Date
March 05, 2024
Moonlite Makes Camp (2024)
Captain Moonlite is the queer hero at the centre of the fictional narrative of this work. There were no queer heroes in regional Victoria in the 1970s and 80s, when I was growing up. Hero status belonged to ‘real men’!
As a ‘real man’, the bushranger, Ned Kelly, has become an Australian hero, icon and romantic myth. He is many things to many people. However, as the novelist Peter Carey points out, while most Australians know some of the factual history of Ned Kelly, we “invent and make-up stories” to fill in the gaps.
So, what about a queer historical hero for me to “invent and make-up stories” about? Enter Andrew George Scott (1842 – 1880), the Victorian bushranger known as Captain Moonlite!
Captain Moonlite gained notoriety as bank robber. He was captured following a shootout with police at Wantabadgery Station near Wagga Wagga in NSW. During the gunfire, Moonlite’s second in command, James Nesbitt was fatally shot. Moonlite was hanged for his crimes in 1880 in Sydney.
There has been a lot of research into the life of Captain Moonlite in recent years, and in particular into his relationship with one of his gang members, James Nesbitt. Based on eyewitness accounts of Moonlite’s anguish at Nesbitt’s death, and his later prison correspondence, it’s clear the two men were lovers. Australia’s history includes a queer bushranger!
Moonlite Makes Camp is a contribution to the creation of a nonsensical mythology based on Captain Moonlite. Along with Bushrangers and Buggery, 2018, (a series of vignettes based on Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly painting series) this work playfully explores and proposes a historical narrative that is only as truthful as I, the queer storyteller, want it to be. I get my own bushranger hero.