General José Celestino da Silva, GOIC, ComNSC (6 January 1849 – 10 February 1911) was a Portuguese Army officer and colonial administrator.

Celestino da Silva was born in Vilar de Nantes [pt], Chaves, Portugal, on 6 January 1849.

From Celestino da Silva's point of view, future wars could only be prevented if the military, civilian officials and the missionaries did a good job.

[5][6] He founded schools in various parts of the colony where the population was taught the basics of agriculture in order to apply them to coffee cultivation for export.

[7] He also set up regular sea connections with Macau and Australia, and a colonial telephone network several hundred kilometres long.

In 1897, he established the Sociedade Agrícola Pátria e Trabalho (SAPT), which eventually acquired wide-ranging monopolies in the colony, and even after World War II was majority owned by his descendants.

In the late 1950s, the Banco Nacional Ultramarino decided to issue new Portuguese Timorese escudo banknotes depicting Celestino da Silva's image to replace the previously circulating Portuguese Timorese pataca notes.