'John Black Caesar (c.1763-1796), convict and bushranger of unknown African parentage, may have been born on Madagascar. He was a servant living in the parish of St Paul, Deptford, England, in 1786. On 13 March that year at Maidstone, Kent, charged with the theft of some £12 from a dwelling house, he was sentenced to transportation for seven years and sent to the hulk Ceres. He embarked on 6 January 1787 in the Alexander, which reached Botany Bay with the First Fleet on 19 January next year. Popularly known as 'Black Caesar', he became known in the colony as a hard worker and a conscientious labourer.' (Source : Australian Dictionary of Biography)
