The Outlaw Legend: A Cultural Tradition in Britain, America and Australia

Bandits, heroes and villains: A view from a settler colony

“…Similarly, international comparisons to British highwaymen or American cowboys provide important cultural touchpoints for scholars unfamiliar with the Australian landscape, but they can also obscure the uniqueness of the Australian case. While many of these Anglophone bandits are well known characters—what folklorist Graham Seal (1996, 2011) terms ‘outlaw heroes’—British highwaymen and American cowboys are not symbols of their respective nations.…”

“…Despite this early interest, the first comprehensive studies on bushrangers were not published until the turn of the 20th century. Before this time, bushranging stories were almost exclusively part of more popular forms of commemoration such as folklore, bush ballads, local reminiscences and plays (Seal, 1996, pp. 119–164; Wannan, 1964, pp.…”

“…Whether these stories were true or not was another matter, but they allowed white bushrangers to become heroic legends (Foster, 2022a). According to folklorist Graham Seal (1996), an outlaw hero must refrain from violence unless it is absolutely necessary. As mentioned above, Ned Kelly claimed to have shot a police officer first in self‐defence and then as a mercy killing when the officer was fatally wounded.…”