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Harry "The Breaker" Harbord Morant (9 December 1864 – 27 February 1902) was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, poet, and military officer. While commanding an elite British Army unit during the Second Boer War, Captain Morant was arrested and court-martialed for war crimes. According to military prosecutors, Morant had retaliated for the combat death of a fellow officer with the summary execution of nine Afrikaner POWs. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Captain Morant was then court-martialed for the murder of a Lutheran minister, Rev. Daniel Heese. The German-born Heese had witnessed the POW massacre, indignantly vowed to inform Morant's commanding officer, and had been shot to death on the way to the British Army HQ. Morant was acquitted of the Heese murder, but his sentence for the POW massacre was carried out by a firing squad drawn from the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders on 27 February 1902. Despite having left a written confession in his cell, Captain Harry Morant has become a folk hero in modern Australia. His court-martial and death have been the subject of books, a stage play, and an award-winning Australian New Wave film adaptation by director Bruce Beresford. Many now regard Morant as a scapegoat or even as the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Beresford has expressed regret that his film has contributed to this belief: "The film never pretended for a moment that they weren't guilty. It said they are guilty. But what was interesting about it was that it analysed why men in this situation would behave as they had never behaved before in their lives. It's the pressures that are put to bear on people in war time... Look at all the things that happen in these countries committed by people who appear to be quite normal. That was what I was interested in examining. I always get amazed when people say to me that this is a film about poor Australians who were framed by the Brits."〔(Telephone interview with Bruce Beresford, 15 May 1999 )〕 ==Early life== It appears that Morant created a number of romantic legends about his past. He was often described as "well-educated" and claimed to have been born in 1865 at Bideford, Devon, England〔Hoofs and Horns, January 1986, ''Breaker Morant, Harry Reddel, Charlie Stewart and others'', p. 65〕 and to have been the illegitimate son of Admiral Sir George Digby Morant of the Royal Navy; a claim repeated as fact by later writers, although the admiral denied it.〔Renar, Frank. ''Bushman and Bucaneer'' 1902〕〔''The Adelaide Advertiser'', 7 April 1902, page 5〕 It is alleged that Morant entrusted his cigarette case and other personal belongings to Major Bolton, who appeared for the prosecution during his courts-martial with the words "see that my family gets them". Years later, when Bolton's daughter allegedly tried to hand them to the family of Sir George, she was told Morant was not related to them. It has been suggested that the young Morant came into the care of a wealthy Scottish author, soldier, hunt-master and golfer, George Whyte-Melville. Like other stories there is no evidence for this theory. The results of enquiries made in 1902 by both ''The Northern Miner'' and ''The Bulletin'' newspapers identified him as Edwin Henry Murrant who had arrived at Townsville in Queensland on the ''SS Waroonga'' in 1883.〔Carnegie, Margaret; Shields, Frank. ''In Search of Breaker Morant – Balladist and Bushveldt Carbineer'' 1979 ISBN 0-9596365-2-8〕 Murrant was born at Bridgwater in Somerset, England, in December 1864, the son of Edwin Murrant and Catherine (née Riely).〔〔Online records show that the birth of an Edwin Henry Murrant was registered in Bridgwater in January–March 1865, the family could have delayed registration by a few weeks. No male birth with the surname Morant was registered anywhere in south-west England (Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset) in 1860-69. ()〕 Edwin and Catherine were Master and Matron of the Union Workhouse at Bridgewater and after Edwin died in August 1864, four months before the birth of his son, Catherine continued her employment as Matron until her retirement in 1882.〔〔''The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 16 February 1882, page 6''〕 She died in 1899 when Morant was in Adelaide, South Australia, preparing to leave for South Africa. Morant settled in outback Queensland, and over the next 15 years, working in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, the charismatic roustabout made a name for himself as a hard-drinking, womanising bush poet and gained renown as a fearless and expert horseman. Harry ''Breaker'' Morant was one of the few horsemen who managed to ride the notorious buckjumper ''Dargin's Grey'' in a battle that became a roughriding legend.〔 Morant worked in a variety of occupations; he reportedly traded in horses in Charters Towers, then worked for a time on a newspaper at Hughenden in 1884, but there are suggestions that he left both towns as a result of debts. He then drifted around for some time until he found work as a bookkeeper and storeman on the Esmaralda cattle station. On 13 March 1884, Morant married Daisy May O'Dwyer, who later became famous as an anthropologist. The Morants separated soon after and never formally divorced; Daisy reportedly threw him out after he failed to pay for the wedding and then stole some pigs and a saddle. He then worked for several years as an itinerant drover and horse-breaker, as well as writing his popular bush ballads, becoming friendly with famed Australian bush poets Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson and William Ogilvie. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Breaker Morant」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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