1854: Ten Thousand Diggers Threaten to Secede From the Empire: the Birth of the Ballarat Reform League
More than 10,000 diggers crowded onto Bakery Hill, directly opposite the government camp in Ballarat, and formally established the Ballarat Reform League under the Chartist John Humffray on this day in 1854. The resolutions they passed were blunt: full democratic representation, the vote for every man, and an end to being governed without a say in it.
They did not stop at petitioning. The League declared that if their demands went unmet, the diggers would secede from the United Kingdom altogether, a threat of open rebellion against the Crown. Weeks later that defiance would end in gunfire at the Eureka Stockade.
