Page 59 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Australia

THE HIST OR Y OF A USTR ALIA  57

The Rum Rebellion
In 1808, the military, under the command of Major
George Johnston and John Macarthur (see p131),
staged an insurrection known as the Rum
Rebellion. At stake was the military’s control
of the profitable rum
trade. Governor William
Bligh (1754–1817), target
of a mutiny when captain
A typical colonial house in Hobart Town (now Hobart), Tasmania, of the Bounty, was Bounty, was Bounty
during its early days in 1856 arrested after he tried
to stop rum being used
as currency. The military
The settlement was recognized in 1837, held power for 23 months
and the separate colony of Victoria was until government was
proclaimed in 1851, at the start of its gold restored by Governor
Lachlan Macquarie.
rush (see pp58–9). Queensland became a William Bligh
separate colony in 1859. South Australia
was established in 1836 as Australia’s only at Cooper Creek to the tidal mangroves of
convict-free colony. Based on a theory the Flinders River which they mistook for
formulated by a group of English reformers, the ocean, before heading back south. They
the colony was funded by land sales which returned to the base camp only hours after
paid for public works and the transportation the main party, who now believed them
of free labourers. It became a haven for dead, had left. Burke and Wills died at the
religious dissenters, a tradition that still base camp from starvation and fatigue.
continues today. The crossing from south to north was
finally completed by John McDouall Stuart
Crossing the Continent in 1862. He returned to Adelaide sick with
Edward John Eyre, a sheep farmer who scurvy and almost blind.
arrived from England in 1833, was the first
European to cross the Nullarbor Plain from
Adelaide to Western Australia in 1840.
In 1859 the South Australian government,
anxious to build an overland telegraph
from Adelaide to the north coast, offered a
reward to the first person to cross the
continent from south to north. An
expedition of 20 to 40 men and camels left
Melbourne in 1860 under the command of
police officer Robert O’Hara Burke and
surveyor William Wills. Burke, Wills and two
other men travelled from their base camp The return of Burke and Wills to Cooper Creek in 1860

1851 Gold discovered 1872 Overland telegraph from Adelaide
near Bathurst, New 1862 John Stuart to Darwin, via Alice Springs 1899 Australians fight
South Wales, and at is the first explorer to in the Boer War
Ballarat and Bendigo, cross from south to
Victoria (see pp58–9) north Australia 1873 Uluru (Ayers Rock) first
sighted by Europeans
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890
1854 Eureka 1868 Last 1880 Ned Kelly
Stockade (see p58)(see p58)(see p58 transportation hanged (see p455)
of convicts to
Australia arrive 1876 Last full-blooded
1853 Last convicts
transported to Tasmania in Western Tasmanian Aborigine, Death mask
Australia Truganini, dies (see p473) of Ned Kelly