Victoria
The Cabbage Patch
Many, many years ago, in the time of dreams, Bunjil the Creator looked down and he saw nothing. So he created large boulders and covered them with dirt to make the land. Then, looking down again, he saw that the land was flat and unattractive. So he made all of the bushes, trees and plants that make the land beautiful. But there was nothing moving, so he made the animals: the kangaroo, the echidna, the wombat, and all of the other animals. And finally, to look after his creation, he made people, and told them to respect themselves, each other, and all of the rest of the creation.
But the people were not respectful. The Boonwurrung were at war with the other Kulin nations. The land was neglected. Animals and plants were killed and then wasted, against Bunjil's teachings. So the sea became angry and started to rise, covering the plain where the murnong grew and the kangaroo were hunted.
The people were afraid, and asked Bunjil to intercede for them with the sea. So Bunjil walked out into the sea, raised his spear, and told the sea to stop rising. Then he told the Boonwurrung to respect the laws, which were: to respect themselves; to respect each other; and finally, to respect the land.
This is how the Boonwurrung people remember, to this day, the inundation of Port Phillip Bay after the last glaciation. Currently, the bay is twenty-four meters deep and mostly surrounded by Melbourne, the capital of Victoria. But in the times of the Bunjil dream the people could have walked between Melbourne and Tasmania, and they likely did. They hunted kangaroo in the lush Port Phillip basin, and grew their murnong, or yam daisy, there as well. They were one nation in an alliance of five, collectively known as the Kulin People, composed of the Boonwurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung, Wathaurung and Wurundjeri people. By the time of the Europeans the Kulin numbered 20,000 in the Port Phillip area.
In 1835, an Englishman with the unlikely name of Batman purchased 600,000 acres from eight Kulin elders and named the area Batmania. It's a good story. There were several problems with the story, however. One is that the marks made on the purchase agreement were more like the marks made by someone from Parramatta, far to the north. The other is that no one spoke any of the five languages that could have been used for a complex land transaction, and so the elders likely assumed this was some kind of gift ceremony, as Batman had been seeding the indigenous population with trinkets and food for some time. The most pressing problem, though, was that Womindjeka, Welcome, was an important meeting place amongst the five nations and would be very unlikely to be traded for trinkets.
Batman's Treaty is alternately hailed as the first attempt at recognizing Aboriginal land rights, derided as a pretence for taking Aboriginal land for essentially valueless trinkets, or considered null and void, as by Governor Bourke in 1835. It was his opinion that any agreements such as Mr. Batman's were of no effect against the crown, and that any person found on the vacant land of the crown without authorisation from the crown would be trespassing. So the governor assumed ownership of the land around Port Phillip Bay on behalf of the crown. And just in time, too. There was an influx of settlers from Tasmania and they all needed to buy land somewhere. So the town of Batmania, quickly renamed Bearbrass, quickly renamed Melbourne, was created on vacant crown land. Batman built a mansion on Batman's Hill and died of syphilis.
And then not much happened for many years. Until July 1st, 1851, when Victoria officially withdrew from New South Wales. And just in time, too. A couple of days later it was announced that gold had been discovered in Ballarat, a couple of days inland from the port. And then it was discovered all throughout Victoria. Suddenly, the town of Melbourne became the most important port town in the world and its population skyrocketed to 540,000 almost overnight. And Victoria became about the richest place ever, accounting for one third of the world's gold production. And then the problems started.
Governor Latrobe of Victoria (ex of New South Wales) decided that all gold and silver found in the Crown's realm was the property of the Crown. And as the Crown's representative, well, you know where he was headed with that. So there came into being a "Miner's License". A prospective prospector had to pay 30 shillings per month, which was about the same amount of money he would have earned as a labourer. Only the lucky could afford it, but they wouldn't know if they were lucky or not until they aquired the license. Which brings us to the Eureka Stockade.
In 1854 a bunch of the prospectors in Eureka Lead decided that the so-called miner's license amounted to taxation without representation, since they had no vote back in Britain and Victoria had no parliament of its own. So they built a stockade, a sort of crude fort, and made a stand against the license, the government, the police, the military and Britain itself. It didn't go well. Twenty-seven of them were killed, many more wounded, and everyone else marched off to Melbourne to face trial.
But it turns out the public were on the side of the miners. Or possibly against Britain. Either way, the miners were all released and the Electoral Act 1856 came into being, giving male colonists suffrage in the lower house of the newly created Parliament of Victoria. The Eureka Rebellion is viewed by some as a political revolt, and by others as the birth of democracy in Victoria, and, ultimtely, Australia. For its part, the gold rush ran its course and was pretty much over in 1914. And just in time, too. A few months later Australia became a country, and minerals came under federal and not state control.
Nowadays you still need a miner's right to prospect for gold in Victoria, even on your own land. It costs $25.20 for ten years.