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Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Eves and welcome to this Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: Today is February nineteen. The day was February seventeen. John Caesar,

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Speaker 1: who had the nickname Black Caesar, was shot dead after

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Speaker 1: escaping his settlement in Australia. Caesar was a bush ranger.

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Speaker 1: In fact, he's thought to be Australia's first bush ranger.

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Speaker 1: Bush Rangers were convicts and outlaws who took to the

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Speaker 1: Australian bush to avoid capture and punishment. Not all of

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Speaker 1: them were violent, but bush rangers did become known as

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Speaker 1: bandits who robbed stage coaches and banks and killed people.

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Speaker 1: Many people came to romanticize bush rangers for their rebellion

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Speaker 1: and anti authoritarianism, but Caesar only had a reputation for

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Speaker 1: his theft and penchant for escaping his confines. In the

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Speaker 1: late seventeen seventies, English captain James Cook charted eastern Australia

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Speaker 1: and claimed it for the British Crown, dubbing it New

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Speaker 1: South Wales, and soon after the British began colonizing New

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Speaker 1: South Wales. In January of seventy eight, the first fleet

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Speaker 1: that had left England the previous year, arrived at Botany

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Speaker 1: Bay on the east coast of Australia. There are likely

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Speaker 1: several reasons for the move. Britain's population was growing, its

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Speaker 1: prisons couldn't accommodate everybody who was sentenced in America, was

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Speaker 1: no longer accepting transported criminals, and the land was prime

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Speaker 1: real estate Britain could expand the Empire, set up a

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Speaker 1: base in the region, and claimed the territory against other

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Speaker 1: places that might claw for that possession. Regardless of the

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Speaker 1: motives behind the colonization. Britain sent eleven vessels in the

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Speaker 1: first fleet, including six transports that held hundreds of convicts.

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Speaker 1: The plan was to put the convicts to work on

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Speaker 1: government farms. When the British realized that the land at

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Speaker 1: Botany Bay wasn't sufficient for their plans, they moved north

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Speaker 1: and established a penal colony in Port Jackson at Sydney Cove.

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Speaker 1: John Black Caesar was one of the convicts who were

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Speaker 1: sent to New South Wales in the first fleet. Caesar's

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Speaker 1: exact ancestry isn't known, but it is known that Caesar

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Speaker 1: was of African descent. Caesar was possibly born in Madagascar

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Speaker 1: or America, as one historian notes, but he later moved

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Speaker 1: to England and became a servant. In Sight six, when

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Speaker 1: he was somewhere around twenty two or twenty three years old,

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Speaker 1: John was charged with stealing money and sentenced to transportation

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Speaker 1: or banishment to a penal colony for seven years. He

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Speaker 1: was imprisoned on the ship the Alexander and sent away

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Speaker 1: to Australia in seventeen eighty seven. Caesar was described as

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Speaker 1: a hard worker but troublesome, and so were many of

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Speaker 1: the convicts who lived in harsh conditions in a struggling

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Speaker 1: colony among indigenous peoples who were not all welcoming of

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Speaker 1: the British immigrants in their problems. In April of seventeen

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Speaker 1: eighty nine, John was once again tried for theft at

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Speaker 1: the Criminal Court, but this time he was sentenced to

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Speaker 1: a life term of transportation that meant he was destined

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Speaker 1: to live out the rest of his days in subjugation

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Speaker 1: in Australia. So Caesar fled and took refuge in the bush, or,

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Speaker 1: as Lieutenant Governor David Collins put it at the time,

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Speaker 1: Caesar had at quote take into the woods with some provisions,

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Speaker 1: an iron pot, and a soldier's musket, which he had

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Speaker 1: found means to steal. Caesar was soon caught and sent

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Speaker 1: to work at Garden Island and chains, but that wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be his last getaway. Caesar was a character for sure,

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Speaker 1: a fact made clear by contemporary descriptions of him. Collins

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Speaker 1: set the following about Caesar in his book An Account

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Speaker 1: of the English Colony in New South Wales. This man

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Speaker 1: was always reputed the hardest working convict in the country.

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Speaker 1: His frame was muscular and well calculated for heart labor,

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Speaker 1: but in his intellects he did not very widely differ

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Speaker 1: from a brute. His appetite was ravenous, for he could

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Speaker 1: in any one day devour the full ration for two days.

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Speaker 1: To gratify this appetite, he was compelled to steal from others,

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Speaker 1: and all his stuffs were directed to that purpose. He

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Speaker 1: was such a wretch and so indifferent about meeting death,

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Speaker 1: that he declared while in confinement that if he should

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Speaker 1: be hanged, he would create a laugh before he was

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Speaker 1: turned off by playing off some trick upon the executioner.

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Speaker 1: That same year, Caesar was allowed to work without chains,

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Speaker 1: and he escaped in a stolen canoe with the gun,

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Speaker 1: he tried to make do in the bush by robbing gardens,

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Speaker 1: threatening aborigines and taking their food, but the Aborigines ended

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Speaker 1: up spearing him and he returned to camp in early

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Speaker 1: seventeen ninety. In March, Caesar was sent to Norfolk Island,

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Speaker 1: where he got land in a hog. The next year

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Speaker 1: he was given one acre or nearly half a hectare

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Speaker 1: and told to work three days a week, and in

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Speaker 1: seventeen ninety two he had a daughter with a woman

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Speaker 1: named and Power, who had been sent to Australia on

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Speaker 1: the Lady Juliana, a ship that transported female convicts. But

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Speaker 1: Caesar soon left his family and went back to Port

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Speaker 1: Jackson in seventeen nine. He stole off again in seventeen

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Speaker 1: ninety four, but was soon back in custody. But even

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Speaker 1: after being punished severely for escaping, John allegedly said that

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Speaker 1: quote all that would not make him better. Collins frequently

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Speaker 1: referred to Caesar as incorrigible, but Collins had a lot

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Speaker 1: of choice words to say about John and the other

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Speaker 1: people living in New South Wales. I'd say Caesar was

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Speaker 1: relentless in his pursuit of some sort of freedom. He

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Speaker 1: escaped for the final time in December sev leading a

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Speaker 1: band of armed wanderers in the bush in the Port

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Speaker 1: Jackson area. He and the people in his troop were

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Speaker 1: deemed a threat for their thievery, and people were told

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Speaker 1: not to supply the vagabonds with ammunition. But clearly Caesar

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Speaker 1: had had enough. He said he wouldn't turn himself in

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Speaker 1: or be captured alive, so Governor Hunter offered five gallons

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Speaker 1: of spirits to the person who caught him. John Wimbo,

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Speaker 1: who had been hunting for Caesar for days, found Caesar

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Speaker 1: and shot him on the morning of Monday, February sev.

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Speaker 1: John Black. Caesar died that day. In a columnist hut

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Speaker 1: at Liberty plains, I'm eaves, Jeff Cote, and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: And here's something else that I learned in researching this episode.

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Speaker 1: It said that Caesar wounded Pemma Boy, and colonists celebrated

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Speaker 1: that one good deed of his as Pemma Boy was

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Speaker 1: an Aboriginal warrior and resistance leader who had conducted raids

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Speaker 1: on the colonists. A lot of the Aboriginal people resisted colonization,

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Speaker 1: but many of them died at the hands of the

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Speaker 1: colonists who spread disease, stole aborigines belongings, abused girls, and

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Speaker 1: committed massacres. Catch you all tomorrow for another episode mm

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Speaker 1: HM