@kieran.wicks ##GoldRushStories ##OneTownataTime ##VoicesofFederation ##MarkTwain ##immigration ##GoldDiscovery ##California ##Ballarat
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Alongside the Squattocracy and pastoral leases, the prime catalyst for the opening up of Australia’s interior to further exploration, settlement and surveying, was the discovery of ‘payable gold’ in 1851.
The politics of the time is a fascinating journey into the events that magnify the aspirations and realities of a fledging colony.
The times and places of those formative years of self-determination as a nation-state and common bonds amongst countrymen.
Casting off the shackles of empire both literal and figurative, some with more obvious success than others, and none without consequence.
Arriving at Ballarat in 1895, Author Mark Twain saw first-hand the incredible economic, political, and social legacies of the Australian gold rushes. Mark Twain famously described the hordes of hopefuls who had rushed to Australia’s gold fields as
"a driving, vigorous restless population … an assemblage of two hundred thousand young men – not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves…
The only population of the kind that the world has ever seen gathered together… not likely that the world will ever see it’s like again”.
Mark Twain, J.F. Archibald And Henry Lawson