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Operating larger mines which employed a number of workers, the Italian speakers
adapted and extended their traditional farming skills. Using as their model the
extended household which had once constituted their principal work-force, they
managed to control, and be responsible for, large numbers of employees. Giacomo
Casarotti, for example, whose mine the Federal was begun at ItaUan HiU in the 1860s,
employed around 20 workers, many of whom were his countrymen. Reportedly a
meticulous and tough employer, who paid his men the comparatively low rate of 30
shiUings per week, his management style probably reflected the iron-fisted approach of
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his peasant father. Under his direction, miners built a tunnel over 500 metres long,
two metres high and very straight. Named the Federal in honour of the Swiss
federation, like the Doria Mine it reflected the ethnic origin of its ovmer.
Similarly, other Italian speakers asserted their ethnic and cultural heritage.
Also at Italian Hill was the Magenta Tunnel owmed by ItaUan speakers and, along the
south east end of Spring Creek, the Garibaldi Mine. This mine was presumably
operated by Italians who supported soldier Giuseppe Garibaldi's push for unification of
the Italian peninsula. At Kidds Gully, east of Spring Creek, a group of Italian speakers
worked the Florence Mines for over twenty years and, at Sardines Reef mine, west of
Yandoh, a native of Sardinia was the ovmer. Closer to Daylesford, Italian speakers
mined the Spillaci Tunnel under present-day Queensbury Street and the nearby Roman
Eagle Company was possibly mn by Italians.'^ Along with mines, some localities were
given Italian names to indicate the large numbers who mined there: examples include
(the already mentioned) Italian Gully and Italian Hill. The multicultural nature of the
goldfields was similarly revealed in names such as Jews Gully, the Chinese Tunnels and
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