LIVING in a democracy, we have the right to differ.
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It’s just as well, because history enthusiasts continue to passionately and rigorously debate the true site of the Eureka Stockade.
A sacred site in our nation’s history, it is considered the birthplace of democracy in Australia – where people gave their lives in support of an important principle.
The 1884 monument to the bloody battle stands in a corner of Eureka Park, dedicated to the miners and soldiers at the stockade in December 1854.
Next to it stands the new $11 million Museum of Australia Democracy at Eureka (M.A.D.E), which puts Eureka into a contemporary and global democratic context.
Many still agree to disagree about whether this is where the stockade was actually raised.
The issue has been so hotly debated that books have written on it, the Ballarat Historical Society has staged conferences on it and the biggest enthusiasts have dedicated much of their lives to researching it.
Constructed on the afternoon of Saturday, December 2, 1854, the Eureka Stockade was a breastwork of wooden slabs reinforced with carts about 1.5 metres high.
The miners, led by Peter Lalor, participated in a mass burning of mining licences at Bakery Hill, before marching to the Eureka diggings, where they assembled the famous structure.
Thirty of the miners perished in the short but brutal battle, when police forces raided the stockade in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Former City of Ballarat arts and culture manager Ron Egeberg said that after the battle the miners fled to their diggings and the stockade, hastily assembled at the time, virtually disappeared with them.
Over a short period, the terrain changed dramatically.
“We’d just had our only civil uprising and it was a bloodbath,” he said. “It must have been a shocking experience for the people there. I don’t think they wanted to remember where it was. We can’t ever underestimate what it was like.”
Mr Egeberg points out that the Eureka Memorial stands on the highest point of the Eureka Gardens, with view all the way to the site of the government camp – roughly where the Art Gallery of Ballarat stands today.
It would have been the ideal location for a stockade.
But historian Peter Butters disagrees. He believes the stockade was assembled west of the current memorial, towards Belford Street, a conclusion he has reached after decades of research.
“Over the years, people interested in history have been frustrated because they don’t believe the area where the fight took place is where the monument stands,” Mr Butters said.
“When they put the monument there in the 1880s, the land was overturned for mining, so the landscape of the area was changed. You can’t look at the land now and say that’s how it was 150 years ago.”
Mr Butters said that when the battle occurred, may of the atrocities took place outside of the stockade.
The battle was short and brutal. Thirty people died in 10 minutes and there were horrific injuries.
At 4.45am on Sunday, December 3, the sentry posted to guard the stockade fired a warning shot to alert the other diggers of the attack.
The diggers, who were all still asleep, were largely caught unprepared for battle with the government forces.
“The military stormed the stockade and demolished it,” Mr Butters said.
“It was never to defend from a military point of view. It was really there as a marshalling point for the miners. There wasn’t a lot to take down.
“It made sense to have a Eureka precinct, to encompass where the stockade is, and outside as well.”
Mr Butters describes the battle as one chapter of the Eureka story, which has more renown for the aftermath of the stockade and for the reforms that followed.
“Although 30 people died, the fight is only a part of what the overall picture is,” he said.
“You’ve got people interested in what Eureka did for human rights.”
University of Ballarat history lecturer Anne Beggs-Sunter said that in 1884, a group of eyewitnesses to the battle gathered on the site to try to determine the stockade’s location.
But the landscape, turned over from years of gold mining, had dramatically changed.
“They thought it was near enough at the time,” she says. “There are a number of theories that it was outside the reserve that has been created, but it would require a massive archeological dig to sort out that issue,” Dr Beggs-Sunter says.
“There are houses in the area and (therefore) that’s not possible.”
Dr Beggs-Sunter said to her, the fact the whole reserve area had been identified and located on the Australian Heritage Register was of much greater significance than pinpointing the precise site.
“That’s what the Musuem of Australia Democracy at Eureka (M.A.D.E) is all about – it’s continuing that process of marking and interpreting the site,” she said.
Recent archeological digs during the M.A.D.E redevelopment process uncovered about 80 different features relating to the gold rush, from mine shafts and mullock heaps to shoes, ceramics, cups, plates and bottles.
Archaeologist Wendy Dolling said the discoveries helped to paint a picture of the people at Eureka during the stockade period.
However, she said it would be impossible to find any signs of where the stockade was.
“Because the stockade was a timber structure, it’s quite ephemeral,” she said.
Former city and cultural development manager for the City of Ballarat David Miller believes the Eureka precinct encapsulates the original site.
He has been persuaded by the work of author and mathematician Jack Harvey, whose 1994 book Eureka Rediscovered: In search of the site of the historic stockade, took an analytical approach to question.
“He’s argued the case very well that the precinct does embrace the site of the stockade,” Mr Miller said.
“You think the miners would have embraced the highest point and that’s what the park embraces.”
He said the work that had been done over the years in developing the Eureka precinct had helped to lend a sense of place to the Eureka story.
“It’s the sense that this is the hallowed ground where the blood was spilt,” he said.
“That’s why Gallipoli is important to young Australians now – it’s part of the Australian story.
“It’s the same with Eureka. People want to get a sense of this is where it actually happened.”
rachel.afflick@fairfaxmedia.com.au