Sovereign Hill



577151530500Victorian census analysis- Why not count us all? Take a close look at this table which presents the information collected by censuses in the 1800s. Then answer the questions below.170166815703717016683642444From: Serle, Alan G. The Golden Age: A history of the colony of Victoria 1851-1861, Melbourne University Press, 1963, p.382.0From: Serle, Alan G. The Golden Age: A history of the colony of Victoria 1851-1861, Melbourne University Press, 1963, p.382.Use all of the information available above to explain what you think happened after 1851 to cause the Victorian population to increase so much between 1851 and 1854. *Hint: it relates to the story Sovereign Hill tells._____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Looking at the source above, who wasn’t counted in the 1851 census? _______________________________________________________________________________________________Give three reasons to explain why that population was left out of the census: 1. __________________________________________________________________________________ 2. __________________________________________________________________________________ 3. __________________________________________________________________________________Explain what happened in 1967 to force the government to change the people it counted in a census?_______________________________________________________________________________________________In this table, do you notice any other curious numbers or changes in numbers that you would like to know more about? Write a question to ask about it here: _______________________________________________________________________________________________Teacher NotesUse all of the information available above to explain what you think happened after 1851 to cause the Victorian population to increase so much between 1851 and 1854.The Port Philip District of NSW, which in early 1851 was made a separate state and renamed after Queen Victoria, had been formally colonised by the British Empire in 1835. Instead of being used as a penal colony, the extensive, lush grasslands of the region attracted pastoralists from Europe, who came to be known as “squatters”. They mainly farmed sheep for wool which made Melbourne a wealthy city. In 1851, some say due to the Black Thursday fire which burnt one quarter of the state, Victoria was found to contain one of the richest gold deposits ever discovered. Places like Ballarat and Bendigo attracted hundreds of thousands of miners from all over the globe. They found approximately $100 billion of gold (in modern currency). There was a fortune to be made here in 19th century Victoria, whether through wool or gold; therefore, the British Government fiercely protected its hold on this territory and completely disregarded any claims to land made by its traditional owners. The title of Serle’s book should be a hint for your students that the population increase was a result of the gold rushes. Who wasn’t counted in the 1851 census? The only people who weren’t counted in the 1851 census were Victoria’s Aboriginal People.(It’s respectful and humanising to capitalise the A and the P.)Give three reasons you think this population was left out.The government was racist - the British Empire discriminated against non-European people in many different places around the world during this period. No one could count them because they stayed as far away from Europeans as they could – while this may be true to some degree, there is lots of historical evidence demonstrating that many Victorian Aboriginal People could speak very fluent English by 1851 and many worked for Europeans on farms or as Native Police etc. The government didn’t see them as people – because that would mean they had to acknowledge that the British Empire was stealing land, culture and dignity from other human beings.There were no Aboriginal People – it is believed there were approximately 2,000 Victorian Aboriginal People alive at this time.They were only interested in the growing European population – while this may be true for administrative and taxation purposes, a census should count all of the “human capital” in a particular place.Do you know what happened in 1967 to force the government to change the people it counted in a census?In 1967, more than 100 years after the Victorian gold rushes, the people of Australia voted in a referendum to change the Constitution. The change meant that for the first time, the government would include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in censuses, and also be able to make laws for them. It was a very significant event in our history because it brought an end to official discrimination and the promise of full and equal citizenship for all Australians. More information on this can be found here: In this table, do you notice any other curious numbers or changes in numbers that you would like to know more about? Write a question to ask about it here: If students are curious about the reason there were so many more men than women in Victoria during this time, you can answer thus:Mining was a man’s job. Most of the people who adventured out on long sailboat journeys to Australia to dig in the mud for their fortune were single men. The people arriving from China were almost exclusively men, as Chinese women were left at home to care for the family and look after the farm.Death came easily to women on the goldfields. If a girl survived things like dysentery and scarlet fever in her childhood (it is commonly thought that approximately 1 in 5 children died before the age of 5 from such illnesses), when she became a woman she was most likely to die in childbirth (performed at home in unsanitary conditions, without medical assistance), while the second most common cause of death for women was infection, particularly infections from burns to the skin (most women cooked over an open fire).References: ................
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