Before the railway system linked South Africa’s major cities in the mid-1890s, the country was largely dependent on a horse-drawn economy. Diamonds from Griqualand West and gold from the Witwatersrand were transported by coach and horses to distant ports for export. For some Irish soldiers based at Fort Napier in Pietermaritzburg, this temptation proved impossible to resist: they deserted in droves and, as members of what later became known as the criminal ‘Irish Brigade, ‘ they embarked on a spree of bank, safe, and highway robberies across southern Africa.
With tales of heists, safe-cracking, illegal gold dealings, prison breaks, and hidden roadside treasure, Masked Raiders follows the exploits of legendary Irish brigands such as the Mc Keone brothers and ‘One-Armed Jack’ Mc Loughlin, who ravaged the subcontinent, from the mining towns of Barberton, Kimberley, and Johannesburg to the borders of Basotholand, Bechuanaland, Mozambique, and Rhodesia in the years leading up to the Jameson Raid in South Africa.
Cuprins
Introduction
1. From Agrarian Ireland and Industrial Lancashire to Natal’s College of Banditry
2. Deserters and Navvies: Birth of an ‘Irish Brigade’
3. Bank Robbers in the Kingdom of the Imagination
4. Coach Robbers and Highwaymen in the Pre-Rail Era
5. Safe-Robbers and Blasters of the Witwatersrand
6. The Parameters of Popular Support: Criminal Heroes, Outlaw Legends and Social Bandits
7. The Birth and Death of ‘Outlaw Legends’: Social Banditry in a Racially Divided Setting
8. Illicit Gold Buying, the Arrival of the Advanced Irish Nationalists and the Loss of the Dorothea
Conclusion: The Irish Brigade and Anti-Imperialist Struggles in Retrospect
Note on Sources
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index
Despre autor
Charles van Onselen, Research Professor at the University of Pretoria, is author of The Cowboy Capitalist: John Hays Hammond, the American West, and the Jameson Raid in South Africa, among other books.
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