The Eureka Stockade

Raffaello Carboni’s vivid and vigorous narrative of the conflict at Eureka in 1854-when the Stockaders took up arms against what seemed to be intolerable oppression—is the most detailed contemporary version and the only eyewitness account available today.

Born at Urbino, Italy, in 1820, Carboni was an Italian patriot.

He joined the Young Italy movement in the 1840s and was wounded in the Roman campaign of 1849. He toured Europe extensively and then lived in London until 1852, when news of the Australian gold discoveries encouraged him to join the thousands flocking to the Victorian diggings. Carboni’s revolutionary experience and linguistic ability (he was proficient in five languages) led Labor to delegate him to organise the European contingent behind the Stockade.

Though arrested after the uprising, he was acquitted of treason after months in gaol. On his return to Ballarat he published this account and personally distributed it on the first anniversary of the Stockade as a tribute to those who fell and as a vindication of his own name.

The original, and rare, 1855 edition has been faithfully reproduced here. Five previously unpublished letters from Carboni to his friend W. H. Archer, the Registrar-General of the colony, are printed in an Appendix.

The flag design on the cover, facing the opposite way to the usual representation of a flag, is a facsimile reproduction from Carboni’s first edition. It is believed to differ in some details from the flag used at Eureka.