The character of Hayduke was based on his friend and author, Doug Peacock, a Vietnam vet that Abbey befriended and traveled with in the Southwest United States. He is most likely named after the Haiduks, rebels in the Ottoman Empire, and one of Eric Hobsbawm's archetypal bandits.

Hayduke is Abbey's codification of the wants, longings, and desires of the average male environmentalist awash in the frustrations of corporate greed and corruption where the voice of the little people remain unheard -- until the little people rise up and take direct action because, as Abbey's Monkey Wrench Gang puts it, "somebody has to do it."

One of the most relevant aspect of Hayduke as a symbol -- as an archetype, in fact -- is the fact that for all the property destruction dished out at the hands of Hayduke during his efforts with The Monkey Wrench Gang, despite the explosions, the excavation equipment ruined, the survey stakes pulled up from mile after seemingly endless mile of soon-to-be-destroyed countryside, Hayduke never hurt, maimed, or killed anyone.

George Washington Hayduke's first set of adventures outlined in The Monkey Wrench Gang leave him stranded at the top of a cliff after a raging storm, surrounded by law enforcement officers in helicopters dropping grenades on his position. Hayduke's body is seen shredded by gunfire as he topples into the maelstrom of the raging canyon waters below, thus ending the last of the Monkey Wrench Gang's heroic work in America's besieged Southwest.

Edward Abbey's first work covering Hayduke was in 1975. In 1989 (the year of Abbey's death) Hayduke Lives! was released. The adventures of Hayduke and the original Monkey Wrench Gang become tied with the activities of more legitimate environmental organizations like Earth First!. The Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front did not exist at the time Abbey wrote The Monkeywrench Gang.

Hayduke was also referenced in other novels by Abbey. In Fire on the Mountain (1968), the owner of the local general store is named "Hayduke." In Good News (1980), the character of Jack Burns attempts to convince his son, now an adult, that he is his father. However, his son refuses to believe him, claiming that his real father was killed while blowing up a dam. Targeting the dam was always Hayduke's highest aspiration.

George Hayduke uses a number of aliases over the course of the books, including:

• Leopold
• Rudolf the Red
• Herman Smith
• Fred Goodsell