Black Bunny's Bushrangers (T) - Michael Howe New South Wales, Australia
By Just a cacher on 22-May-21. Waypoint GA10820

Michael Howe

Michael Howe. 

Michael Howe was a British convict who became a notorious bushranger and gang leader in Tasmania.

Howe was born at Pontefract, Yorkshire, England and on 31 July 1811 he was sentenced to seven years transportation for robbing a miller on the highway. He arrived in Van Diemen's Land in October 1812 in the Indefatigable, and was assigned to a Mr. John Ingle, a merchant and grazier. Howe refused the assignment, declaring that, "having served the King, he would be no man's slave".  He escaped, and joined a large party of escaped convicts in the bush.

Howe then became the leader of the bushrangers, and although two of the gang were caught and executed, many robberies ensued. In February 1817 two more bushrangers were shot and another captured.

Howe found a means of sending a letter to Governor Sorell offering to surrender and give information about his former associates on condition that he should be pardoned. He gave himself up to a military officer on this understanding, and was taken to Hobart gaol on 29 April 1817 where he was examined by the magistrates. Howe would quite probably have been pardoned, but at the end of July he escaped and again took to the bush.

Howe had pleaded ill-health and was allowed to walk freely to a doctor in the company of a constable, and he walked ahead of the constable who was distracted and then made his escape. He quickly fell in with some bushrangers which included some of his old companions in arms. He quickly rose to leader but not without tension, two of the gang having incurred his anger so he made short work of them. At midnight, while both were sleeping Howe crept upon them and cut the throat of one and clubbed the others head in with the stock of his gun.

In October 1817 he was betrayed by one of his own men, George Watson and William Drew a shopkeeper. Howe's hands had been tied but he managed to free them, stabbed Watson, and then taking Watson's gun, shot Drew dead. Watson was to die weeks later from his wounds. For nearly a year he hid in the bush, but needing ammunition, on 21 October 1818 he was decoyed to a hut where William Pugh of the 48th regiment and a stock-keeper, Thomas Worrall, were hidden. All three fired and missed but during the struggle which followed, Howe was killed by blows on the head with a musket.

Bushrangers.

Over 2,000 bushrangers are estimated to have roamed the Australian countryside, beginning with the convict bolters and drawing to a close after Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan.

Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term "bushranger" had evolved to refer to those who abandoned social rights and privileges to take up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.

Bushranging thrived during the gold rush years of the 1850s and 1860s when the likes of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner and John Gilbert led notorious gangs in the country districts of New South Wales. These Wild Colonial Boys typically robbed small-town banks and coach services.

In other infamous cases, such as that of Dan Morgan, the Clarke brothers, and Australia's best-known bushranger, Ned Kelly, numerous policemen were murdered.

The number of bushrangers declined due to better policing and improvements in rail transport and communication technology, such as telegraphy. Kelly's capture and execution in 1880 effectively represented the end of the bushranging era.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushranger

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