Boundary Crossers The hidden history of Australia’s other bushrangers

Bushrangers are Australian legends. Ned Kelly, Ben Hall, ‘Captain Thunderbolt,’ and their bushranging brothers are famous. They’re remembered as folk heroes and celebrated for their bravery and their ridicule of inept and corrupt authorities. But not all Australian bushrangers were white men. And not all were seen in this glowing light in their own time. In Boundary Crossers, historian Meg Foster reveals the stories of bushrangers who didn’t fit the mould. African-American man Black Douglas, who was seen as the ‘terror’ of the Victorian goldfields, Sam Poo, known as Australia’s only Chinese bushranger, Aboriginal man Jimmy Governor, who was renowned as a mass murderer, and Captain Thunderbolt’s partner, Aboriginal woman Mary Ann Bugg, whose extraordinary exploits extended well beyond her time as ‘the Captain’s Lady.’ All lived remarkable lives that were far more significant, rich, and complex than history books have led us to believe.

Dr Meg Foster is an award-winning historian of bushranging, banditry, settler colonial and public history, and a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. She was awarded the 2018 Aboriginal History Award from the History Council of New South Wales, has published publications like Overland and Australian Book Review, and has a passion for connecting history with the contemporary world. Meg received her PhD in history from the University of New South Wales in March 2020.

Introduction (3388 words) The legendary Black Douglas (7739) The life and times of William Douglas (10,873) The many histories of Sam Poo (10,700) The making of Mary Ann Bugg (11,927) The Governor family (9923) Jimmy Governor the bushranger (7448) Afterword (1827) Bibliography (8975)