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I grew up in a place that most people these days would call “haunted”. An old Georgian sandstone building on the outskirts of Richmond, Tasmania. Built way back in 1829, with the help of convict labor (because who wasn’t using convicts back then?), it’s a piece of history you could feel in your bones.
Now, living on the fringes of a rural town like that wasn’t exactly safe. These places were prime pickings for bushrangers – Australia’s original outlaws – and trust me, there were no shortage of stories passed down through the generations. Midnight raids, daring escapes, stolen sheep…it was basically the Wild West, just with thicker accents and kangaroos.
Speaking of kangaroos, let’s rewind a bit to how chaotic things really got.
Only two years after they started the colony on the Derwent River, the rations shipped from England ran out. Not “getting low” – gone. The colony was staring famine right in the face. For a while, they leaned heavily on supplies from New South Wales. Problem was, in 1806 a massive flood wrecked the Hawkesbury Valley – pretty much the breadbasket of NSW. Boom: the price of maize and wheat shot through the roof to £5–6 a bushel, and Hobart was left holding the bag.
Then they tried to get wheat from India. And because bad luck comes in threes, the ship they sent was wrecked too. No backup plan. No plan C. It got that desperate.
Enter the kangaroo.
Settlers basically survived because kangaroo meat was suddenly the food source. If you couldn’t get bread, you’d get ‘roo. And it wasn’t just about food; clothes were so scarce that some free men wore kangaroo skins. I’m not joking. Picture a whole town that looked like the world’s saddest caveman cosplay.
But this crisis had a ripple effect nobody expected.
Convicts, especially assigned servants, were put to work hunting kangaroos because, let’s face it, it was way better than breaking their backs in the fields. Plus, the government paid 18 pence a pound for kangaroo meat, so it turned into a mini gold rush for any employer with a good shooter on staff.
Of course, once you hand convicts guns and send them into the bush, you can pretty much kiss discipline goodbye. A lot of them thought, “Why stop at kangaroos when I could just disappear?” And they did.
Some of these escapees didn’t last long; the bush back then wasn’t exactly welcoming. But others figured out how to survive by hunting, or more often, by robbing isolated farms. And just like that, the bushranger era was born.
Between 1810 and 1830, bushrangers became a real thorn in everyone’s side. They weren’t just cartoon bandits. They were rough, brutal, and totally unpredictable, mixing a bit of the old “civilised” criminal know-how with savage, frontier-style villainy. Midnight raids, farm attacks, it was chaos. No wonder settlers got tough about defending themselves.
Actually, catching a bushranger could seriously pay off – land grants were given as rewards. Whole properties ended up with names tied to the capture of some poor outlaw who probably just wanted a loaf of bread (or, you know, a flock of sheep). It was all very Robin Hood meets colonial bureaucracy.
Now, before you paint all bushrangers as murderous monsters, hold up. Sure, some were killers and one absolute psycho even used torture. But not all of them were violent. Most didn’t hurt women, and they weren’t robbing stagecoaches to retire rich somewhere nice. They were surviving – pure and simple.
Many were running from harsh treatment, army life, debt, or just boredom. Some deserted from ships, others from military posts. But honestly? Underneath all the labels and villain stories, the heart of it was simple: they just wanted freedom.
And can you really blame them?