Hi my name is Ah Kong and I am 11 years old. I live in china and my family is really poor my Dad died I the war so its only me my little brother and Mum one day I went to the shops to see if I could steal some food then I heard some people saying Australia had found a lot of gold so I was thinking of going over there to Australia so I ran back home I told Mum then we agreed I’m going to Australia.
Next week I went on the ship it was terrible because it was so squashed I couldn’t even lie down to sleep we were on there for a moth and I was hungry for food because there wasn’t much food. One of my friends that I made on the ship is going to Ballarat Victoria and he said they found a lot of gold I was thinking I will go there to.
Some weeks later after walking to the gold fields we finally arrived on the 1st of December 1854.
My friend taught me how to speak a little bit of English the guard was saying we can’t live here he said we had to live out of town I new he didn’t like us because he was shouting at us and calling us names.
We were walking to our house when my friend accidently bumped into a man my friend got pushed over and the man said something but I didn’t understand but it sounded mean the man walked away I helped him up then we both kept walking.
The next day we went to go buy a license so that we can mine a peace of land it cost me a lot of money to buy everything I had noticed the white man after me that was also buying a license didn’t have to pay as much as me but he still got really angry over the price and and started yelling at the man behind the counter.
Over the next few days there were lots of fights in town between the miners and the Colonial troops it seemed to be over the taxes and the mining license getting to expensive to buy.
On the 3/12/1854 a hole heap of miners built this big round wall made of timber and over turned carts in a circle they hid behind them with guns they were trying