Eureka - part of our multicultural heritage
"WHEN hundreds of miners took up arms at the Eureka Stockade on November 29, 1854 they probably did not realise they were playing out a defining moment in Australian history. The famous oath, "We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other, and to fight to defend our rights and liberties" will forever be etched in history." - The Herald Sun 27-11-2002
This event was a significant part of our multicultural history, with participants from many nations.
'Eureka' is of course a Greek contribution to the English language, an exclamation meaning "I have found it!".
The Eureka flag was designed by a Canadian digger called Lieutenant Ross (who died defending the Eureka Stockade on Sunday, December 3, 1854) and it was made, according to German Frederick Vern (who first moved the diggers to burn their licences) by "two English ladies".
The leader of the diggers at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat in December, 1854, was an Irishman called Peter Lalor (MLC 1855-56, MLA 1856-57, 1874-89, Speaker 1880-89).
The first digger to be acquitted in Melbourne after the Eureka stockade battle was a black American named John Josephs.
Members of the Independent Californian Rangers' Revolver Brigade helped defend the stockade and the six recognised leaders at Eureka (apart from Lalor and Vern), were Irishman Timothy Hayes, Welshman John Humffray (also elected to Parliament), George Black, an Englishman and Kennedy, a Scot.
Italian Raffaello Carboni, later elected a Member of the Local Court at Ballarat, was one of the 13 Eureka prisoners.
Henry Lawson later wrote "20 minutes freed Australia at Eureka long ago" and American writer Mark Twain, described this lost struggle against tyranny as "another instance of a victory won by a lost battle".
In the dark, early hours of that Sunday, when only 120 of the previous night's 1500 volunteers were still present at the stockade, the English Queen's soldiers and police troopers attacked and 22 diggers were end, more than 100 were imprisoned and the bullet-ridden Eureka flag was torn down and dragged through the dust."
"We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties."
Multicultural Australia - Love it or Leave it! ;-)
-- "Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
"History shows us that there have been many struggles between the honest men of England and those that tyrannized them. All good laws come as innovation and as constraints upon the power of the King and Lords."
-Colonel Thomas Rainsborough Council of the Army, Putney Church, 1647
"We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties."
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