John Caesar
First Convict Bushranger 1789
John Caesar (1764 – 15 February 1796), nicknamed "Black
Caesar", was the first Australian bushranger and one of the first black people
to arrive during British colonisation of the continent as a penal colony.
Caesar was a slave on a sugar plantation in his early life, most likely born in
Madagascar around 1764. At some point he was able to run away and reach
London.
On 17 March 1786, he was tried at Deptford, Kent for stealing 240 shillings. His
sentence was transportation to Australia for seven years. He left on the
Alexander, a convict transport ship in the First Fleet, in May 1787 and arrived
in Botany Bay in January 1788.
On 29 April 1789 he was tried for theft, to which he resorted presumably due to
the scarcity of food in the newly established colony. He took to the bush a
fortnight later, reportedly with some provisions, an iron pot, and a musket
stolen from a marine named Abraham Hand. A dearth of game prevented him from
sustaining himself however, and he began to steal food on the outskirts of the
settlement. On 26 May he helped himself to a brickmaking gang's rations on
Brickfield Hill and was nearly caught. On the night of June the 6th he tried to
steal food from Zachariah Clark, the "house of the colony's assistant commissary
for stores", and was caught by a convict named Wm. Saltmarsh.
In July 1789, David Collins, the colony's Judge-Advocate, wrote:
"This man was always reputed the hardest working convict in the colony; his
frame was muscular and well calculated for hard labour; but in his intellects he
did not very widely differ from a brute; his appetite was ravenous, for he would
in any one day devour the full rations for two days. To gratify this appetite he
was compelled to steal from others, and all his thefts were directed to that
purpose."
Caesar was described by Collins after his first recapture as a "wretch"
who was "so indifferent about meeting death, that he declared while in
confinement, that if he should be hanged, he would create a laugh before he was
turned off, by playing off some trick upon the executioner". Governor Arthur
Phillip however, took advantage of Casear's potential as a labourer and had him
sent to Garden Island, where he would work in fetters and be provided with
vegetables. There he showed good behavior and as a result was eventually allowed
to work without iron shackles.
Nevertheless, it didn't take long for Caesar to abscond again; on 22 December he
ran away from the island with a week's worth of food by canoe. On the night of
the 25th he was able to procure a musket, and survived for a few days by robbing
gardens and taking the food of Aboriginals after frightening them away with his
gun. At one point he lost his gun in a garden at Rose Hill, and was subsequently
attacked by natives, leaving him wounded in several places. He turned himself in
on the 31st to an Officer on Rose Hill.
On 6 March 1790, Caesar was transported to Norfolk Island after receiving
another pardon from Phillip. There he had one daughter, later baptized as Mary
Ann Fisher Power, to Ann (e) Power. He returned to Sydney in 1793, and began
stealing from the farms and huts on the outskirts of the towns again. He was
apprehended and then flogged to little effect, declaring "all that would not
make him better."
Caesar later became a hero for capturing Pemulwuy, an Aboriginal who had
launched a guerilla war against the British colonists.
In 1795 he ran away for the last time, forming a gang of runaways in the
process. On 29 January 1796, a reward of five gallons of rum was offered by
Governor John Hunter for his capture. Despite almost daily reports of missing
property, he was able to evade capture until 15 February, when a man named
Wimbow, who had been pursuing him with a partner for days, found him in an area
of thick brush called Liberty Plains (near what is now the Concord/Strathfield
area of Sydney) and shot him. Caesar was taken to the house of Rose and died a
few hours later.