The protests about the exorbitant miner’s licence fee and the corruption associated with its collection served as catalysts to the sequence of events at Ballarat that culminated at Eureka in November 1854. The use of armed force to quell the uprising, and the deaths that resulted from this, has ensured that the episode is identified as a rebellious event, one that has subsequently become a seminal moment in nineteenth-century Australian history. The sesquicentennial celebrations of 2004 produced a spate of literature and public events illustrating the achievements of the diggers and their role in the emergence of democracy in Australia.