What was happening in the colony around the the time of their life that impacted on their actions or choices:

To try and limit the people that were digging for gold the government increased the mining fee. The diggers weren't happy about paying 30 shillings a month if they had found gold or not also the diggers were also told what to do by other people such as the government and the police, the diggers were all living in really bad condition while the rich people were happy and comfortable, if a rich person did something bad the police wouldn't get as mean as they would with the diggers and the police were very violent with the diggers. Then after all of this the diggers had enough and then secretly planned a rebellion against the military and the police.