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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Here is an episode from our ten episode

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Speaker 1: playlist that we're calling Offbeat History. Yeah, we're adding this

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Speaker 1: to our our regular publishing schedule as one kind of

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Speaker 1: big drop all at the same time on March nineteen,

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Speaker 1: and that is so that you have maybe have a

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Speaker 1: little bit of extra entertainment options available to you, particularly

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Speaker 1: if you are self quarantined or sheltering in place. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Stuff you missed in History Class a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Uh So, the US,

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Speaker 1: as well as many other parts of the world, but

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the US today has a well established

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Speaker 1: farming tradition and livestock is a huge part of that.

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Speaker 1: So when you think about American farming, you may envision

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Speaker 1: herds of cattle, or pig farms or even free range

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Speaker 1: chick ends when you think about what the livestock landscape

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Speaker 1: looks like. But there was a time when a very

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Speaker 1: different animal was being considered as a potential source of meat.

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Speaker 1: Uh This is one of those episodes that turned into

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Speaker 1: two because there is so much wild and really enjoyable

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Speaker 1: stuff here, and even so uh, two of the main

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Speaker 1: characters could easily fill episodes on their own outside of

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Speaker 1: what we include in this episode. And there's even more

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Speaker 1: to this story than we can include in two episodes.

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Speaker 1: But today we're going to talk about those two men

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Speaker 1: in their early lives and what led them to a

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Speaker 1: really wild partnership where they were working to try to

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Speaker 1: convince the US Congress, the press, and wealthy investors that

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Speaker 1: hippo bacon was the food that should be on American plates.

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Speaker 1: I really did just say hippo bacon. That's a bad idea.

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Speaker 1: This is such a wild story because that in and

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Speaker 1: of itself is kind of like a when I have

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Speaker 1: told people that this is what I was researching to

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Speaker 1: talk about, that sends them into peals of laughter and

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Speaker 1: like they are very excited to talk about it. But

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Speaker 1: then there's so much more because this is a story

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Speaker 1: with spies in it, swampland congress wars, as well as

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Speaker 1: of course hippos. So in nineteen ten, the United States

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Speaker 1: was really facing a big meat shortage. Immigration had caused

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Speaker 1: a huge surge in population and the meat industry really

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Speaker 1: couldn't keep up. Its attempts to keep up had led

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Speaker 1: to some pretty dicey and disgusting practices, and additionally, overgrazing

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Speaker 1: of food animals had caused really serious damage to the

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Speaker 1: lands where cattle were normally raised. Things were becoming dire

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Speaker 1: enough that people were considering using dogs as food, which

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Speaker 1: is a normal part of cuisine and other parts of

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Speaker 1: the world, but it's definitely taboo in the United States. Yeah, basically,

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of people brainstorming a lot of

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Speaker 1: different ways that we could supplement the meat um supply

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Speaker 1: here in the US as things were getting really, really

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Speaker 1: quite dire for a lot of people. But the grazing

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Speaker 1: lands that still did work that we're still viable. We're

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Speaker 1: already occupied by cattle and a lot of them. As

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Speaker 1: we said, we're in terrible shape even for that. However,

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Speaker 1: one thing that is very prevalent, particularly in the Southeast,

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Speaker 1: are swamps and bayous, and they were not being used

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Speaker 1: for farming. They were largely regarded at this point as

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Speaker 1: waste land. And moreover, uh, the floating water hyacinth that

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Speaker 1: was found in these swamp lands was growing out of control.

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Speaker 1: Water hyacinth had originated in the Amazon Basin and it's

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Speaker 1: considered an invasive nuisance plant because it can choke up

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Speaker 1: natural waterways, and it's extremely heavy. An acre, which is

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Speaker 1: a little less than half a hector of these plants

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Speaker 1: can weigh as much as two hundred tons, which is

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Speaker 1: more than a hundred and eighty one thousand kilograms. And

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Speaker 1: the water hyacinth was introduced to the US in eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty four at the New Orleans Exposition, and it was

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Speaker 1: a gift from the Japanese delegation. But once it was

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Speaker 1: accepted as a gift and moved into the area, it's

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Speaker 1: spread at a downright alarming rate. Water hyacinth actually grows

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Speaker 1: more quickly than any other tested plants. Within seventy years

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Speaker 1: of reaching Florida, this plant had covered an estimated hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenty six thousand acres that's fifty hectares of waterways,

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Speaker 1: and it made them very difficult to traverse by boat.

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Speaker 1: It was really clogging up the existing system I imagine,

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Speaker 1: crowding out other other plant and animal life. Correct to

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Speaker 1: fight the overgrowing plant species and to try to provide

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Speaker 1: a new answer to what the media was calling the

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Speaker 1: meat question, Robert Brussard, who was a congressman from Louisiana,

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Speaker 1: hatched a plan they would import hippos. The hippos would

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Speaker 1: theoretically eat all the hyacinth, and then they would be

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Speaker 1: used for their meat. But Brussard couldn't convince the rest

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Speaker 1: of Congress that his idea would work without help from

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Speaker 1: some experts. In addition to a researcher named William Newton

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Speaker 1: Irwin who actually specialized in fruit trees but was very

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Speaker 1: interested in the viability of this hippo idea, Brussar brought

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Speaker 1: two men together for his team of experts, named Frederick

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Speaker 1: Russell Burnham and Fritz Duchane. Frederick Russell Burnham was an

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Speaker 1: explorer and a really intense man. He's rumored to be

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Speaker 1: one of the potential inspirations for Indiana Jones. He thought

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Speaker 1: that quote civilizing Africa was an important effort. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: kind of just a quick We're going to talk a

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Speaker 1: lot more about him in a minute, but that sort

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Speaker 1: of gives you an idea of kind of who he

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Speaker 1: was in terms of being an explorer and a conqueror

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Speaker 1: of sorts. On the other hand, Fritz Duchaine was a chameleon. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He was, And this is one of those words that

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Speaker 1: were going to get a million pronunciation corrections on because

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Speaker 1: there are many different ways to say it, um the

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Speaker 1: Dutch or for CON's version, my understanding is Boer, but

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Speaker 1: Boer is very common in the when you're a native

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Speaker 1: English speaker, or even like just or even Bore. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of ways people say this word.

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Speaker 1: So his family were descendants of Dutch settlers who had

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Speaker 1: moved to Africa, and Duquesne really has a fascinating life story.

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Speaker 1: He used numerous aliases throughout his life and in many

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Speaker 1: ways was considered a grade A con man. Both Burnham

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Speaker 1: and Duquesne had fought in the Second Boer War on

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Speaker 1: opposite sides. The Second Boer War, also called the South

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Speaker 1: African War or the Anglo bor War, went on from

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Speaker 1: October eleventh eight to May thirty first, nineteen o two.

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Speaker 1: Great Britain went to war against two Bore republics, the

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Speaker 1: South African Republic and the Orange Free State. This was

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Speaker 1: an expensive war for Britain, though their troops really far

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Speaker 1: outnumbered the Boar troops at five hundred thousand British troops

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Speaker 1: to the Boers thousand. Yeah, you would think they were uh.

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Speaker 1: They they had the enemy so outgunned that it would

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Speaker 1: be a quick in and out, but it really costs

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Speaker 1: them a lot, both to send the people there in

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Speaker 1: the first place and to maintain it. Uh So, in

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Speaker 1: this war, Burnham worked as a spy for the British

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Speaker 1: and Duquesne as a spy for the Boers. The two

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Speaker 1: men were actually given missions to kill one another during

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Speaker 1: the conflict, although they probably never knew each other personally.

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Speaker 1: So that brings up the question of how did they

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Speaker 1: both end up working to bring hippos to Louisiana. So

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Speaker 1: we're gonna tell that story starting with talking about Burnham.

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Speaker 1: And first though, we're gonna have a brief word from

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Speaker 1: a sponsor. So Frederick Russell Burnham, as we said, we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about him in a bit more detail,

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Speaker 1: was born in southern Minnesota in eighteen sixty one. So

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Speaker 1: during the Dakota War of eighteen sixty two and even

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Speaker 1: after that, the Burnhams often found themselves in danger being

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Speaker 1: white settlers in this area, and at times Frederick's father,

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Speaker 1: who was actually a Presbyterian minister, would arm himself to

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Speaker 1: protect his wife and child against attacks that were sometimes

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Speaker 1: made on white settlers, and there were several times they

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Speaker 1: found themselves in danger of being attacked. When Frederick was

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Speaker 1: two and his father Edwin was away, his mother Rebecca

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Speaker 1: saw a group of Lakoda men emerging from the forest

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Speaker 1: near their home. She knew that she could not run

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Speaker 1: from them while also carrying a toddler, so she hid

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Speaker 1: Frederick in a pile of corn and told him to

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Speaker 1: stay still and be quiet. She then ran six miles,

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Speaker 1: which is a little less than ten kilometers. Meanwhile, the

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Speaker 1: Lakota men she had seen burned the house down, but

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Speaker 1: little Frederick stayed quiet and still as he had been

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Speaker 1: instructed to do, and he was still waiting there silently

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Speaker 1: in the corn pile the next morning when his mother

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Speaker 1: got back. Yeah, that's one of those incidents where, when

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Speaker 1: he recounted it later, he would say that was like

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Speaker 1: the beginning of his training as a scout in a spy. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He stayed tough as nails throughout his childhood. At the

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Speaker 1: age of nine, he actually punctured a lung when a

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Speaker 1: log fell on him, but he recovered and he continued

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Speaker 1: to be very adventurous. He his spirit did not seem

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Speaker 1: dampened by this injury at all. The family moved briefly

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Speaker 1: to California, a couple of years later, although Edwin did

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Speaker 1: not live much longer than that, and after his death,

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Speaker 1: Rebecca returned east and Frederick, who was only thirteen at

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Speaker 1: the time, decided he was going to stay behind and

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Speaker 1: get a job, in part to pay off the money

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Speaker 1: that Rebecca had had to borrow to finance her travel

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Speaker 1: back home. He sort of famed for often riding horse

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Speaker 1: after horse to exhaustion, so he would basically just ride

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Speaker 1: a horse till it couldn't go anymore. He wouldn't take

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Speaker 1: a break, he would just switch to a new mount

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Speaker 1: when that previous one was exhausted, and then he would

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Speaker 1: continue to run messages. And he worked from a base

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Speaker 1: of operations in Los Angeles, and from there he ran

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Speaker 1: roots out to Anaheim, Santa Monica, and Pasadena. So he

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Speaker 1: just was kind of this tireless, hard working, super adventurous kid.

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Speaker 1: And again he was only thirteen when he was doing

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Speaker 1: all of this. When he was fourteen, he briefly lived

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Speaker 1: with relatives in Clinton, Iowa, but he became bored and

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Speaker 1: restless pretty quickly, so he ran away. A year later.

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Speaker 1: He made his way down the Mississippi in a stolen canoe,

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Speaker 1: eventually ending up in Texas. There he met an old

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Speaker 1: scout named Holmes, who taught him all about how to

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Speaker 1: make his way through varying types of terrain. Holmes and

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Speaker 1: other old timers in the area gave Burnham a whole

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Speaker 1: education in the skills he would need in survival uh

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Speaker 1: and you know, gave him the knowledge that he would

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Speaker 1: need to prosper on his own. Burnham also became a

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Speaker 1: really expert shooter during this time. He actually practiced to

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Speaker 1: shoot ambidextrously so that he would have equal skill in

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Speaker 1: both hands, and he really got to a point where

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Speaker 1: he had great precision. He also trained himself to handle

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Speaker 1: almost any hardship he might encounter on missions as a scout,

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Speaker 1: So he trained himself to go without food, sleep, and

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Speaker 1: water to endure great pain. And allegedly he trained himself

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Speaker 1: to slow his own heartbeat. And he developed this unique

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Speaker 1: food source that he would use throughout his life. UH

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Speaker 1: that enabled him to travel fairly light and stealthily, and

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Speaker 1: also so he would not have to cook as he traveled,

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Speaker 1: because if you are trying to travel on the download,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to be starting a campfire. So to

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Speaker 1: do this, he would pulverize dried venison into a powder,

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Speaker 1: and then he would mix that powder with flour and

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Speaker 1: bake this into little loaves that he could put in

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Speaker 1: his his little bag, and he could eat a little

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Speaker 1: bit of it each day and keep himself going. This

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Speaker 1: sort of made me think of it being the wild

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Speaker 1: West Scout version of Limbus. I always think that uh

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Speaker 1: limbus is a vegetarian food. But you know, that's just

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Speaker 1: me well, just in that it's like this thing that's

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Speaker 1: very sustaining and that you can carry for long periods

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Speaker 1: of time. It wasn't so much the content that made

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Speaker 1: me think of Limbus. So he tried his hand at

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Speaker 1: searching for gold in the American Southwest, but he only

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Speaker 1: met with success one time. He used the money that

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Speaker 1: he got from this one success to go back to Iowa,

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Speaker 1: where he returned to a young lady named Blanche Blick.

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Speaker 1: The two of them got married and moved to Pasadena

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Speaker 1: to start a citrus grove. They weren't very successful at

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Speaker 1: doing this, though, and his restlessness eventually led him to

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Speaker 1: speak adventure again. This time he headed for Africa with

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Speaker 1: his wife and their infant son, Roderick. The three of

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Speaker 1: them departed on New Year's Day, and eventually landed in

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Speaker 1: South Africa. So, while he was not a particularly big

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Speaker 1: and his reputation was enormous, and he first made a

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Speaker 1: name for himself as a freelance scout. So for a price,

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Speaker 1: he would, for example, creep into enemy territory in search

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Speaker 1: of information. He would patrol for interlopers, he would perform

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Speaker 1: discreet acts of sabotage, and he eventually got the nickname

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Speaker 1: King of Scouts for his skill and his stealth, and

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Speaker 1: he was described by the militaryman he sometimes served as

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Speaker 1: being half jack rabbit and half wolf. He was also

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Speaker 1: pretty disarming in social situations. He loved to tell stories

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Speaker 1: of his adventures in Africa and in the American Indian territories.

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Speaker 1: One tale of his skill at entertaining a gathering goes

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Speaker 1: that he was, you know, spending a tale at one

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Speaker 1: of his skirmishes that he had been in Africa, and

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Speaker 1: at one point in the middle of the story, he said,

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Speaker 1: we'll kill that snake when I finished this story, And

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Speaker 1: then he gestured casually to a rattlesnake that had been

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Speaker 1: heading towards the group and their outdoor gathering, but no

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Speaker 1: one else had noticed it before that point. Yeah, just

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Speaker 1: cools a cucumber. I'm going to get to that snake.

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Speaker 1: Let me finish what I was saying, which then becomes

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Speaker 1: a wonderful, hilarious story in and of itself. It's probably

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Speaker 1: no surprise then that a man like Burnham, who was

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Speaker 1: full of swagger and this sort of old school machiessm

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Speaker 1: was friends with Theodore Roosevelt. I swear I did not

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Speaker 1: mean to make a Roosevelt series, because I knew we

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Speaker 1: just talked about Alice. But in fact, Burnham made friends

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Speaker 1: with a lot of people in high places, particularly if

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Speaker 1: they were men that were like him, that were drawn

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Speaker 1: to adventure. They He just kind of always connected with

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Speaker 1: those kinds of people. While he was traveling in Rhodesia,

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Speaker 1: he became friends with Englishman Robert baden Powell, and eventually

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Speaker 1: Baden Powell would found the Boy Scouts, inspired in part

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Speaker 1: by Burnham's adventurous spirit and fortitude. And we're gonna continue

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Speaker 1: to talk about Burnham's life in the time he spent

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Speaker 1: in Africa, as well as his activities once he returned

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Speaker 1: to the US. After we have a brief word from

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Speaker 1: one of our sponsors, So we talked about how Burnham

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Speaker 1: was eating these like dried venison cake things, and he

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Speaker 1: continued throughout his life to eat other odd stuff in

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Speaker 1: the interest of not letting his stomach get in the

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Speaker 1: way of what he needed to do. He would live

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Speaker 1: off of milk and ox blood or stolen uncooked corn

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Speaker 1: during his adventures in Africa, even if these were misery

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Speaker 1: to eat. Yeah, if you've ever eaten uncooked corn, like

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Speaker 1: fresh not even entirely ripe corn, that is not easy

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Speaker 1: to eat. There are also stories that he would sometimes

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Speaker 1: eat rotten produce that had been discarded that he would

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Speaker 1: kind of snatch so that he would stay on the

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Speaker 1: d l keep himself fed, but not not necessarily in

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Speaker 1: the most delightful or yummy of ways. Uh. And while

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Speaker 1: the Burnhams were actually in Africa, they had a second child,

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Speaker 1: the daughter named Nada, and the family was actually caught

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Speaker 1: in the conflict of the Second Matabili War when they

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Speaker 1: were living just outside the city of Bulawayo. And this conflict,

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Speaker 1: combined with a horrible livestock virus, actually resulted in a

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Speaker 1: huge tragedy for Frederick. So, while this colony that they

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Speaker 1: were in was constantly under siege, his two year old

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Speaker 1: daughter not a developed an intense fever and she eventually

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Speaker 1: died and uh when Burnham identified the leader of the

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Speaker 1: uprising that had been behind this attack on the colony,

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Speaker 1: he is said to have tracked him to a cave

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Speaker 1: where he shot him, and Burnham would later write that

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Speaker 1: he the whole time this conflict was happening with this man,

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Speaker 1: where he was killing this man, he had these visions

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Speaker 1: of his wife clutching their dying daughter, and that sort

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Speaker 1: of drove him to this murder. He left Africa the

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Speaker 1: following year, chasing rumors of gold once again, but then

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Speaker 1: he abandoned that enterprise when he was called back to

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Speaker 1: Africa to serve in the Second Boer War. After that

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Speaker 1: war was over, he spoke with a great deal of

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Speaker 1: respect about the Boars, and especially he was impressed with

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Speaker 1: their lead scout and another man reporting to the lead

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Speaker 1: scout he went by the name Black Panther of the Veld.

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Speaker 1: He would later say that the Black Panther, who he

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Speaker 1: had actually spent the war trying to kill, was the

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Speaker 1: craftiest man he had ever met, and in truth, that

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Speaker 1: Black Panther was Fritz Duquesne. As we said at the

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Speaker 1: top of the episode, they had actually been assigned to

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Speaker 1: kill each other so that they could eliminate these very

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Speaker 1: stealthy scouts the other side each had. Burnham had actually

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Speaker 1: been captured during this conflict, but he managed to avoid

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Speaker 1: being identified by showing how very smart and philosophical he was,

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Speaker 1: since he knew that the description the Boers had of

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Speaker 1: him described him as an Offish American, and so he

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Speaker 1: kind of led this brief double life. But he eventually

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Speaker 1: made an escape in the dark of night, and he

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Speaker 1: spent the next week's cutting the Boers supply lines and

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Speaker 1: blowing up their railways after dodging a great deal of

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Speaker 1: fire while he was hunkered down in the brush, Burnham

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Speaker 1: was eventually retrieved by British forces and he was sent

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Speaker 1: to England to be treated for his injuries. He actually

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Speaker 1: met Winston Churchill on the ship to London. Soon Blanche

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Speaker 1: and the couple's third child, Bruce, joined him. Another tragedy struck, though,

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Speaker 1: because young Bruce later drowned in the Thames. Their oldest son, Roderick,

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Speaker 1: at this point, was nineteen and was in school in California.

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Speaker 1: He had actually had a premonition about Bruce's death, which

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Speaker 1: he relayed to his grandmother before they got the news

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Speaker 1: of the child's passing. The Burnham's returned to Pasadena once uh,

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Speaker 1: Frederick was recovered and they were still grieving. Uh So

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Speaker 1: they were morning and regrouping there. And it was during

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Speaker 1: this time that the scout began working on an article

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Speaker 1: that he would eventually publish in early nineteen ten. And

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Speaker 1: that article was called Transplanting African Animals. And this article,

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Speaker 1: once it came out, immediately got people talking, and because

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Speaker 1: of the meat shortage, all kinds of people wanted to

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Speaker 1: speak with Frederick Burnham. And that's where we're going to

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Speaker 1: cliffhan this one. In our next episode, we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk more about how Burnham and another wild character worked

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Speaker 1: with Robert Brussar to try to bring hippo's in the

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Speaker 1: United States as livestock, which still is a terrible idea,

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Speaker 1: but also terribly funny to think about. It's funny except

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Speaker 1: that hippos are actually really aggressive and territorial and they

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Speaker 1: will look just that murder. Only that gets left out

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Speaker 1: of a lot of the discussion. Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for joining us today for this classic. If you have

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Speaker 1: heard any kind of email address or maybe a Facebook

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Speaker 1: you are l During the course of the episode that

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Speaker 1: might be obsolete. It might be doubly obsolete because we

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Speaker 1: have changed our email address again. You can now reach

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Speaker 1: us at history podcast at i heart radio dot com,

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Speaker 1: and we're all over social media at missed in History

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Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,

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Speaker 1: Google podcasts, the I heart Radio app, and wherever else

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Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts. Stuffy miss in History Class is

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Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H m

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Speaker 1: hm