Black Caesar

An Alternative Strand

Well, that is how one tale goes. Another posits that a convict caught Caesar and that the authorities, sympathetic to Caesar’s capacity for hard work, handed down a reduced punishment and sent him to assist the settlers on Garden Island.

As Christmas of 1789 drew closer, the colonists’ faces grew a little brighter. The idea of cheer slowly turned into to a real, if measured, optimism. Yes, it was a hard existence, but it was also the making of history. Whether they succeeded or failed, they would be noted and remembered. Four days before Christmas, Caesar snuck from his bed, stole a week’s worth of rations and pushed the canoe provided for the small island population into the lapping water. He rowed for the mainland.

The settlers invaded ever further into the land of the Eora, Tharawal and Dharuk. Conflict ensued and killing was done by both sides. Caesar, using a stolen musket, attempted to gain food from the Eora fires. They speared him in return.

Weak from loss of blood and lack of food, he turned himself in at Rose Hill.

Governor Phillip transported him to Norfolk Island. In 1793 he was brought back to the mainland where he soon bolted again. Caught within the week, he was strapped to the back of a cart and lashed.

In 1795 Caesar absconded for the fifth time. His notoriety had brought him popularity and he was celebrated as the perpetrator of each and every theft in the colony. The momentum of his reputation was such that he was attributed with killing Pemulwuy the resistance fighter. But Pemulwuy surfaced alive, adding to his own legend of indestructibility. Another seven years would pass before Pemulwuy’s head was severed from his body and shipped to England.