HISTORY
Boundary Crossers: The Hidden History of Australia’s Other Bushrangers
Meg Foster
NewSouth, $34.99

Bushrangers form a prominent yet enigmatic group of historical figures in pre-Federation Australia, likely to have had their imprecisely documented exploits further obscured by the popular myths that began to gather around them during their lifetimes. The more we contemplate big Ned himself, the less, we realise, is known for certain.

More elusive than even the most iconic bushrangers are the disparate individuals portrayed in Boundary Crossers, for these are people regarded as anomalous figures who didn’t fit in with the archetype of the dashing nomadic outback criminal imposed by the dominant culture. “Aboriginal, African American and Chinese men, and an Aboriginal woman were associated with bushranging in their own times,” writes Meg Foster, “and many explicitly claimed the bushranging tradition for themselves.”

Foster examines the historical record as it relates to Charles Russell (aka Black Douglas), the ex-convict who staged armed robberies at the Victorian goldfields, Sam Poo, a cop killer reputed to be the only Chinese bushranger, Indigenous female outlaw Mary Ann Bugg, who was the life partner as well as partner in crime of Frederick Ward (aka Captain Thunderbolt), and last, but not least, the Aboriginal bushranger and mass murderer Jimmy Governor.

Foster, a Cambridge-based Australian historian whose ground-breaking book is based on a doctoral thesis, seeks to understand and contextualise rather than champion her subjects. Regarding Jimmy Governor, the best-known historical figure here, whose life provided the inspiration for The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally that in turn was adapted for the cinema by Fred Schepisi, Foster is frank about the appalling crimes he committed.

“Understanding Governor’s grievances does not excuse his actions. He massacred women, children and old people. He killed them brutally, violently, and apparently without remorse,” she writes.

According to Foster, what initiated the killing spree was the disrespect allegedly shown to Governor’s wife as the spouse of an Aboriginal man, and the refusal on the part of certain of his victims, two women who were neighbours of the couple, to apologise for taunting her.

“If Jimmy Governor had not needed to come to his wife’s aid, then the murders might never have taken place,” she asserts. Or, perhaps, the murderous rampage might have been incited by some other instance of the racism directed towards Indigenous Australians.