I had this thought watching Django Unchained. Was there ever any romance or historical background of quickdraw artists in other parts of the world?
During that period Australia was also a British colony in a wild and seemingly inhospitable land. There was constant conflict between armed settlers and indigenous Australians which often ended in bloodshed and massacres. Australia also had the bushrangers. Escaped convicts and wild colonials that acted as raiders and highwaymen in the areas less frequently patrolled by troopers.
This is all horribly simplified and I would recommend 'The Fatal Shore' by Robert Hughes if you wanted a more in depth look at Australia's colonial past.
I would also recommend the recent film 'The Proposition' as a pretty accurate Australian version of the traditional American western. (warning: graphic violence!)
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries in the northeast of Brazil, there was a phenomenon called "cangaço". It's often thought of as a reaction to the dominant social order of the time, "coronelismo", a sort of patronage system in which local farm bosses exerted great power in both government and private life.
The cangaçeiros, unhappy with the economic options available to them, took to banditry to make a living and developed their own particular cowboy-like style. They commonly carried revolvers and carbines and dressed in ornately decorated leather outfits, boots, and hats.
The legacy of the cangaçeiros is highly romanticized. Folk tales abound about Lampião and his wife Maria Bonita in particular. Lampião was named for the speed of his shooting, which was said to light up a room like a lantern. Their gang is said to have been beloved by the people and reviled by the bosses in equal measure. One popular story describes their descent on the town of Queimadas, where they are said to have freed the jailed, jailed the police, robbed the rich, and used their money to buy supplies to hold a grand party for the townspeople and the gang.
Lampião and Maria Bonita went out in a blaze of glory, much like their American contemporaries Bonnie and Clyde. The location of their camp betrayed by a gang member, they were ambushed in the woods at dawn by a police force armed with machine guns, ending Lampião's near 20-year reign.
The butteri from what were then the northern and southernost areas of Latium (in the Papal States) had to live near, and conduct their herds through, that region's inhospitable swamps; there were also plenty of brigands so it was not unusual for them to carry knives and and a gun on their persons.
They also lived (well, some of them still do!) in the Maremma area of Southern Tuscany.
If I can add a followup question: where did the concept of "quick draw"-style duels originate? Of course it never seems to make much sense that a duelist would wait for the other person to move first.
I once saw a Hitchcock short based on the questionable premise that this allows you to claim self-defense; could that short have been the origin? I remember thinking it didn't seem old enough for that (and I'm not sure this logic applies to most Western duels, where one or both participants may already be wanted criminals).
