Sun, Mar 15, 2009
Historian Michael Cathcart introduces John Macarthur and the powerful faction of landowners, entrepreneurs and local military who take on Governor William Bligh and trigger Australia's only military coup, the Rum Rebellion of 1808. Set in colonial Sydney from the 1790s, the first part of the dramatised documentary history series Rogue Nation delves into the struggle for power and control between ambitious landowners and the colony's British governors. While on the surface a dispute over the importation and sale of rum, the real battle is about access to prime Aboriginal land in a vibrant and growing frontier town of more than 7,000 soldiers, merchants, convicts, civil servants, Aborigines and free settlers. Led by army lieutenant-turned-pastoralist John Macarthur, wealthy landowners and entrepreneurs tackle first Governor Philip King and then his replacement, Governor William Bligh, a naval captain best known for a mutiny aboard his ship, The Bounty. Escalating tension between Macarthur and Bligh leads to the military insurrection and house arrest of Bligh, known as the Rum Rebellion. Bligh returns to England a broken man and a new era of hope arrives with Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who believes in the redemption of convicts and a fair go for all.