Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Panoramic view of Bright, Victoria

Panoramic view of Bright, Victoria

1874
Glass photonegative

Buckland Valley, near Bright in north-eastern Victoria, was the site of an alluvial gold rush. However, as the finds diminished, Chinese miners arrived to sift the abandoned claims. Tensions between the 2000 Chinese and 700 Anglo-Irish miners resulted in the Buckland Riots of 1857, in which three Chinese miners were killed and 2000 fled. The riot was eventually quelled by Beechworth police, led by Robert O’Hara Burke.

Bright Gap- Buckland River, 4th July 1857- by Margaret Bradstock

Chinese driven from the diggings

near Bright, more than 2,000

put to flight across a single log

bridging the river, three miners dead.

Broken picks and shovels,

battered pots and roofless tents

tell the story, charred frame

of the Joss-house, emblematic flag

hanging torn and defaced

like a flayed dragon.

Even Henry Parkes noted

that what inspired rage

wasn't horror at immoral deeds

but envy of their good luck.

When we drove through in 1951, headed

for Mt. Beauty, entering

that shining gap on the horizon,

we saw it as a promised land.

Nine years old at the time,

I always planned to run away to Bright.

 

 

-  after Panoramic view of Bright, Victoria 1874 − a2825284.