0:01

Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History

0:03

class from how Stuff Works dot com.

0:11

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly

0:14

Fry and I'm Tracey Stevie Wilson.

0:16

We're gonna do a quick little bit of housekeeping right

0:18

out of the gate. So first of all, big excitement

0:20

because we are going to Paris, France,

0:23

uh, and you are listeners have the opportunity

0:26

to come with us. So if you would

0:28

like to take the French Revolution

0:30

tour that we were doing in June of this year,

0:33

you can go check that out at our website Missed

0:35

in History dot com. And then if

0:37

at the top of the menu bar, there is

0:40

a little option that says Paris trip

0:42

with an exclamation point because we are excited,

0:44

and that will take you through to all of the information

0:47

and you two can join us as we run

0:49

around Paris and go to Versailles. And I

0:51

I'm gonna cry a lot, So if you'd like to watch me cry,

0:54

now's your shot. Uh. The other

0:56

thing that we have is just in

0:58

case you didn't know, or maybe you knew and

1:00

forgot, we have a tea public

1:02

store where you can get all kinds of goodies. You

1:05

can get various designs related to things

1:07

that have come up on the podcast, on shirts

1:09

and on mugs and on stickers and all kinds

1:11

of other things. If you would like to check any of

1:14

that out, please do that. You can also go

1:16

to our website missed in history dot com. Click

1:18

on in that same menu, bar the

1:20

words store, and it will take you right there, and then you

1:22

can browse and explore. We recently

1:25

had one related to our our ballet

1:27

episodes that I think is quite a cute design. I

1:29

didn't do it, so I feel comfortable seeing it. We

1:31

also have a lunar beaver's T shirt,

1:33

which we said we wanted years ago

1:36

when we recorded the Hoax

1:38

episode. I actually had a funny

1:40

moment recently while I was wearing that shirt. This

1:42

is true. While I was

1:44

traveling this weekend. I had that shirt on and I

1:46

was at the airport, and I was at the airport

1:49

bar waiting on my flight, getting a couple of cocktails,

1:51

and this man leaned over and said, you have to explain

1:53

what lunar beavers are to me. It's like,

1:56

okay, where do I start. I have a podcast.

1:59

There's also so um okay,

2:01

so uh, they're beavers on the

2:03

moon. Wait, no, like

2:06

contextualizing that quickly becomes tricky.

2:08

So if you buy one, prepare yourself a sound

2:10

bite when weird random strangers ask you

2:12

what it is. I also had a friend asked

2:14

me about it, but that was easier. She knows about the show.

2:17

Yes, Uh,

2:19

so weird now that we were done with housekeeping.

2:22

That is the sound of me wiping my hands from housekeeping

2:24

work. Uh. We can jump right into today's

2:26

podcast. So today's

2:29

episode was suggested by our listener Edward

2:31

Uh and he became intrigued with this story

2:34

when he was watching a fictional version of it. That

2:36

was a film called The Wind and the Lion that was made in

2:38

nine. It stars Sean

2:40

Connery and Candice Bergen and Brian Keith

2:43

and John Houston. It is a very fun watch,

2:46

but it plays with reality a little bit to make

2:48

it more compelling. For example, the character

2:50

played by Candice Bergen was in fact not

2:52

a woman, um, but she's

2:55

added in to create some potential romance.

2:57

So without any embellishment or gender swap

3:00

ing of figures to create weird romance

3:02

subplots, this story is fascinating all on

3:04

its own, and it happened in Morocco.

3:06

In the early twentieth century, but it impacted

3:08

American history significantly, and

3:10

it is the story of a famous kidnapping.

3:13

And to begin, we will first give some background

3:16

on the man for whom this whole affair is

3:18

named Eon Perdicaris.

3:21

It doesn't entirely surprise me that

3:24

a fictional romantic subplot

3:26

was totally made up to make this into a movie,

3:28

because that's the kind of thing that happens. But it's one

3:30

of those stories where you didn't need to do that. It

3:33

was plenty full of action on

3:35

its own. Yes, So

3:38

Eon Perdicaris has a surprisingly

3:41

scant biography for a man who had

3:43

the wealth and importance that he did. He

3:45

was born in eighteen forty. His father,

3:47

Gregory Perdicarius, was Greek and was

3:50

a naturalized US citizen. He

3:53

had married into a wealthy Southern family

3:55

in South Carolina. Gregory

3:57

Perdicaris taught at Harvard as a

4:00

fessor of Greek language and lived in Trenton,

4:02

New Jersey. He made a nice fortune

4:04

for himself in the gaslight industry

4:07

and eventually became the U. S consul

4:09

to Greece. Ion. His son went

4:12

to Harvard, but only briefly it appears

4:14

that he enrolled in eighteen sixty, but he decided

4:16

to study abroad during his sophomore year,

4:19

and this of course coincides with the beginning of

4:21

the U s Civil War. It

4:24

is unclear what eon stance on the

4:26

conflict was, as his parents, according

4:28

to the press of the day, were split on the

4:30

issue. So according to reports

4:32

that circulated during the kidnapping, press coverage

4:35

that we're going to contextualize the kidnapping later,

4:37

but these things came up. Gregory

4:39

EON's father supported the Union and

4:42

his mother was a Confederate supporter. So

4:44

during the Civil war years, Ion

4:47

was sometimes at home in Trenton, but

4:49

also spent long periods of time in England

4:51

and Morocco. Also worked

4:54

writing articles for magazines, and

4:56

by the mid eighteen eighties he was

4:58

living primarily into Hanjier and

5:00

a whome that he had started building in eighteen seventy

5:02

seven. That residence,

5:05

known as Villa Idonia, was also called

5:07

the Place of the Nightingales, and

5:09

it sits on hills overlooking the city

5:12

and in Tangier. Perdicaris became

5:14

a well known member of the expatriate community.

5:17

He threw extravagant dinners, and he lived

5:19

a fairly free life in the way that an

5:21

independently wealthy man of the day did, enjoying

5:24

time with his family and occasionally writing

5:26

a book or article. He was

5:29

very engaged in the community, though, and he

5:31

lobbied against diplomatic corruption in the mid

5:33

eighteen eighties, a matter which made

5:35

him fairly well known to members of the U S

5:37

government. That particular case

5:40

had involved a Moroccan woman who

5:42

had accused a consular protege

5:44

of sexual assault, and Jan

5:47

Perdicaris wanted the man

5:49

prosecuted outside of a consular

5:51

court. This refusal to give

5:53

the woman any sort of justice led to him

5:56

writing a pamphlet called American Claims

5:58

and Protection of Native Subjects in

6:00

Morocco. He published the pamphlet

6:02

himself and had it distributed in London

6:04

to try to get the attention of the European press.

6:07

While the American consul who had protected

6:09

the accused man was ultimately fired

6:12

from his position, it was really only after

6:14

the consul's office had waged this personal

6:16

war on part Carris for this embarrassment

6:19

that they felt he had caused, which included

6:22

fines and arrests and just general

6:25

harassment yeah. He was basically

6:27

like, if you try him in consular court, nothing's

6:29

going to happen to this guy. This

6:31

woman really deserves better than this. Could we actually

6:33

try this as a trial, but they

6:35

were not interested in doing that. By

6:37

the early nineteen hundreds, Pretty Caress

6:40

was a fixture in Tangier, and while he often

6:42

traveled to Europe and the US, Morocco

6:44

was really his home. But Morocco was

6:47

not the most stable place. The

6:49

events that unfold in this episode

6:51

start a month after an agreement had

6:53

been struck between England and France

6:56

regarding the handling of both Egypt

6:58

and Morocco. This entent

7:00

cordial basically recognized

7:02

France's power in Morocco and Britain's

7:04

power in Egypt. It was sort of divvying

7:07

up the power in other countries.

7:10

This augmented existing conflict

7:12

on a couple of fronts. So, for one, as

7:15

the Scramble of Africa had been developing,

7:17

Germany had set its sights on Morocco

7:20

for itself. So among the European

7:22

countries that were trying to seize power on the

7:24

African continent, there was tension, particularly

7:27

because two of those countries, Great Britain

7:29

and France had just kind of decided between

7:31

themselves to this plan, even though other

7:33

countries had interests in both Morocco

7:36

and Egypt, including Spain,

7:38

which we've talked about in our Francisco Franco

7:41

episode. Yes, within

7:43

Morocco also, there was plenty of

7:45

resentment toward Europeans just strolling

7:48

in and claiming things, not only

7:50

because that was a jerk move, but because

7:52

their own Moroccan Sultan of Dela

7:54

Zies was really making this matter worse.

7:58

Of Delazes had been sultan for ten years

8:00

in nineteen o four, having succeeded his

8:02

father, Hassan the First, and he was

8:04

only sixteen when he rose to power, and

8:06

Morocco had been ruled by a regent for six

8:09

years before Abdelaziz came into his own as

8:11

a ruler, which happened when the regent died,

8:13

and surprisingly that could be its own whole story

8:16

and podcast that is not the scope of this particular

8:18

day's discussion. As

8:20

Sultan Adlazis looked to Europe

8:23

for inspiration and advice, he wanted

8:25

to modernize Morocco and its

8:27

infrastructure, and he wanted to change the way

8:29

the tax system worked. This entire

8:31

ideology though did not go over

8:34

well. Initially there was support

8:36

for his reform ideas, but the execution

8:38

of them was really poor. There

8:41

just wasn't a system or administrators

8:43

in place to handle all the kind of changes

8:46

that he was trying to make, so his standing

8:48

as a ruler started to look very weak to

8:50

a majority of the people, especially

8:52

the people in positions of power. Some of

8:54

them felt like the Sultan was trying to sell

8:57

his own country to Europe and to

8:59

make matters where he had driven up the

9:01

country's debt with some very frivolous

9:03

spending on wild collections

9:05

of things like bicycles and grand pianos

9:08

and cars, and he was borrowing

9:10

money from European countries to pay for

9:12

all of this, particularly France. So

9:15

when Britain and France enacted their Entente

9:17

Cordial, it really looked a

9:19

lot to people like France was just taking

9:21

possession of Morocco. Not surprisingly,

9:24

the state of affairs led to a lot of

9:26

conflict within the country. Not

9:28

only had France suddenly gained a

9:30

whole lot of power, but an ally great

9:33

Britain had just handed it over. So

9:35

there was a deep sense of betrayal by

9:37

the government which had been working with

9:39

British interests at various levels for

9:42

a number of years. There was also a

9:44

very real sense that a rebellion could erupt

9:46

at any time, as numerous tribes

9:48

and governmental factions were all jockeying

9:50

for power. And we are about to get into the

9:53

kidnapping itself, but before we do, let's

9:55

take a quick break to hear from a sponsor. It

10:05

was dinner time May eighteen, nineteen

10:07

o four when the kidnapping took place.

10:10

There were shouts heard from the kitchen, but this did

10:12

not initially alarm Perdicaris too

10:14

much. Two of his staff, his French

10:17

chef and his German housekeeper, commonly

10:19

got into a lot of loud arguments which

10:21

Perdicaris had to break up. So after

10:24

hearing all of this ruckus, he got up from his dinner

10:26

and he went to handle what he believed to be

10:28

a minor skirmish between two staff members

10:30

in the kitchen, and his family followed

10:32

behind him to see just what had set this whole

10:34

thing off. He did not find the

10:37

housekeeper and the chef like he expected.

10:39

He found men with rifles. Initially,

10:43

the part of Carresses thought these men were their

10:45

own hired guards, but they were not. The

10:47

men cut the phone lines to the house and

10:49

used their gunstocks to beat the servants.

10:52

Ellen Pert Carris, who was

10:54

Ion's wife, resisted

10:57

these men but was not to the floor, and her

10:59

son Romwell Varley, who was her

11:01

son from a previous marriage, was beaten. The

11:03

men or a group of brigands led

11:05

by Ahmed el Rasuli, and

11:08

he told them so, announcing loudly,

11:10

I am Rasuli, z Rasuli,

11:13

and this was not an unknown person. Also,

11:15

I am probably butchering that name. My

11:17

apologies to anyone who is horrified

11:20

by it. Rosalie was infamous in

11:22

the area as a leader of a group of very

11:24

active raiders. Rasuli had

11:26

been in conflict with the Sultan of Morocco of

11:28

del Aziz, who he challenged for power

11:30

in the region. Pretty much as soon as he determined

11:33

the Sultan was weak, Rasulie directed

11:35

his men to saddle horses from the Perdicaris

11:38

stable and to take Mr. Perdicaris

11:40

and his steps on away, and with

11:42

a gunshot to signal their exit, he

11:45

and his men set off into the night, headed toward

11:47

the Atlas Mountains, away from

11:49

the main road, with the men they had kidnapped

11:52

and before she was dragged away and the phone

11:54

line was cut, the housekeeper had managed

11:57

to get ahold of a telephone operator

11:59

and asked for help. The housekeeper

12:01

at the time, though believed that the house was being robbed,

12:03

she did not know at that point that a kidnapping

12:06

was underway. But that telephone

12:08

operator in turn called the United States

12:10

Consul General Samuel R. Gumer

12:13

to tell him that the home of an expatriot

12:15

U S citizen outside of Tangier was

12:17

under attack. Gumare, who

12:19

had been in the middle of his own dinner, immediately

12:22

went to the place of Nightingales to investigate.

12:25

He set up a guard team to cover the house

12:27

and did what he could to try to reassure the

12:29

members of the household who were still there. And

12:32

then he sought the counsel of his British counterpart

12:34

in Morocco, Sir Arthur Nicholson.

12:37

They agreed that the situation in Morocco,

12:40

including the issues that had arisen after Britain

12:42

and France had reached their agreement

12:45

about who controlled each country, had

12:47

been pretty tenuous. It made sense

12:49

that Razalie would makes this kind of a move

12:51

in the middle of all that. An essence insulting

12:54

the Sultan as weak and as

12:56

unable to protect the wealthy foreign

12:58

expatriots who were living in Morocco. Gumare

13:01

next telegraphed the U. S. State Department

13:03

to convey the seriousness of the situation

13:06

and to request military assistance. And

13:09

in a way this was welcome news. We

13:11

will explain why because at this point US

13:13

President Theodore Roosevelt was serving his

13:16

first term and he was campaigning for

13:18

a second term. So he

13:20

took immediate and decisive action

13:22

in the part of Carres kidnapping by

13:25

immediately ordering a naval

13:27

squadron to Morocco. This was

13:29

the entire South Atlantic squadron.

13:32

That naval squadron was headed up

13:34

by Admiral French Answer Chadwick,

13:36

a West Virginia born man who had been outspoken

13:39

on the matter of naval reform in the United

13:41

States after the Civil War ended. Chadwick

13:44

and Roosevelt were a men with similar outlooks

13:46

and a lot of regards and most importantly,

13:49

the willingness to use naval force

13:51

to try to achieve their objectives. The

13:54

U. S. Consul Gumare received a response

13:56

via telegraph that said warships

13:58

will be sent to Tangier as soon as possible,

14:01

and that message also indicated though that it could

14:03

take several days for them to get there. This

14:06

was really not an ideal response. It was

14:08

easy to think that Perdic Harris might not live

14:11

that long, so no matter how

14:13

many ships were coming, Gamare was afraid

14:15

they wouldn't make it in time to save the kidnapped

14:17

men. Rasuli was known

14:19

to be brutal, gamare spears were

14:21

really justified. For one thing, Rasuli

14:24

had kidnapped foreigners living in Morocco before.

14:27

A reporter for The London Times had been taken

14:30

hostage in nineteen oh three, and he was

14:32

released in exchange for several

14:34

of Rasulie's men being released from prison,

14:36

but that was an unusually good outcome.

14:39

Rasulie had been in a long standing war,

14:41

for example, with the local governor, and he had

14:44

been known to capture the governor's

14:46

men and send back their bodies in pieces.

14:49

To try to avoid a similar end for Pertic

14:51

Harris and Varley, the next step

14:53

that Gama took, along with the

14:55

British minister at Tangier, Nicholson,

14:58

was to reach out to the Selta and the government

15:01

and to ask them to acquiesce

15:03

to any demands that Razzalie and his agents

15:06

made. Gamare was genuinely

15:08

afraid that any kind of delay in responding

15:10

to these kidnappers would directly lead

15:13

to the death of these two men. But

15:15

communicating with the government and the Sultan

15:17

proved to be a whole other tricky problem as

15:20

well. The Moroccan foreign

15:22

minister was in Tangier, but the Sultan

15:24

was in Fez, almost two hundred fifty miles.

15:26

It's about four hundred kilometers away,

15:29

and today that's a distance easily traversed

15:31

by car in just a few hours, but in nineteen

15:33

o four that meant several days on camelback.

15:36

So Gumar and Nicholson spoke first with the

15:38

Foreign Minister, Mohammed Taurus,

15:40

and each man sent a member of his staff

15:42

to Fez to make their case to the Sultan.

15:45

Because France was so heavily involved

15:48

in Morocco's affairs, the French minister

15:50

was also concerned once he received

15:52

word of this kidnapping. It wasn't

15:54

necessarily as magnanimous as

15:56

Gamare's concern, which seemed to be

15:58

for the safe return of these abductees.

16:01

France, on the other hand, was trying to

16:03

kind of casually take control of things

16:05

in Morocco and had approached their position

16:07

there by keeping a pretty low profile

16:09

to try to avoid stirring up trouble. Yeah,

16:13

they had reached this agreement with Britain and then they

16:15

were just kind of trying to subtly get

16:18

a little more ingrained

16:20

in government bit by bit, and they did not want

16:22

a big event that made it apparent that

16:24

they were trying to throw their weight into the region.

16:27

So having a member of the foreign community

16:29

kidnapped created a whole pot of problems

16:32

for French Minister George Saint Rene Talandier,

16:35

and he couldn't let people get panicked, and

16:37

he also didn't want to bring in the military and

16:39

upset this very delicate balance that

16:42

he had been trying to maintain. So he

16:44

too asked the Moroccan government to just please

16:46

give in to whatever Rasuli wanted

16:49

so everyone could put the whole affair behind

16:51

them as quickly as possible, and

16:53

he also sent his own people to negotiate

16:56

directly with the kidnappers. Kamar

16:58

and Nicholson even assaulted Walter

17:01

Harris, who was the reporter who had been captured

17:03

by Rasulie the year before. They wanted to see

17:05

if he knew anything that might help them. Gamera

17:08

was rapidly losing hope. He wrote in his journal,

17:11

quote, I cannot conceal from myself

17:13

and the department that only by extremely

17:15

delicate negotiations can we hope to

17:17

escape from the most terrible consequences.

17:21

Yeah. By that point he was thinking like, we maybe

17:23

have like single digit chance of success

17:25

of getting these men back. And

17:27

one of the worst aspects was that the Sultan

17:30

had already been trying to stop the activities

17:32

of Rasulie for literal years with

17:34

no success. So even if the Sultan

17:37

got on board and was willing to take action,

17:39

there was every likelihood that things were still

17:41

going to fall apart. Four

17:44

days after the kidnapping, Raisulie's

17:46

terms were relayed. What he wanted

17:49

was a ransom and exchanged for the return

17:51

of yon Pert to Carris. He demanded

17:54

seventy thousand Spanish silver dollars,

17:56

but that was not all. He also wanted the

17:58

region known as the to be cleared

18:01

of all government and military personnel,

18:03

and he wanted the government officials who had wronged

18:06

him to be either dismissed or in prisoned. Further,

18:09

he wanted to be made governor of

18:11

two districts, which would essentially be completely

18:13

free of taxation and the law of the

18:16

Moroccan government, and he wanted his

18:18

men to always be promised safe

18:20

passage wherever they traveled in the country.

18:23

This list was far more than

18:25

any of the European or US people

18:27

involved had expected. They had kind of expected

18:29

the ransom, but all of these political

18:31

demands and demands for power were a little

18:33

bit of a surprise, and there was literally

18:36

no way that these demands could be met

18:38

without hurdling Morocco even deeper into

18:40

chaos. Frantic telegrams

18:43

were being sent to the U. S State Department to

18:45

inquire about exactly when those promised

18:47

warships might arrive. An additional

18:50

demand was also sent out by

18:52

Restily. He wanted both the US

18:54

and the British to guarantee that Morocco would

18:56

fulfill the terms. So all three

18:58

of these countries had to be basically give him everything

19:01

he was asking for, and he was asking for a lot.

19:03

No countries government wanted to be on the hook

19:06

for another country giving a violent terrorist

19:08

everything he wanted. Was cable

19:10

was sent to Washington, d C. Explaining

19:13

this whole new development. And of course

19:15

this story did not stay quiet, and newspapers

19:17

around the globe picked it up and were reporting

19:19

the incident. But the reporting

19:22

tended to romanticize the whole thing. So

19:24

a rich expatriot, a dangerous bandit,

19:27

the U. S. Navy speeding to the rescue.

19:29

It was all just too much for papers

19:31

to resist, and they followed along

19:33

with every step. When President

19:35

Roosevelt got the cable about the additional

19:37

demands that were being put on the United States and Britain,

19:40

he decided to send the European Squadron

19:42

of the Navy, under the command of Admiral Theodore

19:45

F. Jewel, into the Bay of Tangier to

19:47

try to back up the South Atlantic Squadron.

19:49

The United States also made an official

19:52

request of the French government to come assist

19:54

in this matter. Yeah, even though the French

19:56

government had been doing some things, they were acting

19:58

independently for um. Britain

20:01

in the US at that point, they were trying to clean up their own

20:03

mess quietly. And at this point the

20:05

US was like, hey, dude, can you

20:07

please like step it up here? Um.

20:10

And while papers in the US touted

20:12

the Navy's power and boasted that if needed,

20:14

they could go ashore and take rising Lee by force.

20:17

Those on the ground in Morocco who were more

20:20

familiar with the situation knew better

20:22

first such an act would almost certainly

20:25

lead to the deaths of both prisoners as

20:27

well as Navy personnel. Like they knew

20:29

that caution and care had to be

20:32

used. Finally, on May

20:35

four, twelve days after the kidnapping,

20:38

the first of the U. S Navy ships finally

20:40

arrived. Once his flagship,

20:42

the Brooklyn had made its way into the harbor,

20:44

Admiral Chadwick met with the Consule Gamare.

20:47

The two of them contacted the Moroccan foreign

20:50

minister, who was Mohammed Taurus, who met

20:52

with them on the Brooklyn later

20:54

that day. The foreign minister toward

20:56

the ship and had a pretty cordial chat

20:59

with the two men, but when the terms

21:01

of Bresili's demands came up, he

21:03

was crystal clear that the Moroccan government

21:05

would not give up anything. So

21:07

Chadwick and Gamar were left fretting about

21:09

the life of a US citizen that they could not

21:12

reach nor could they negotiate for.

21:14

And we're about to get to a pretty solid

21:16

twist in the story. So We're gonna pause here

21:19

for a quick sponsor break.

21:28

Just as things were getting very hand

21:30

ringing on the part of the U. S officials in

21:33

Tangier, the unique and

21:35

surprising question arose as to whether Perdicaris

21:37

was even a U. S citizen at all. So

21:41

remember when we mentioned earlier how Ion Perdicaris

21:43

had left Harvard as a civil war broke out, and

21:45

then he kind of tootled around Europe with seemingly

21:48

no specific direction. So

21:50

on June one of this year that everything

21:52

is going down, that's four the

21:55

U. S. State Department received a letter from a

21:57

man in North Carolina named ah

21:59

Sloca who claimed that he had run into

22:01

Perdicarius in Athens, Greece in

22:03

eighteen sixty three, and that Perdicarius

22:06

was there. He said to become a Greek

22:08

citizen. Perdicarius, it seemed,

22:10

had inherited property in South Carolina

22:12

from his mother's family and it would be seized

22:15

by the Confederacy if he was a U. S citizen.

22:18

Slocum was very adamant as

22:20

to the accuracy of his memory in the matter

22:22

and this plan that they were

22:24

switching his citizenship to keep his land

22:27

safe and if Perdicarius was not a

22:29

US citizen. This whole business surrounding his kidnapping

22:32

and arrest was an entirely different mess

22:34

than the one that President Roosevelt thought that he had

22:36

gotten into. We should point out that there's

22:38

some confusion here about whether claiming

22:41

citizenship in Greece would have eradicated

22:44

his U. S citizenship, whether

22:46

he would have had a dual citizenship. It was what like fifty

22:49

years later that that this Free

22:51

Court even ruled on such a thing. When

22:53

they ruled on and it was sort of like, this is how we've usually

22:56

done it, even though it's right,

23:00

but it did make things a little confusing and nuttie,

23:02

for sure. And it does seem like

23:04

if his whole idea was wanting to get

23:06

around his property being seized, that regardless

23:09

of what he was actually doing, his intent was

23:13

to not be a citizen

23:15

a U S crotect his Yeah.

23:17

Yeah, So, after several

23:20

days during which there was silence on this whole

23:22

matter from the White House, the U. S. Minister

23:24

resident in Athens was asked to perform

23:26

a comprehensive search of the records available to see

23:29

if there was any truth to this whole thing, and

23:31

they did discover that on March nineteenth,

23:33

eighteen sixty two, not eighteen sixty

23:35

three, Jon Perdicaris had been naturalized

23:38

as a Greek citizen. Despite

23:40

this revelation, which was handled very

23:42

discreetly, Roosevelt and

23:44

Secretary of State John Hay decided

23:47

to press on as things had already been planned.

23:50

There were seven U. S. Naval warships at

23:52

Tangier, with other countries also bringing

23:54

their military aid to bear, so

23:56

to go public with the news of Perdicariss citizenship

23:59

status would have destabilized

24:01

more than just Morocco. Additionally,

24:05

uh Roosevelt felt like Rizal Lee

24:07

thought that Perdicaris was a U. S. Citizen, so

24:10

it just made sense to leave this new information

24:12

alone. Finally, on June eight,

24:14

Sultan of Dela Ziz gave it. He

24:17

told the Moroccan government to give riz Lee whatever

24:19

he wanted. France, which had been putting

24:22

pressure on the Sultan to resolve this issue

24:24

by meeting the ransom requests, loaned

24:26

the Moroccan government sixty two point

24:28

five million francs a few days later. Yeah,

24:31

little little handshaky backscratchy

24:33

situation there, But carrying out

24:35

of Dela Ziz's orders to meet Rasuli's

24:37

demands also proved to be difficult, and

24:39

he was not going to give up the prisoners until

24:42

all of those other promises were kept, so

24:45

a standoff continued, with a Navy fleet

24:47

parked in the waters off Tangier and Rizalie

24:50

up in the mountains, awaiting all that he had requested.

24:53

Negotiations continued in an effort to

24:55

get the brigand to understand the difficulty

24:57

in carrying out the specifics of his demand,

25:00

but he was utterly stalwart in his position,

25:03

and Rosalie's refusal to budge had backed

25:05

multiple governments into a corner, and

25:08

he made clear that if anyone were to try

25:10

to harm him, his men would kill

25:12

his attackers. Things started looking up

25:14

on June nineteenth, Conso

25:16

Gomer wired a message that our release

25:19

had been negotiated for the twenty one, but

25:21

then that deal was rescinded. On the twenty Things

25:24

had reached a breaking point. In the United States,

25:26

Britain, and France were all growing really frustrated

25:28

with Morocco, which was promising to

25:30

meet Rizzoli's demands but then failing to take

25:33

action to actually do it. The

25:35

US threatened to seize Moroccan customs,

25:37

that the government did not act on all

25:39

of its promises. And as this whole

25:42

thing was dragging on, the Republican

25:44

National Convention took place in the

25:46

United States from June one

25:48

to three, and Roosevelt

25:51

was wildly popular and he was certain to

25:53

get the nomination, but he left nothing to

25:55

chance. He had no opposition,

25:57

but he still took every step to ensure

26:00

that things went smoothly at the convention, and

26:02

as a consequence, the convention was actually

26:04

considered a rather dull affair. On

26:07

the twenty two a telegram which

26:09

is now famously quoted as being Roosevelt's

26:11

words, was sent out to the press and to Morocco

26:14

at the same time, and it read quote this government

26:16

wants Perdicaris alive or Risui

26:19

dead. This was really Secretary

26:21

of State John Hay who had sent this

26:23

message. The version that went to Gomare

26:25

and Morocco had an additional line

26:27

that the version that was sent to the press did not have

26:30

was quote do not land marines or sees

26:32

customs without specific instructions. This

26:35

was meant to galvanize the convention

26:37

and get sentiments squarely behind Roosevelt.

26:40

Yeah, it was almost like it wasn't good enough that he

26:42

was going to get the nomination. He wanted everyone

26:44

to really want him to have it. Uh

26:47

So he thought that we would look very strong

26:49

and that would that would get his support. It

26:51

may have also made officials in Morocco

26:53

feel as though decisive action was finally

26:55

being taken if it were not

26:57

for the fact that the release of Perdicaris and

27:00

his stepson Varley had already been

27:02

secured. By the time they got this message. They

27:04

had been traded halfway down a mountain for

27:07

a bag of Spanish silver dollars. After

27:09

all the dust settled, Gamer was told about

27:12

Perdicarius's citizenship status, and

27:14

the Console got a written confession from

27:16

him. Ion made the case that

27:18

because he had been born a U. S citizen,

27:20

he always felt that he was, and so he didn't

27:23

seek out to reinstate his citizenship

27:26

situation with his Greek citizenship

27:28

was kept secret to try to protect Roosevelt,

27:30

and it only came to light in a biography

27:32

written about John Hay almost

27:34

thirty years later in three

27:37

Ion. Perdicaris moved to England soon

27:39

after this incident ended, and he later

27:42

wrote of Rasulie that he was quote

27:44

one of the most interesting and kindly hearted

27:46

native gentlemen, and that he and Varley

27:48

had been treated kindly throughout their capture,

27:51

and he also went on to advocate for Rasuli

27:54

to be given control of northern Morocco

27:57

because of his ongoing praise of the man who

27:59

kidnapped him. Long after this whole incident

28:01

was over, Perdicarius is often characterized

28:04

as having had Stockholm syndrome, although

28:06

that term was not actually coined until

28:08

nineteen seventy three. He did continue

28:10

to write about Morocco after he had left,

28:12

giving his opinion on the politics and the cultural

28:15

complexities of a country that was being ruled

28:17

largely by outsiders. He died in London

28:20

in and Rosalie

28:22

was given the positions of power that he had

28:24

asked for after this whole

28:27

thing, and his people were freed from prison,

28:29

but he was ousted in nineteen o six

28:31

due to serious corruption. He was not any

28:33

better at running things than the people that he had been trying

28:36

to overthrow. Sultan of

28:38

del Aziz was also deposed in nineteen

28:40

o seven and was replaced by his older brother.

28:43

A book of letters written to Ellen Perdicarius

28:45

during the time that her husband and son were hostages

28:48

as in the Tangier American Legation,

28:50

which is now a museum and cultural center.

28:53

Yeah, they're all things that are along the general lines

28:55

of I saw the news, I am so sorry. Please,

28:57

what can I do for you? But it's she has all of these

28:59

amazing letters from really notable people, so

29:02

it's kind of an interesting historical record

29:05

of that moment. Do you also have

29:07

some listener mail to take us out? I do,

29:09

and I am so excited about this particular piece

29:11

of listener mail. Um it is

29:13

from our listener Carrie, and she writes,

29:16

Dear Holly and Tracy, I am a huge fan.

29:18

You ladies keep me company during so many of my

29:20

daily activities. I can't thank you enough for all

29:22

the work you do. Last February,

29:24

my daughter asked to go on a school field trip

29:26

to the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh with a friend.

29:29

To keep it short, it was amazing. We had

29:31

the opportunity to hear two survivor stories,

29:33

one from a daughter of a survivor and the other from

29:35

a survivor himself, and both were incredible.

29:38

The center also has a rotating exhibit and

29:40

at the time was featuring Kutz

29:42

Pau superheroes of the Holocaust,

29:44

stories of upstanders, heroes and survivors

29:47

told in the form of a comic book. One

29:49

of the talented artists was there to talk with the kids,

29:51

and it just so happened that I had met him a few years earlier

29:53

during a girl Scout field trip at Pittsburgh's

29:56

Tune e M. I was so enthralled by

29:58

this concept. I wanted to share it with you both. Oh.

30:00

She sent us a signed copy of the collection

30:03

of comics, along with a

30:05

little press release style

30:08

print out from the center's website

30:10

that goes into detail about what it is. These

30:13

are so amazing. So again, this is

30:15

the Holocaust Center of the Jewish Federation

30:17

of Greater Pittsburgh, which put this whole

30:19

thing together, and it is all of these artists

30:22

telling the stories of all of these amazing people

30:24

during the Holocaust. Again, it is called Kotz

30:26

Pau so at c h u t z dash

30:28

Pau pow Uh. And

30:31

it is amazing and the art is really

30:33

lovely. I really like the art styles in here,

30:35

and these stories are very moving. It's a number of different arts

30:37

styles because a lot of different artists worked on it.

30:40

It's so fantastic. I hope everybody seeks

30:42

it out because what a great way

30:45

to examine history and and record

30:47

it. Uh So, thank you, thank you, thank

30:49

you to the very wonderful Carey for sharing this

30:51

with us, because I had not heard about it and now

30:54

I am in love with it because I love comics as

30:56

well as history. Have you would like to write

30:58

to us, you could do so at History Podcasts at housto

31:00

works dot com. You can also find us

31:02

everywhere on social media as Missed in History,

31:05

and you can visit our website missed in History

31:07

dot com, where we have show notes

31:09

and uh episodes going all the

31:11

way back to the beginning of the show, and things that you

31:13

can click on, like that trip to Paris information

31:16

and our our store. And we also

31:18

hope that you subscribe to the podcast, which you can do on

31:20

the I Heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts

31:22

or wherever you get your podcasts. For

31:30

more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

31:32

how staff works dot com.