Australian History Stories

Three decades after the colony’s first bushranger, the settlement was larger, harsher, and more organised — and so were its outlaws. Along the roads west of Sydney, a transported convict named Jack Donohoe moved from escape to armed resistance. In a colony now governed by patrols, proclamations, and printed rewards, bushranging was no longer improvisation. It was becoming a crisis the government could no longer ignore.

Before Australia had roads, towns, or a stable food supply, the colony was already producing its first outcasts. In a settlement governed by hunger and discipline, one transported convict—known to history as Black Caesar—crossed the line between containment and survival. Unknowingly, he set in motion the earliest form of bushranging, before it had a name and before the colony knew how to respond to it.

In 1629, the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia wrecked on the treacherous reefs of the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coast of Western Australia. What followed was one of history’s most horrifying tales of survival, mutiny, and mass murder. Stranded on the lawless barren islands with no immediate rescue, a power-hungry merchant named Jeronymus Cornelisz seized control, unleashing a brutal reign of terror that saw over 100 men, women, and children slaughtered.