WEBVTT - I know You're a Fraud, But What Am I? 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:05.720 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:15.560 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.319 third season of Criminalia. Our first season was all about 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.840 women poisoners, and our second season was all about stalkers. 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.239 But this season we're exploring the lives and motivations of 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.960 some of the most notorious impostors throughout history. I'm Maria 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:35.120 T Marqi and I'm Holly Fry. Marian, I'm so excited 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.120 to be here with you for season three. Oh, it's 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.320 gonna be great. As we did in our first two seasons, 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.440 we planned to look at some of history's transgressions and 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.760 get a better understanding of what really went down. So 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:48.919 we're gonna take a look at how these crimes might 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.920 be seen through today's eyes. As we always say, a 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:54.520 little distance goes a long way. We do always say that. 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.920 So today we're going to talk about a woman who 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.840 pretended to be royalty from a far away island. But 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.319 first we have to talk about what makes an impostor. 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.080 Just to set this whole season up, impostors are people 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.960 who pretend to be someone else for their own game. 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.679 Often that's financial gain, but it's not unheard of for 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.280 an impostor to be dishonest to improve their social status 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.399 or social gain. Some make up a new identity, or 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.319 they steal your identity. Some impostors do it in order 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:30.120 to circumvent on just rules we're going to talk this 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:32.560 season about, you know, women who dressed like men in 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:34.680 order to fight in wars or to go to school. 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.800 And some are simply criminals looking for an easy way 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:44.000 to evade capture. So in today's world, impostors might impersonate 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:48.560 people in organizations that you would ordinarily trust. When someone 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.000 feigning to be the I r S Calls about an 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.480 unpaid bill, you would be inclined to assume that's the 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.640 real deal. They might also pretend to be someone that 0:01:57.680 --> 0:01:59.920 you know, and they may pretend to work for play 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.840 pass such as the Social Security Administration or even your 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.880 local electric company. No matter who they pretend to work for, though, 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.440 their main goal is usually to get you to pay 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.960 them or to get enough of your personal information so 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.160 that they can pay themselves at your expense, and they 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:22.440 will try anyway they can to get that info. Modern 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:27.480 imposter scams often begin with an unsolicited phone call, email, text, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.840 or even social media message, and our technology allows people 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.720 to use techniques like social engineering, which would be fishing 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.280 for confidential or personal information that they might use for 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:43.600 fraudulent purposes against you. You can also meet many of 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.160 today's impostors on dating sites or like we said, social media, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:53.000 where they can have easily created fake profiles. We even 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.799 have the term cat fishing for this behavior. So it's 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.120 super common even with our technology, though it's the same 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.440 destination at always has been no matter what the story. 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:05.560 Many impostors are in it for money, and they will 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.600 eventually ask you to transfer funds to them, usually for 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.880 a reason that sounds pretty plausible and in jail. Right. 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:19.040 So all of that explained, let's finally set our scenes. 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:23.240 So our first impostor is a woman who was born 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:29.000 Mary Wilcox in sevente or two. Anyway, she was born 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.359 to a poor family living in Devon, England, and as 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.640 she became an adult, she adopted a disguise that she 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.680 hoped would make her more interesting to those she considered commoners. 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.480 So she became Princess Caribou, a fictional royal who pretended 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.840 to come from the far far away island of Java Suit. 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:52.960 Java Suit she claimed was located in the Indian Ocean. Okay, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:54.880 it's a little bit early, but we're going to take 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.000 a break here for a word from our sponsors so 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:59.920 that we can keep the narrative of this impostors got 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.720 eyes altogether, and we're going to talk about the woman 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.840 who fooled a whole village into thinking she was royalty. 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:18.440 After this, welcome back to Criminalia. Let's meet the woman 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:23.679 who called herself Princess Caribou. One day in the spring 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.560 of eighteen seventeen, a woman in her mid twenties appeared 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:31.080 in the town of Almondsbury, near Bristol, speaking a never 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.280 heard before language, not a word of English. She wore 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.640 unusual clothing and a black turban on her head, and 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.680 she carried a small bundle with her that contained a 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:46.520 few necessities, so a few halfpennies and a counterfeit sixpence. 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.240 When she first encountered a resident of the village, it 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.760 was the cobbler, and he initially assumed she must be 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:57.520 a foreign peasant or some sort of beggar. The cobbler 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.400 and his wife took her to a man named Mr Overton, 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.640 who was the overseer of the local poorhouse. And if 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.640 you're not familiar with a poorhouse. It was a government 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.320 run facility that was used to house poor people in 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:14.800 a time before social services existed, But it wasn't as 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.640 benevolent as it may sound. The reality was that poor 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:24.000 houses were places of involuntary servitude. Upon seeing the person 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.480 that they would come to know as Princess Cariboo, Overton was, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.760 as others in the town, mystified by her language and 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.720 how she dressed, and so he decided to take her 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.279 to the home of a man named Samuel Warrell, who 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.840 was the town clerk of Bristol and a magistrate. Samuel 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.960 Warrell and his wife Elizabeth, actually took this woman into 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.720 their home in Noll Park, and there the person we 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.040 know is Mary convinced Elizabeth that she was a lost 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.240 princess from the East Indies, which was what they would 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.880 have called it at the time. How she did this 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.279 we don't know. We're presuming a lot of hand gestures 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.599 and pointing at maps as sumed that she was homeless 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.920 and with a counterfeit coin in her pocket. A family 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.479 such as the Worlds, they were high standing family in 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.760 the town. It really couldn't provide accommodations to a woman 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.919 who actually might be a criminal. They didn't know it 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.920 would look poorly among their peers, though she had made 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.000 quite an impression on them. Elizabeth arranged for a room 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.960 for the woman she believed to be a foreign visitor 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:27.680 at a local inn called as far as we can figure, 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:32.160 I love this the Bowl. My new retirement goal is 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:33.880 to start an in and call it the Bowl, and 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:35.840 it'll just be our little in. Joe can let me 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:40.120 feel this. Although the worlds were still pretty unsure one 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.359 way or the other about Mary or Princess Cariboo and 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.960 who exactly this was, it was decided that she was 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.279 a beggar and should be taken to Bristol and tried 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.440 for vagrancy. And as an asside, we are not actually 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.719 sure who made this decision. It could have been the authorities, 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.000 or it could have been the very busy and involved 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:03.159 villagers of all Insburg. This decision was made to take 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.000 her to Bristol to be examined both by John Haythorne, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.720 who was the mayor of Bristol, and then at St. 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.240 Peter's Hospital, which was a facility that cared for the 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.880 poor and her vagrance. But after causing many problems, and 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.000 we can only speculate on thoset problems because there doesn't 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:23.000 seem to be a record of her time spent at 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.360 the facility record in detail, she was actually returned to 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.560 the world's home. So, as you can imagine, by this 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:34.640 point everyone knew about this eccentric foreign stranger, and despite 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.440 any of those earlier suspicions, the villagers treated her as 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.200 though she were a visiting head of state. Right, So 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:45.000 this is amazing, and not only because she was deceiving 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.560 them all. What's amazing really is that they let her 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.720 stay in their village at all. The years following the 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:56.080 Napoleonic Wars were volatile and any mysterious strangers were looked 0:07:56.120 --> 0:08:01.400 upon suspiciously as probable spies or maybe polite agitators, or 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.280 just unwanted people in the village. That's not only the 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.200 authorities who thought that. Everyday people thought that as well. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.040 So in a small town like Almondsbury, foreign beggars were 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:17.400 most likely to be transported to Australia, and Australia was 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.920 where England sent their criminals. The counterfeit sixpence that she 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.400 carried with her was a serious offense and it could 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.600 in some cases, I mean a death sentence. Don't miss 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:30.920 around a fake currency is the rule here, kidding, watch 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:35.440 out for your sixpence. Like everyone at this point was 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.360 desperate to find out where Princess Cariboo was from, and 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.320 at first, despite her very European appearance, she kind of 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.400 implied that she had actually come from China, and it 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.959 really wasn't until a Portuguese sailor or a pirate depending 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.200 on your source, who may or may not have been 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:58.480 her accomplice in this whole ruse arrived about ten days 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.080 after her, and that's where her narrative actually starts to 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.079 be told. There are actually two versions of the story. 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:11.720 In the first, the sailor slash pirates claimed to understand 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.400 her dialect, and he told a story of how she'd 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.960 ended up near Bristol. In the second version, the sailor 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.000 pirates said he was able to communicate with her through 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.560 gestures and signs. The foreign woman, he said, was born 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.080 in China, which was actually she called it Kanji. She 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.880 had been kidnapped by pirates, jumped overboard to escape them, 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.240 and swam through the English Channel to shore. She also 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.360 told of her home on the far away island of 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.880 jabaf Su and that she came from royalty. What we 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.760 don't know, though, like Holly mentioned earlier, is if Mary 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.920 and the sailor pirate were somehow in cahoots. I don't 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.199 know how this works. If they're not, I know, right, 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:53.880 if she were just to go along with it and 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.160 be like, well, you are also a con person, all right, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.200 let's play. Oh you understand I made up blank? Which 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:05.960 let's talk like So, this entire yarn was utterly enthralling 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.400 to the townspeople, and they actually had come to kind 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.199 of love their new eccentric guest, and she, for her part, 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.439 put on quite a show for them. She entertained audiences 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:18.520 that included not only people from Almondsbury. She fascinated a 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:23.080 lot of people, including linguists, artists, physiognomists. Those were people 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.800 that practiced the rather dubious science of judging a person's 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:31.640 mental character from their facial appearance. She also fascinated craniologists, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.840 people that claimed to be able to read your character 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.920 from the size and shape of your skull. Whether entertaining 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:43.160 a vagrant or a dignitary, the princess's strange behavior did 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.199 not disappoint any of her audiences. Her portrait was painted 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.640 and reproduced in a local newspaper, while her authenticity was 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.040 attested to by a doctor Wilkinson, who was a polymath 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.800 and scientific lecturer. Wilkinson claimed he identified her language by 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.520 using Edmund fry S Pantagraphia, a book that was said 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:06.120 to contain accurate copies of all the known alphabets in 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:08.680 the world. Can you imagine how big that would be now? 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.680 He stated that marks on her skin had been done 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:19.280 by and we're quoting a very outdated term here, oriental surgeons. 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.640 Other newspapers began publishing stories about the princess, and she 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.680 began to develop national acclaim. What none of them knew 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.600 was that Mary had made up her language and she 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:35.160 was really a native English speaker. She would listen to 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.360 what everyone was saying while they thought she could not understand, 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:40.520 and that must have been heaven for her as an 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:44.079 impost right, and it was a big part in how 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.760 long she was able to pull off this hoax. It's 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.320 just so funny. I'm sure she sat in her head thinking, gosh, 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.120 these people are fool right, all bought in completely exactly. 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.440 She always seemed completely credible to the villagers, but it 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.000 was because they didn't know she was reading them to 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.880 manipulate the That's a common way that people scam others. 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.160 And so just for clarity, when we say she was 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.800 reading them, we mean she was able to interpret things 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.559 like people's body language and tone of voice and then 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:14.080 use that to her advantage. Perfect for someone who was 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:18.920 Princess Caribou. Uh So, the princess was eccentric and she 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:21.840 was scandalous. She wore flowers in her hair, and she 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.040 swam naked in the lake. How dare she? She knew 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:26.720 how to use a bow and arrow, and she gave 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.040 fencing demonstrations and it said with a blade that had 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.280 been dipped in poison. I don't know if it's arsenic, 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:39.400 but I got to bring it up every season before 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.280 eating or sleeping. She prayed to a god she called 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.200 Allah Tala. She was, it would seem, from all accounts, 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:51.000 having a fine time in Almondsbury. And for Elizabeth Worrel's part, 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.679 she was living out her own wish fulfillment because she 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.760 thought she was hosting a princess. But this ruse only 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.559 lasted for about three months, and the media was her 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.679 undue ing. The paper seized upon Baker's story during and 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.840 after her exposure, and even ran poetry and ballads, both 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.680 flattering and not so flattering, composed in her honor. But 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.800 it was when the Bristol Journal, which was a local newspaper, 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.000 ran a story about her with an accompanying photo she 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.440 was recognized as a woman named Mary Baker. Mrs Neil, 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.600 who owned a lodging house in Bristol, recognized Mary because 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.360 Mary had stayed there about six months prior, and according 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:33.040 to Mrs Neil, as a tenant, Mary would often Donna 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.040 Black Turban while she danced around the house, speaking in 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:40.120 her own invented languages. It was like she did her 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:46.040 practice run and Mrs Neil's boarding the jig is up. Yeah, 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.840 So the worlds confronted the so called princess, who did not, 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.240 of course want to tell the truth, at least at first, 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.760 but she did eventually admit that her name was Mary 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.000 Baker and that she was from Witheredge. So the way 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.200 this story played out made the papers across the United 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:07.160 States pick it up as well. The Carolina Federal Republican, 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.600 for example, round a story first describing a strange woman 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.000 who seemed initially to have no command of the English language, 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.920 and then went on to explain what finally led to 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.840 her confession. It was Dr Wilkinson's efforts to help her 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.640 and get the East India directors involved, And we have 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:28.720 a quote here from that specific news story. Dr Wilkinson 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.920 proceeded to London on a charitable mission on Tuesday and 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.680 was to be followed the next day by Cariboo herself. 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.760 But affairs were becoming too formidable. The idea of appearing 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.600 before the metropolitan scrutinizers was too terrible for the tender 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.920 nerves of the Princess of Java suit. She therefore thought 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.480 it was prudent to throw off the mask, and after 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.600 inviting her humane patroness to a private audience, surprised her 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:58.240 by speaking in her native tongue, plain downright English, declaring 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.640 herself an impostor. So we're going to take a break 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.120 here and have a word from a sponsor, and when 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.800 we're back we will talk about exactly how a town 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:20.280 was hoodwinked and what happened thereafter. Welcome back to Criminalia. 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:26.240 Let's meet Mary Baker. So Mary Baker did not, of course, 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.480 come from the far flung imaginary island of Java su. 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.080 She was exposed as a cobbler's daughter who came from 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.600 a village near Bristol. She had worked as domestic help, 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.080 but her employers had always thought she seemed rather odd. 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.800 And do you remember those marks that we discussed earlier, 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.880 and the marks on the back of her head, Yes, 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.560 the one that came with a racist diagnosis of what 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.600 it was exactly so actually it's not that at all. 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.600 They were scars from a poorly done wet cupping procedure 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.600 that was used to relieve pressure on we quote, an 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:03.400 overheated brain. It was performed in a poorhouse hospital when 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:05.800 she was a child and clearly had gone a little wrong. 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.840 Upon her exposure, the press went into an absolute frenzy, 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.400 but it didn't go exactly as you may expect. Yes, 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.560 of course, they absolutely ignored their own part in creating 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:22.120 the sensation around Princess Cariboo. But instead of vilifying Mary Baker, 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.160 which would seem like a reasonable response, they ended up 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.200 lampooning and condemning not only Wilkinson, but in some cases 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.720 also the worlds as well as the people of Almondsbury 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.920 and any and all of the intellectuals, doctors and other 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.680 professionals who had been hoodwinked essentially blaming them all for 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:46.080 being so easily fooled. Various newspapers published several satirical pieces 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.920 about Princess Cariboo's origin based on what the experts who 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:54.040 had met her had theorized. So it's the alternate universe 0:16:54.120 --> 0:17:02.160 Princess therapy, right right. So, as we mentioned earlier, we're 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.240 going to do a little bit more on press coverage 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.200 of Mary's ruse because it's really quite interesting to get into. 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:12.000 If you start looking at the stories from that time, 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.360 you start to see why the newspapers wouldn't really want 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.960 to turn against Cariboo or Mary Baker. I guess we 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.080 should call her now. She was selling newspapers and at 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.359 the end of the day, to them, that's all that mattered. That, Yeah, 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:26.600 they did not want to get rid of that cash cow. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.840 One example we have is the Morning Chronicle of London. 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.000 That was a paper that started running ads in the 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.520 late summer of eighteen seventeen about the story that they 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.119 were getting ready to run about her whole nuttiness a 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.560 foreigner near Bristol in an effort to get their readers 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.240 really hyped up. Those ads read quote in the course 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.919 of next week will be published a narrative of a 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:53.520 singular imposition practiced upon the benevolence of a lady residing 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.399 in the vicinity of the city of Bristol by a 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.840 young woman of the name of Mary Wilcox alias Baker, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.399 alias Cariboo, Princess of Java. Su I would love to 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:07.080 see these illustrations, really and and also I particularly like 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:11.840 this story because they're not afraid of using caps. No, 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:16.040 they'll throw it all caps for the longest period of time. 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.600 Like newspapers were not shy about throwing some caps into 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.679 their ads of their stories. And man, I always appreciate that. 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:27.240 Moving on more than anyone. Though, it was Dr Wilkinson 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:29.760 who were skewered by the press for being taken in 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.760 by Mary's fictional tale. The Hampshire Telegraph and Naval Chronicle 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.960 of Portsmouth ran a piece about how naive Wilkinson had been, 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.359 and we have a quote from that too. So it 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.880 says the young woman who has appeared at Bristol as 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.280 an unknown female designated by the name of Caribou, and 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:53.160 concerning whom Dr Wilkinson of Bath excited great curiosity last 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.239 week by the interest which his pen imparted to her 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.879 tail is found to be an impostor. Her real name 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.480 said to be Mary Baker of with Rage Devon. The 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.480 Doctor was so far carried away by his feelings in 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.520 this interesting creature's case that he determined to make an 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.920 appeal to the East India Directors directly on her behalf, 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.520 as he had no doubt of her being a native 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.000 of Java. Yet, just to avoid confusion, that is Maria 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.159 reading the quote as it was written in the paper. 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.520 We're not sure why they shortened it to Java versus 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.400 Java Sue. My guess is that they recognized Java Sue 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:29.160 was not a real place and thought there had been 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:32.359 some sort of accident or confusion in the conveyance of 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.879 the information, so they looked up a real place. But 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.600 that same month, the Exeter Flying Post ran a similar story, 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:45.399 this time detailing previous criminal activity on Mary's part, and 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.760 that was a completely new angle in the press. This 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:53.720 piece started out Caribou with an exclamation point. It will 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.359 be seen in a preceding page of our paper that 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.080 the wonderful female who has outwitted the doctor, puzzle the 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.720 learned and astonished the multitude, turns out to be a 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.960 vile impostor, a vagrant wanderer and daughter of a poor 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:11.560 cottager in the village of Witherage in this county. We 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.919 have made some inquiries respecting this extraordinary young lady, and 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.119 there is great reason to believe that she was for 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.480 some time an inmate in the Devon County Bridewell. As 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.800 it appears that in the summer sessions of eighteen fourteen, 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:28.240 at the Castle of Exeter, a Mary Anne Baker, then 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:32.720 aged twenty one, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to six 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.960 months imprisonment for stealing a piece of cloth a young man. 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.600 Her sweetheart, the receiver of the stolen goods, was tried 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.719 at the same time and transported for fourteen years. Big 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.400 was that piece of cloth? Right? There's just a long 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:52.600 time for a piece of fabric. It made out of gold, 0:20:52.680 --> 0:21:00.159 magic and gold threads. Ultimately, by June of eight seventeen, 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.560 the town of Almondsbury gave her boat fair to the 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:10.280 United States, specifically to travel to Philadelphia. She was accompanied by, 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:14.000 it said to or maybe three eight strict chaperones who 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:18.040 were chosen by Elizabeth Worrell. Because the story of Princess 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.840 Cariboo was already known in America, Mary was greeted like Royalty. 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.600 When she arrived, she stayed in the US and gave 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:29.000 performances as Princess Cariboo in theaters. And several years later 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.679 she did return to England. And when we say that 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:35.560 she was greeted as royalty, that includes the press using 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.280 her false name, even though they already knew that that 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:40.600 was a ruse and she was not actually a princess 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.280 of any kind. Noticed in this quote that we're about 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.159 to read that nowhere does the name Mary Baker appear. Uh. 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:49.639 And this ran in a paper in the US. Quote. 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.560 The extraordinary young woman who about two years ago excited 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:58.240 considerable attention at Bristol by representing herself as the Princess Cariboo, 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.560 daughter of a great Eastern prince, has lately returned to 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:04.520 with rich, her native place, on a visit to her mother. 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.920 It is understood that once she left Bristol, she went 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.000 to America with two ladies of the country. When she 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:13.720 left home about seven years ago, she was a servant 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.800 in a farmer's house. She now appears as a well 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:20.840 educated woman, perfectly genteel in her manners and dress, and 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:25.240 extremely fond of books, but very reserved in her communications, 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.800 respecting herself, not as an interesting description about Mary Baker, 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.520 so her hoax was really well known at this time. 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.000 But she continued to give performances as the character of 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:42.880 Princess Cariboo in and around London's New Bond Street, as 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:47.000 well as in Bath and Bristol. Mary Baker as Princess 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.520 Cariboo had her final appearance in a London gallery where 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:53.960 visitors were charged a shilling apiece to see her. It 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.720 was in Bristol in eight where Mary married. It was 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:00.960 probably her second marriage, because we know that while she 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:04.080 was pretending to be a princess, she had confessed her 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.320 real name was Mary Baker, but we're not presuming. There 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:10.200 are a lot of mysteries there about how her name 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:14.400 changed over the years. However, things get really quite fuzzy 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:18.200 after this point in her story. We also know that 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:21.840 she gave birth to a daughter in we know that 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.760 she no longer performed as Princess Cariboo or impersonated Royalty, 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:30.160 and by eighteen thirty nine she was making ends meet 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:34.119 by importing and selling leeches, mainly to the medical community, 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:38.400 which included the local Bristol Infirmary hospital. However, and here 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.359 is that really fuzzy part. There's a question about a 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:45.760 woman named Mary Burgess. This was our Mary. But is 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:49.280 the surname changed from marriage or the change that was 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:52.880 meant to hide a grift. Some reports suggest this name 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:55.679 change was due to her second marriage, after her husband 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.920 Richard Baker, left her and traveled abroad. Alternatively, their source 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.720 is that suggests she was living under her cousin's name, 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:09.399 Burgess Mary Wilcox Baker, a k a. Princess Caribou. Maybe 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:15.639 Burgess died on Christmas Eve in eighteen sixty four and 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:19.680 she is buried in an unmarked grave in Heaven Road 0:24:19.800 --> 0:24:23.040 Burial Ground in Bedminster. We do have a little bit 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:28.399 of a side note that doesn't play well with someone's death. Here, Holly, 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:31.480 I'll give it to you. This story is actually made 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:34.479 into a movie, if you'd like to see it. That 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:39.199