Italy's 'white raja': the fabulous life of Celso Cesare Moreno

Abstract

Cesar Moreno is best known for his public life in America, including as the most short-lived foreign minister of the Kingdom of Hawaii. But his flamboyant younger years in the mid-19th century were spent in Asia. He spent several years in India, in Aceh (Sumatra) and in China, in each case positioning himself against imperialism, especially of the English. He sympathised (and perhaps fought) with the Indian rebellion of 1857, encouraged the Sultan of Aceh to defy both Britain and Holland , and sided with the Tai-Ping rebels in China. Can we distinguish his self-promoting personal account of these adventures from the facts? Show more