Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm to bling in chalk Rewarding and I'm fair dout.
Speaker 1: And over the summer we did a podcast on Ned
Speaker 1: Kelly and we talked about this mystery of a skull
Speaker 1: that was turned in by It was turned into Australian
Speaker 1: authorities by a farmer named Tom Baxer in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: and Baxter wouldn't say how he came to have it,
Speaker 1: but he claimed that it was the skull of Ned Kelly,
Speaker 1: a notorious bush ranger who was captured, convicted and hanged
Speaker 1: back in the eighteen hundreds after getting into a now
Speaker 1: famous shootout with the police, which we covered in our
Speaker 1: episode Ned Kelly's Last Stand. We also speculated it's a
Speaker 1: little shady to not mention how you come across the head.
Speaker 1: I don't know that sounds Oh it was suspicious that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's still more to know. They're especially in light of
Speaker 1: recent news. But the skull had been stolen from Melbourne
Speaker 1: jail in ninety eight, so there was a chance that
Speaker 1: the one backs returned in could have been authentic. But
Speaker 1: experts at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine had trouble
Speaker 1: I ding it, and so by the time of that
Speaker 1: last podcast we did, the story had kind of gone cold.
Speaker 1: But then just the other day, September one, another Ned
Speaker 1: Kelly story broke and we heard from listeners all over
Speaker 1: the world about this. Immediately, we got so many emails,
Speaker 1: any know, I feel like I arrived at work and
Speaker 1: I my entire inbox was filled with Ned Kelly related emails.
Speaker 1: It was really a he was a shining moment for
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class. Listeners. Clearly everyone was
Speaker 1: on alert for Ned Kelly news and I was. I
Speaker 1: was touched that everybody thought of us too. So that
Speaker 1: news wasn't about the skull, but the rest of ned
Speaker 1: Kelly's remains had been identified. His body had been moved
Speaker 1: from Melbourne Jail to Pentridge Prison back in nineteen nine
Speaker 1: and buried there in a mass grave with thirty three
Speaker 1: their prisoners. So after the skull surface, the remains had
Speaker 1: been exhumed in two thousand nine, and the v I
Speaker 1: f M was able to identify those remains, thanks largely
Speaker 1: to a DNA sample that was taken from a Melbourne
Speaker 1: school teacher named Lee Oliver, who is the great grandson
Speaker 1: of Kelly's sister. So a little modern science coming into
Speaker 1: play here. Yeah, and how cool is that? I mean,
Speaker 1: he must be like the most famous person in Australia
Speaker 1: at the moment. Can you imagine being one of his students.
Speaker 1: But anyway, the remains, they're an almost complete skeleton with
Speaker 1: a lot of wear and tear, as you might imagine
Speaker 1: if you know anything about the need Kelly story, and
Speaker 1: it's missing most of the skull. So there's definitely more
Speaker 1: to come on the story, and we'll pick up with
Speaker 1: that a little more later on. But of course hearing
Speaker 1: about this exciting discovery reminded us how fascinated we are
Speaker 1: by the stories of bush rangers, who are of course
Speaker 1: Australian outlaws or bandits who robbed stage coaches, banks and
Speaker 1: small settlements for about one hundred years starting in the
Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds. And in our last podcast we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about bush rangers, and there were a
Speaker 1: lot of them, thousands in fact, during the time that
Speaker 1: we talked about they even outnumbered the number of Wild
Speaker 1: West outlaws in America. Just to give you kind of
Speaker 1: an idea for comparison's sake. But we also mentioned that
Speaker 1: there are two distinct sub periods of bush ranging, right, Sarah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there's one from about seventeen eighty nine to the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, and those bush Rangers were mostly escaped convicts,
Speaker 1: and that's the group that for the most part, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about today, that first wave of bush Rangers.
Speaker 1: But we've got to discuss the convict situation a little
Speaker 1: bit too, because, in case some of you don't know,
Speaker 1: there was a very strange prisoner deal going on in
Speaker 1: Australia during the eighteen hundreds or even the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 1: So just some background information for you here. Australia was
Speaker 1: settled by Britain in the late eighteenth century, and most
Speaker 1: of the first settlers who came over in seventeen eight
Speaker 1: seven were evicted British felons, and some of them had
Speaker 1: been stuck on prison ships for years and years because
Speaker 1: after the American Revolution that had put a stop to
Speaker 1: the practice of dumping criminals in the American colonies to
Speaker 1: work as indentured servants. So the first Bushrangers were convict
Speaker 1: bolters who were transported villains who escaped prison or the
Speaker 1: settlements and turned to crime, turned to bushrangering, and and
Speaker 1: like I said, that's the group that we're going to
Speaker 1: mostly talk about today. Yes, But then fast forward to
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three when British Parliament passes the Penal Servitude
Speaker 1: Act and this ends almost all transportation sentences, and that
Speaker 1: really changes things. Many bush rangers after that are native
Speaker 1: born or at least free settlers who had broken the law.
Speaker 1: So very distinct difference in these bushrangers that we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about today. Consequently, two distinct podcasts, Yes,
Speaker 1: which are very excited about because we love this topic.
Speaker 1: We really hope that you guys do too, because we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about it for a couple episodes. Judging
Speaker 1: by the volume of emails, I'm pretty sure most of
Speaker 1: these folks like bush rangers Australian history. So fingers crossed,
Speaker 1: hope you all liked us. Yeah, I mean, if you
Speaker 1: like the Kelly story, then you should like something about
Speaker 1: these two, because it wasn't just about Ned. It started
Speaker 1: way before him, and the man who's actually believed to
Speaker 1: be Australia's first bush ranger was one of those transported convicts.
Speaker 1: That Sarah just talked about. His name was John Caesar,
Speaker 1: but he was better known as Black Caesar, and he
Speaker 1: was of African descent and was probably born in either
Speaker 1: the West Indies or in Madagascar. It's kind of uncertain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to pick up with him about seventeen eighty
Speaker 1: six when he was living as a servant in England
Speaker 1: and in March of that year he was charged with
Speaker 1: stealing twelve pounds from a dwelling house and was sentenced
Speaker 1: to transportation for seven years. So he arrived in Australia
Speaker 1: in January of seventeen eighty eight and he set about
Speaker 1: working as a laborer in the college. Because it wasn't
Speaker 1: just like you were transported to Australia and then you
Speaker 1: could remake your life. It was hard work waiting on
Speaker 1: the other side exactly. And from what we know of
Speaker 1: Black Caesar, he was no criminal mastermind. He was actually
Speaker 1: thought of, I think is kind of a hard worker.
Speaker 1: But he was definitely something that you wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: mess with. He was very tall, some sources say maybe
Speaker 1: as much as seven feet where although that maybe an exaggeration,
Speaker 1: we're not sure, but he was very muscular and he
Speaker 1: was known to be a fierce fighter. He was also
Speaker 1: known and this is interesting for his big appetite. All
Speaker 1: sources seemed to mention that what gets him in trouble
Speaker 1: here because in the colony there was often a shortage
Speaker 1: of food and all of the convicts were on really
Speaker 1: strict rations, and it was said that Caesar could often
Speaker 1: polish off two days worth of rations in one day.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but like I said, this gets him into
Speaker 1: trouble eventually. Yeah, I mean, it could be part of
Speaker 1: the reason that led him into what comes later. Some
Speaker 1: sources suggest that at least because I mean we joke
Speaker 1: about it a little bit. It's a funny thing to
Speaker 1: bring up about somebody in the historical sources. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: he was a hungry guy, but with as we said,
Speaker 1: the shortage of food, it could have been a serious situation. Actually,
Speaker 1: there's another later bush ranger called Matt Gambit. He came
Speaker 1: around in around eighteen twenty two, and we're not going
Speaker 1: to talk about him in depth, but he was known
Speaker 1: as the cannibal bush ranger because when he went off
Speaker 1: with his gang and there weren't enough settlers to steal
Speaker 1: from and they ran out of food, he would actually
Speaker 1: eat his gang members, oh gosh. And yet he continued
Speaker 1: to be able to recruit them. No, I don't think
Speaker 1: he was after that. I think he kind of ate
Speaker 1: up his entire gang, put an end to his bush
Speaker 1: rangering getting back to Black Caesar. That was just sort
Speaker 1: of an aside um. But he got caught stealing again
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty nine, which earned him a life sentence,
Speaker 1: this time of transportation. But of course he didn't just
Speaker 1: sit around and accept that fate. In seventeen ninety he
Speaker 1: escaped to the countryside outside of Sydney with a stolen musket,
Speaker 1: and this was just the first in a series of
Speaker 1: escapes that Caesar would pull off over the next few
Speaker 1: years from about seventeen ninety to seventeen ninety six. While
Speaker 1: he was on the lamb, he would survive by stealing
Speaker 1: from the settlement and from government garden. Still had food
Speaker 1: on his mind, definitely, But it was after his final
Speaker 1: escape in seventeen nine that his bush ranging activities really commenced.
Speaker 1: At that point, he led a gang of absconders and
Speaker 1: vagabonds in the Port Jackson area and they'd raid settlers
Speaker 1: and rob lone travelers. Yeah, and It's funny we've talked
Speaker 1: about criminals like this before. Everything seems to be blamed
Speaker 1: on But it was said that Caesar was blamed for
Speaker 1: pretty much every crime that was committed around that time.
Speaker 1: The seven foot top potentially striking man just seemed to
Speaker 1: be a person who captured the public's imagination even then. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: as you want to imagine, the governor wanted him caught,
Speaker 1: and so he offered five gallons of rum for his capture,
Speaker 1: and Caesar was shot dead consequently by a man named
Speaker 1: John Wimbo at Liberty Planes in seventeen ninety six. Just
Speaker 1: a little side note on rum too, It must have
Speaker 1: been a pretty big motivator at the time for at
Speaker 1: much like food these criminals. Yeah, twenty gallons of roum
Speaker 1: was offered as a reward for the capture of another
Speaker 1: bush ranger named Matthew Brady in the eighteen ten So yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk maybe in the next episode about the
Speaker 1: legal options of capturing these bush rangers. But I like
Speaker 1: that rum was a prime motivator in the early years
Speaker 1: at least, so our next bush Ranger pushes us into
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. His name is buld Jack Donna who
Speaker 1: and sometimes he's known as the Wild Colonial Boy. More
Speaker 1: on that later, but he was born in Dublin, John Donna,
Speaker 1: who probably around eighteen oh six. But by April three
Speaker 1: he had already run afoul of the law in his
Speaker 1: home country for something described as intent to commit a felony,
Speaker 1: and for that he was sentenced to transportation for life,
Speaker 1: which of course meant going to Australia. And as we
Speaker 1: mentioned in Black Caesar section there, it didn't mean just
Speaker 1: a free ticket to Australia. It meant a lot of
Speaker 1: hard work. And Donna who was first assigned to work
Speaker 1: for a man named John Pagan, and then work on
Speaker 1: a road gang and then finally for a guy named
Speaker 1: Major West who was a surgeon. Consequently, he started running
Speaker 1: into some fellow convicts. Yeah, so they started hanging out together,
Speaker 1: and they began robbing wagons traveling west of Sydney. And
Speaker 1: when he and two of his buddies, men named Smith
Speaker 1: and Kilroy or maybe Gilroy, got caught. Finally in eighty eight,
Speaker 1: they were found guilty of two counts of robbery each
Speaker 1: and sentenced to die two times each, two death sentences
Speaker 1: just to be sure. So Kilroy and Smith met their
Speaker 1: ends at the noose, but Donna who somehow escaped between
Speaker 1: the courthouse and the jail, and he didn't sulk off
Speaker 1: into hiding. After that though, he rounded up a gang
Speaker 1: of English and Irish convicts and just expanded his range.
Speaker 1: So he kind of doubled his efforts there across the countryside.
Speaker 1: So Donna who is a real ballad type of guy,
Speaker 1: a robin Hood type bush ranger who people like to romanticize. Later,
Speaker 1: he would distribute stolen items to the poor. He would
Speaker 1: let some people go, and to go along with this,
Speaker 1: he had an appropriately robin Hood like Rakish style, which
Speaker 1: also made him sort of popular. Made settlers like him.
Speaker 1: He'd wear a black hat, he'd wear this fine blue
Speaker 1: coat lined in silk and lace up boots. So he
Speaker 1: really must have cut quite a figure out among all
Speaker 1: of these rough and tumble looking men. Yeah, I don't know, though,
Speaker 1: he sounds more button cute than Rakish to me. Posters
Speaker 1: announcing the twenty pound reward on his head described him
Speaker 1: as twenty two years old, five ft four, with freckles,
Speaker 1: flaxen hair, blue eyes, and a scar under the left nostril. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he sounds like you might mistake him for a teenager,
Speaker 1: but well, you know, he's coming at a disadvantage right
Speaker 1: after Black Caesar. Probably that's true. And he does have
Speaker 1: the scar, which is kind of scary. He does have
Speaker 1: the scar. Finally, though, on September first thirty, a group
Speaker 1: of soldiers employees found the gang hiding in scrub near Campbellstown,
Speaker 1: and Donnaho was said to have urged them on with
Speaker 1: some real fighting words, but he was soon struck down
Speaker 1: by a guy named Trooper Muggleston. We'll just let that
Speaker 1: let that name slide um. He lived on though, even
Speaker 1: even after death quite obviously. Yeah. So first, unlike many
Speaker 1: of our later Bush Rangers, who's surviving images are usually
Speaker 1: heavily bearded post mortem photographs, Donna who had a rather
Speaker 1: elegant death drawing done by Sir Thomas Mitchell, who added
Speaker 1: some Byron lines at the end to complete the effect.
Speaker 1: They were no matter I have bared my brow fair
Speaker 1: and death's face before and now. He also has something
Speaker 1: maybe a little more appropriate than Roman poetry, though. He
Speaker 1: was likely the inspiration for a very famous outlaw anthem,
Speaker 1: The Wild Colonial Boy, which was popular in Australia until
Speaker 1: it was banned. Finally, as being fuditious, and it stayed
Speaker 1: popular after that. That probably only helped its reputation. The
Speaker 1: song is about a fictitious bush ranger who goes by
Speaker 1: different names in different versions of the song. It is,
Speaker 1: after all a ballad. Sometimes it's Jim Douelan, sometimes Jack Dubbins,
Speaker 1: sometimes John Dowling, but it always sticks to those j
Speaker 1: D initials, just like Jack Donahoe. So the next bush
Speaker 1: ranger on our list wasn't a convict, but he was
Speaker 1: born abroad in Scotland. His name was originally Francis or
Speaker 1: Frank Christie, and he moved to Sydney with his parents
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty four when he was about four years old.
Speaker 1: He started his life of crime fairly young and got
Speaker 1: caught stealing horses in eighteen fifty when he was around
Speaker 1: twenty years old. He was sentenced to five years of
Speaker 1: hard labor for this, but he escaped to New South
Speaker 1: Wales after only serving about six months, and he went
Speaker 1: right back to stealing horses. So in eighteen fifty four
Speaker 1: he was caught again and convicted again under the name
Speaker 1: Francis Clark this time, and this time he was sentenced
Speaker 1: to seven years, but he was given a ticket of leaves,
Speaker 1: so basically released in eighteen fifty nine. He didn't play
Speaker 1: by the rules after that, though, he broke parole and
Speaker 1: went south where he opened a butchery as Frank Gardner,
Speaker 1: which is how most people know him today, and Landing
Speaker 1: Flat and he was probably trading and stolen meat there,
Speaker 1: so not even that was on the up and up
Speaker 1: sounds so grass to me. I'm sure it's like legitimate
Speaker 1: but stolen meat for sale, you know, buy it here
Speaker 1: at my store. I don't know. Anyway, a warrant was
Speaker 1: issued for Gardener's arrest, and rather than faith yet another
Speaker 1: trial and possibly more jail time, Frank took to the
Speaker 1: bush and there he teamed up with a couple other outlaws,
Speaker 1: when named Ben Hall we're going to talk about him
Speaker 1: in the next episode, and another guy named John Gilbert,
Speaker 1: and he became own and feared for his highway robberies
Speaker 1: in particular along the trade routes of New South Wales,
Speaker 1: and the police couldn't catch his gang because they just
Speaker 1: moved so quickly, and they used a kind of bush
Speaker 1: telegraph system to help them get along. Yeah, Frank was
Speaker 1: actually called King of the Road around this time. For
Speaker 1: his highway robber reputation. But on June fifteenth, eighteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: Frank's gang pulled off their biggest robbery yet and it's
Speaker 1: actually what said to be the biggest bush ranger robbery ever.
Speaker 1: And this crime was when they bailed up or held
Speaker 1: up that's what that that's what bailed up means. They
Speaker 1: held up the Lachland gold Escort and made off with
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand pounds worth of gold in cash, which is
Speaker 1: worth about one and a quarter million U S. Dollars today.
Speaker 1: And after this Frank took off with his mistress Kate
Speaker 1: and they opened a little store and shanty in Queensland
Speaker 1: and as Mr and Mrs Christie, so he had kind
Speaker 1: of a business streak to him and they lived there
Speaker 1: until the New South Wales Police finally tracked him down
Speaker 1: in February eighteen sixty four. So Frank was sentenced to
Speaker 1: thirty two years hard labor, which was considered a pretty
Speaker 1: harsh sentence at this time. Fortunately, though, he had a
Speaker 1: good attorney, William Daley, who petitioned the governor to use
Speaker 1: his prerogative of mercy, and the governor really did release
Speaker 1: Frank in eighteen seventy four under the condition that he
Speaker 1: leaved the country. There was some controversy over this decision,
Speaker 1: but ultimately Frank Gardner left Australia in July eighteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: and by the beginning of eighteen seventy five he was
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. I mean, just the perfect place for
Speaker 1: for this guy. He opened a saloon there. It was
Speaker 1: called the Twilight Saloon on the waterfront, and by all accounts,
Speaker 1: he avoided trouble for the rest of his life. He
Speaker 1: really did have a business streak, like you mentioned, even
Speaker 1: though he was pretty open about his past, He'd liked
Speaker 1: to tell tales about his time as an outlaw, which
Speaker 1: I would imagine that would make you a successful saloon owner.
Speaker 1: People loved here stories. I feel like it's almost a
Speaker 1: requirement to have a good storytelling streak, if not at
Speaker 1: least good stories to tell. But Frank was also just
Speaker 1: a really rare case among bush Rangers, and that he
Speaker 1: lived to a ripe old age, and he's since been
Speaker 1: called the father of bush ranging. So Frank seems like
Speaker 1: the perfect guy to leave off on, at least for
Speaker 1: this first part of our bush Rangers series. And I
Speaker 1: feel like he's kind of a good transition between those
Speaker 1: convict vultures we talked about and then the later Bush
Speaker 1: Rangers generation second generation. Yeah, so while we're going to
Speaker 1: leave that generation behind, we do have one more piece
Speaker 1: of information about that mystery Ned Kelly head. And this
Speaker 1: came out just the other day, September seven, and again
Speaker 1: it's from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. So well,
Speaker 1: they did identify the body. They also recently said that
Speaker 1: that mystery head might be that of a notorious serial
Speaker 1: killer named Frederick Deeming. So Deeming was born in England.
Speaker 1: He was a thief, a serial big, a myth and
Speaker 1: he set out on this wandering sort of life. And
Speaker 1: he was also a murderer. He was supposed to have
Speaker 1: buried his first wife and four children beneath the floor
Speaker 1: of their rented home and then murdered a second wife
Speaker 1: in Melbourne. So what a weird connection here, a very
Speaker 1: strange twist to the story. And I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: that it's the head of another criminal, but someone who
Speaker 1: has just a very different connotation to them than Ned Kelly.
Speaker 1: You know, you say Ned Kelly and he's kind of
Speaker 1: a folk hero and this guy was definitely the opposite.
Speaker 1: And I encourage you guys to look up this story
Speaker 1: and read a little bit more about Frederick Deeming because
Speaker 1: he had a very controversial trial and and like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: it was partly because there was nothing redeeming about him.
Speaker 1: He was not a folk hero. He was a serial
Speaker 1: killer and the public did not like him. And I
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting story for people outside of Australia too,
Speaker 1: because he was kind of all over the place. He
Speaker 1: lived in England before and I think that's where he
Speaker 1: murdered his original family. He has some Cafrica, South America,
Speaker 1: all kinds of places. Um, but I mean, of all
Speaker 1: of all the people's heads that could be a random
Speaker 1: serial killer, go figure. So Um. Now that we've wrapped
Speaker 1: up ned Kelly's side of the bush Rangers story, we
Speaker 1: are free to continue next time with the later generation
Speaker 1: of bush Rangers, the one you are more contemporary with him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and speaking of reputations of bush Rangers, we don't want
Speaker 1: to loose sight of the fact that these are criminals too.
Speaker 1: I know we kind of talk about them in a
Speaker 1: fun way, but I think some of that will come
Speaker 1: out in the next episode as well. We have some
Speaker 1: shady characters, some cruel men in the next coach. But
Speaker 1: while we are on the topic of Australia, we also
Speaker 1: wanted to do a little Listener mail that was a
Speaker 1: special presence edition of Listener Meal. So we have a
Speaker 1: postcard here from Howard and he says, Dear de Blaine
Speaker 1: and Sarah, I really enjoy the podcast and to say thanks,
Speaker 1: I having closed some Whippy Jet earrings. Whippy Jet has
Speaker 1: a history can action because it was made famous by
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria when in the morning. The stone has been
Speaker 1: used for jewelry since the Bronze Age, and the term
Speaker 1: jet black is from the stone. So very interesting and
Speaker 1: very nice gift. Thank you so much for those totally
Speaker 1: unnecessary but very much appreciated. Yeah, we're touched, so thank you.
Speaker 1: They're lovely earrings and I like the history connection. And um,
Speaker 1: I guess this one can go out to you since
Speaker 1: Gar in Sydney, So I hope you liked Bush Strangers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I didn't read the full postcard, but he did
Speaker 1: mention that we should wear them whenever we talk about
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria, which will have to be a lot since
Speaker 1: you end up mentioning your hold all the time. Just
Speaker 1: keep from ready to put on whenever we're doing an
Speaker 1: episode on her. Yes, and you don't have to send
Speaker 1: us a gift to get on listener mail or to
Speaker 1: have your podcast ideas heard or anything like that. We
Speaker 1: read all our mail no matter who sends it, no
Speaker 1: matter what comes along with it. And you can write
Speaker 1: us at History podcast at how Stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can look us up on Facebook or on
Speaker 1: Twitter at myston History. Be sure to check out our
Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stop
Speaker 1: Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing
Speaker 1: possibilities of tomorrow. The House Step Works iPhone app has
Speaker 1: a rise. Download it today on iTunes