The Wild Colonial Girl

'Australian history is almost always picturesque. Indeed, it is so curious and strange that it is in itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer .... It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies ... full of surprises, and adventures, and incongruities, and incredibilities, but they are all true, they all happened.'

Mark Twain

Historical Background

Many of the events that have been woven into The Wild Colonial Girl did happen in the Colony of South Australia in the mid nineteenth century, though their combination in this story, and the major characters themselves, are fictional.

Irish famine orphans aged between fourteen and eighteen were brought to South Australia, by the ship load, to become domestics. Because of the changing fortunes of the colony, many of those who arrived were faced with the prospect of no work other than farm labour or prostitution. More than forty percent of Adelaide's prostitutes were Irish. There was considerable public pressure to end the Irish orphan scheme, with dark predictions about 'unfledged thieves, juvenile bastards and incipient prostitutes'. Possibly as a result of this pressure, the scheme lapsed after the arrival of the Elgin in 1849. It was continued again in 1854 and 1855, to provide replacement for the farm labourers who had joined the gold rush.

Women and indigenous people suffered poor status and had few legal rights. The marriage age for females at the time was twelve and a woman was actually auctioned by her husband at the Land of Promise Hotel in 1847.

The gold rush had dramatic consequences for small colony of South Australia, with twenty thousand people leaving the colony for the gold fields in the first six months of the rush alone. By April 1852 the biggest copper mine in the world, at Burra in South Australia, had lost two thirds of the work force and by the end of that year mining had virtually ceased. It was not until 1856 that the mines resumed operations. South Australia did find some ways to profit from the gold rush, firstly through the sale and cartage of flour, which was transported first by bullock dray and later by ship and river boat, and secondly, through the provision of a police escort to protect gold brought to the colony from the goldfields. Elatina and Wilducowie Stations and their locations are purely fictional, although a creek and outstation named Elatina do exist in the Flinders Ranges.

Wool remained South Australia's first export throughout the nineteenth century and the pastoralists amassed great wealth. Settlement in the Flinders Ranges reached its height in the late 1870s, following high rainfalls in the area and the mistaken belief that 'rain follows the plough'. Severe droughts in the early 1880s forced the wheat farmers to retreat south. Whole towns were abandoned and the land was resumed by the pastoralists. Some of these runs were then closed down during the prolonged drought of the 1890s. The Adnyamathanha people fared badly during the droughts. Starvation was not uncommon, since traditional sources of food were scarce and the Adnyamathanha people had been robbed of all control over their land and their water supplies. Rations were provided to some through ration stations.

The granting of land by Kate O'Mara to the Adnyamathanha has, unfortunately, no basis whatsoever in history. There was no idyllic retreat with abundant water and game. It was not until the 1970s that the Adnyamathanha people regained control of any portion of their land. Two pastoral leases and the Nepabunna settlement, formerly the mission, are now within Adnyamathanha control. More recently, claims have been made under Native Title Legislation for parts of the Flinders Ranges and Gammon Ranges areas. Many aspects of Adnyamathanha traditional life have survived the pressures of European settlement. The Adnyamathanha language is still spoken and the Adnyamathanha people continue to a have a close association with their land. The efforts of the Adnyamathanha people to both preserve and share their culture is ensuring that it will be kept alive for future generations of Yuras and Udnyus to enjoy.

Bullockies and their teams went a long way to conquer the 'tyranny of distance' during the nineteenth century. They provided a reliable and inexpensive form of transport over rough, uncharted, and trackless land. Horse teams competed with bullock teams in the latter half of the nineteenth century when pleuro pneumonia infection spread through the bullock teams and as better made roads became more common. Camels were imported for use as transport in extremely arid regions from the 1860s and were used extensively at the turn of the century. Donkey and mule teams also came into greater use at the end of the nineteenth century in arid areas, but they did not play a significant role in comparison to horses and bullocks. By the early twentieth century all forms of animal drawn transport had suffered the same fate. Truckies took over where the bullockies left off.

Many of the bullockies were Irish, but only a handful were women. The idea of a girl masquerading as a man and working as a bullocky is not too far-fetched. I have unearthed stories of real-life female bullockies in the course of my research.

Agnes Buntine lived in the remote bush, raised eleven children in a bark hut, cared for an invalid husband and won an income from work that was hard, dangerous and lonely. She was one of Australia’s bush heroines and one of three known women bullockies who worked in Australia in the mid-eighteen hundreds. ‘Mother Buntine’, as she was known, led a life that would make most modern day feminists blanch! She could ride after stock, kill and dress a bullock, use a pick and shovel, split posts and rails, build fences and of course, handle horses and bullocks.

Mother Buntine earned her name from being the first white woman in Gippsland, but her reputation was hard won. She moved to the inaccessible Gippsland area in 1841 with her ailing husband and his five children. At the age of nineteen she had the first of her own six children and almost simultaneously set off on her unique career as a bullocky. She was soon beating the other bullockies at their game by carting stores into the most remote of the newly-settled areas. As her reputation grew, so did her business. She was often amongst the first of the bullockies to get stores to the new goldfields.

Mrs Buntine knew how to protect herself and other women in those wild frontier regions. If men were insolent she boxed their ears and twisted their necks. Travelling through the frontier town of Bald Hills she came across a drunken ruffian accosting a young innocent girl. She put the other onlookers to shame by taking her bullock whip to the man and thrashing him sober.

Margaret Hutchison had a similar penchant for adventure, but did not share Mrs Buntine’s humble beginnings. Margaret was the daughter of Lady Jean and Sir Colin McKenzie of Woolmit Castle in Scotland. She came to Australia in 1839 with her husband, who died two years later, leaving her alone to raise their children in the fledgling colony of Victoria. She heard about good land in the South East of South Australia and she set out on foot, with a small gig for her six children and her all provisions and household goods piled high onto a bullock wagon. In South Australia she established a successful sheep station which she named Woolmit after her childhood home.

Finally, there was Margaret McTavish, who according her to father, was a wild and wilful girl. He considered that riding a horse astride was outrageous behaviour and he gave her a beating that kept her in bed for weeks. As soon as she could walk again, she ran away, taking refuge with the Aborigines for a month. Her father tracked her down, and to stop her escaping again he burnt the soles of her feet with a hot iron. This only strengthened her resolve to flee, and flee she did. At the tender age of fourteen she dressed herself in boy’s clothing and made her escape. Calling herself Tommy, she took up life as a bullocky’s offsider, then as a bullocky and horsebreaker in her own right.

Her disguise was so good that the other bullockies accepted her as a mate and apparently her father passed her in the street, not knowing who she was. She was badly injured when she had an accident while breaking in a horse. When medical attention was sought, her true sex became clear. Her employer, who refused to believe that she was a girl, declared that ‘a better chum had never existed’. She gave up her masquerade at this point and settled down to an easier life - she married and had seven children!

Bullocks did drown in the winter mud in Adelaide's main streets during the late 1840s. Several working teams still exist in Australia today and the history and folklore of the bullockies is kept alive through the Bullockies Association.

The Wild Colonial Boy is an Australian ballad of Irish origin. It is the story of the legendary Australian bushranger Bold Jack Donohoe. A song about him was sung in the taverns around the Colony and was the song most frequently sung by the bullockies around the campfire at night.   The song became so popular that the authorities banned it as seditious. Today it is known as the classic Australian song of rebellion, The Wild Colonial Boy.

Like most traditional folk songs, there were many variations and the original composer is unknown.

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