John Morgan (9) (1792–1866)

As the reproduced original title page informs, William Buckley was "thirty-two years a wanderer amongst the Aborigines of the then unexplored country round Port Phillip." Buckley was an escaped British convict, but when he emerged from the bush, the white settlers were so intrigued with his long survival among the "savages" that he was not sent to jail. He spent the remainder of his life trying to get a better life and more rights for the First Australians. Morgan was a journalist, and there is some suspicion that he embellished parts of the story to make it more appealing to readers. It nonetheless has considerable value. Buckley describes tools, clothing, animals encountered and hunted, as well as cultural practices. Buckley is the only white person known to have lived for such a very long time among Australian Aborigines while totally cut off from white society, and he experienced their communal life previous to their first contacts with white settlers. (May 2008)… (més)