Joshua Abraham Norton was born circa 1814. His birth took place in England, but afterwards Norton spent some thirty years of his life in South Africa, then a part of the British Empire. In 1849, after his parents had died, Norton left South Africa, heading towards the United States in order to try his hand at entrepreneurship in the New World. Following China’s ban on the export of rice due to an internal famine, Norton invested heavily in what he saw as a lucrative business opportunity: Peruvian rice. For a number of reasons, the endeavour proved disastrous and left Norton penniless...