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The Eureka Stockade, by Raffaello Carboni
In December 1854 in Eureka, State of Victoria, rebellious miners who had made a stockade were defeated in battle by police and troops.
There was a Gold Rush. The miners didn’t want to pay much per month for a mining license. The author of the book linked to above was a pan miner there and writes about his perpspective on the Victoria State Gold Rush of 1851-1860. He came over from Europe.
The Australian Gold Rush, around 1850-1860
I linked to a book on the Gold Rush as lived in Australia around 1850 (credit to Google for digitizing the book and making it available for browsing at Google Books). The story is confusing, mostly it seems because the Big Gold Rush of 1848 was in California, so Australians left to do mining in faraway California. But then, within 10 years or so, gold was found within roughly what is now the State of Victoria, Australia; this led to the rapid expansion of Melbourne (Port something), Victoria. The (present) value of the gold mined for Britain is of the order of 500 billion pounds Sterling. So, they say it paid for Britain’s debts.
Also interesting is the story of Flinders, who circum-navigated Australia in the early 1800s. Around 1810, an expedition from Sydney was sent to find a place for a colony for convicts. The party arrived at a sand island North-East of present-day Brisbane. One of the party saw a whiter man…
Turns out he was a westerner who had been marooned on this island for 7 months and lived/cohabited with Australian aborigines. I think this led (through transmitted info. on geography) to the “discovery” or discovery of the Brisbane River.