Bushranger (Australia)

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Escaped convicts in Australia were originally referred to as bushrangers (or bush rangers ) . The term was later applied to outlaws and robbers whose retreat was the inhospitable bush landscape. John Caesar (1764–1796), called "Black Caesar" because of his African roots, was the first Australian bushranger. The most famous bushranger, Ned Kelly (1855–1880), was also one of the last.

history

By 1880 there were around 2,000 bushrangers, some of which became part of Australian folklore. Their heyday was between 1850 and 1860, when the gold rush made rich booty possible. Most were men, but some women were among them, including Mary Ann Bugg (1834-1905), daughter of a convict and an Aboriginal who lived for a long time with the bushranger Frederick Ward (called Captain Thunderbolt) (1835-1870).

Among the Aborigines, Musquito , The Black Bushranger (1780-1825), became most famous for violently defending himself against the colonists. He was executed after a kind of show trial that even the local press found scandalous because, in their opinion, it was "a violation of the law of nations". Today, historians do not classify his acts as an individual breach of the law, but as an act of resistance that Musquito offered together with other Aborigines.

reception

The bushrangers have often been romanticized in literature. Edward Harrington put this straight to the point in his poem The Bush Rangers : “Whatever their faults and whatever their crimes, / Their deeds lend romance to those faraway times”. Banjo Paterson's John Gilbert (bushranger) stated: "And Johnny Gilbert said, said he, 'We'll never hurt a hair / Of men who bravely recognize that we are just all there'". Finally, in 1941 , John Streeter Manifold wrote in The Death of Ned Kelly : "Ned Kelly fought the rich men in country and in town, / Ned Kelly fought the troopers until they ran him down". The subject was popular enough early on to be the subject of Australia's first drama: Charles Harpur's The Bushrangers . In painting, too, the bushranger's motif was worked on many times. The biggest impact was undoubtedly Bailed Up by Tom Roberts .

literature

  • Graham Seal: The Outlaw Legend. A Cultural Tradition in Britain, America and Australia . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eric Partridge: A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English . Published by Paul Beale. London, 8th ed. 1984, sub voce 'bush-ranger': "Now usually bushranger" ; see also Collins , Encyclopædia Britannica , Wiktionary .
  2. ^ Cassandra Pybus: Black Founders. The Unknown Story of Australia's First Black Settlers . Sydney 2006.
  3. ↑ Wendy Morgan: Ned Kelly Reconstructed . Cambridge 1994.
  4. ↑ Carol Baxter: Captain Thunderbolt and His Lady. The True Story of Bushrangers Frederick Ward and Mary Ann Bugg . Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest (NSW) 2011, ISBN 978-1-74237-287-7 .
  5. ^ The Argus (Melbourne), June 22, 1951, p. 11S ('Australiana').
  6. ^ "The Aborigines," Colonial Times , Hobart, May 31, 1836, p. 5.
  7. ^ Naomi Parry, "Hanging no Good for Blackfellow." Looking Into the Life of Musquito .
  8. ↑ The Bushrangers: A play in five acts and other poems (PDF; 379 kB)