The ghost & the bounty hunter : William Buckley, John Batman and the theft of Kulin country / Adam Courtenay.

Sydney : ABC Books, 2020.©2020

Courtenay, Adam. author.

01-01-2020

306 pages : illustrations, map ; 21 cm

text

volume

994.502 COU (Copy 1) MAIN-MONO 320149 INLIBRARY

Port Phillip Bay

Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders

Colonisation

Ethnic conflict

Prisoners

History

Aboriginal Australians -- Socal life and customs -- Biography.

Bounty hunters -- Biography.

Frontier and pioneer life -- Biography.

Fugitives from justice -- Biography.

Victoria -- Colonization -- History -- 1834-1900.

Port Phillip Region (Vic.) -- Colonization -- History -- 1834-1900.

Victoria -- History -- 1834-1900.

Australia -- Colonization -- History.

Buckley, William, 1780-1856.

Batman, John, 1801-1839.

Includes bibliographical references.

9780733340390

Just after Christmas 1803, convict William Buckley fled an embryonic settlement in the land of the Kulin nation (now the Port Phillip area), to take his chances in the wilderness. A few months later, the local Aboriginal people found the six-foot-five former soldier near death. Believing he was a lost kinsman returned from the dead, they took him in, and for thirty-two years Buckley lived as a Wadawurrung man, learning his adopted tribe's language, skills and methods to survive. The outside world finally caught up with Buckley in 1835, after John Batman, a bounty hunter from Van Diemen's Land, arrived in the area, seeking to acquire and control the perfect pastureland around the bay. What happened next saw the Wadawurrung betrayed and Buckley eventually broken. The theft of Kulin country would end in the birth of a city. The frontier wars had begun. This is a fascinating and poignant true story from Australian colonial history.

1257467

320149

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