shirts, straw hats, gloves and rain protection. Some wore boots some wore shoes but most of them could not afford shoes or boots so they had to go barefoot. The Chinese wore baggy pants

Housing The housing on the goldfields usually was tents or huts covered by bark roofs. Eventually there was a change of housing, there were stone buildings. The mattresses were stuffed with leaves. The miners sat on logs and sometimes sang songs around the camp fire because they didn’t have any TVs or computer games. The Chinese slept in tents but they didn’t sleep near the other cultures because they had there own little place surrounded by fences.

Equipment The miners used picket axes in the mines to crack rock. Spades were a good tool to use when you wanted to dig for gold. Dynamite was also used for blowing holes in the Earth to give them a head start in digging for gold