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Did the Dutch trade Manhattan for nutmeg? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant
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Speaker 1: with this Atlanta Braves hat. How's it going, slugger? Yeah?
0:24
Speaker 1: Four braves? Oh yeah. The Yankees are doing terribly too. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's a great way to start the season. Yeah, but
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Speaker 1: at the same time, it's like, oh and four out
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Speaker 1: of what a hundred and eighty nine. It's not like
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Speaker 1: they don't have time to come back and six. But yeah, no,
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Speaker 1: of course there's an a big deal. But you never
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Speaker 1: want to start out like that. No, you really don't. But,
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Speaker 1: as the GM pointed out in an article in Atlanta Magazine,
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Speaker 1: still a lot of games to play. Uh. There, it's
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Speaker 1: a rebuilding season. So they fired somebody, right, yeah, oh yeah.
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Speaker 1: He basically said, like, if you're a fan, don't I
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Speaker 1: hope go read it. Okay, I'm not kid. Even if
1:01
Speaker 1: that were true, they jams don't say that. He said it.
1:04
Speaker 1: He sounds like a straight shooter, right, Maybe he was
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Speaker 1: drunk when he did this interview. I don't know, but
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Speaker 1: that's what that's how I read it. And Matt Arnett's
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Speaker 1: in it too, is a picture of him in front
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Speaker 1: of the grocery. Oh really mad, So I guess we
1:19
Speaker 1: should stop talking like we're not being recorded right now. Um, chuck, uh,
1:26
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know, as you know. And
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Speaker 1: I propose that we begin in earnest now, so chuck
1:34
Speaker 1: back in. There was a guy, an entomologist who he's
1:41
Speaker 1: not an entomologist, but he did coin a term in
1:45
Speaker 1: an editorial that he wrote for the Journal of Insect Conservation.
1:49
Speaker 1: The guy's name is Michael Samways, and the term he
1:52
Speaker 1: coined is the homage scene. Okay, and the homage scene
1:57
Speaker 1: is this word that describes basically the um sweeping similarity
2:04
Speaker 1: and homogeneity that's come about around the planet um since
2:10
Speaker 1: the age of exploration. It's the reason why you have
2:15
Speaker 1: chili peppers as one of the basis of Thai cooking,
2:18
Speaker 1: even though chili peppers are from meso America, tomatoes from
2:22
Speaker 1: meso America from the basis of Italian cooking. Um. It's
2:26
Speaker 1: the reason why there are black people and white people
2:29
Speaker 1: in the United States. It's the reason why there's Asians
2:32
Speaker 1: in Mexican. In Mexico, it's the reason why the Irish
2:37
Speaker 1: uh entered a famine because they became too reliant on
2:40
Speaker 1: the potato, which is actually from the Andes. And it's
2:43
Speaker 1: the reason why there's old navy stores on every continent,
2:48
Speaker 1: well probably except maybe Antarctica, but I wouldn't be willing
2:52
Speaker 1: to bet too much against that. But the homogescene is
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Speaker 1: this age that we're living in now where biologically it's
2:57
Speaker 1: like the earthworms in Minnesota. They're really from Europe, but
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Speaker 1: they're destroying forests in Minnesota. It's all of this coupling
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Speaker 1: together what um A geographer named Alfred Crosby called umu
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Speaker 1: re stitching the seams of Pangaea, the super continent back
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Speaker 1: together once again. And then one of my heroes, Charles c. Man,
3:17
Speaker 1: it's the basis of his book the follow up in
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Speaker 1: f called It's all about the homogen scene. And like
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Speaker 1: the world that Columbus inadvertently created, the big global stew
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Speaker 1: thank you. Um So a lot of people attributed to Columbus,
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Speaker 1: but you really need to go a little further back
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Speaker 1: and you can place the responsibility for the homoges scene.
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Speaker 1: The good, the bad, the ugly, the everything at the
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Speaker 1: feet pretty much of one guy and Ottoman Sultan named
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Speaker 1: Member the Second, who kind of changed the course of
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Speaker 1: history when he overtook Constantinople. That was a pretty good intro.
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Speaker 1: You just did like a many jazz hands that they
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Speaker 1: were trembling. Yeah, you like try to stop yourself. Uh yeah.
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Speaker 1: Age of Exploration. It was kicked off by Member the Second, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: because he basically shut down UM trade routes through the
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Speaker 1: Middle East. Yeah, the Silk Roads, the famous Silk Roads,
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Speaker 1: which was huge. Well yeah, I mean think about it,
4:20
Speaker 1: like Europe got everything from the Middle East, or from
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Speaker 1: Asia through the through the India, through Turkey, through the
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Speaker 1: subcontinent UM. And this guy took control of Constantinople and
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Speaker 1: effectively said, you know what, I'm kind of tired of
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Speaker 1: your crusades, so any Europeans are barred from taking part
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Speaker 1: in this trade. And that was that. That was huge
4:42
Speaker 1: because then they had to take to the sea. Yeah,
4:44
Speaker 1: but think about it, within like fifty years, all of
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Speaker 1: a sudden they were like, okay, well let's just sail
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Speaker 1: and see what happens. Yeah, and that changed everything. Well,
4:51
Speaker 1: did that kick off the age of expression? That that
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Speaker 1: act is what made people say I'm gonna go get
4:56
Speaker 1: in my frigate exactly and just say frigate out of here. Sorry.
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Speaker 1: Then the word play today is world class. Uh, yes, Josh,
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Speaker 1: So they and I also found it interesting that it
5:09
Speaker 1: seems like almost every great discovery that happened because of
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Speaker 1: that was in a big accident. Yeah, these dudes didn't
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Speaker 1: know where they were. No, Well, Columbus cologne, Crystal Ball
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Speaker 1: cologne is apparently how he would have what he would
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Speaker 1: have answered to Well, and then later on Hudson was like, oops,
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Speaker 1: I found Manhattan. Yeah, but that's not what I was
5:29
Speaker 1: looking for. Well, they were failing again and again and again.
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Speaker 1: Ultimately what they were looking for was a passageway to China. Um,
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Speaker 1: and they found it in Panama. But even then they
5:40
Speaker 1: were like still a little too wide and a little
5:43
Speaker 1: too far. But um, but yes, it was very accident. Um.
5:47
Speaker 1: Except Vasco da Gama was one of the few success
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Speaker 1: stories and one of the earliest two, and he kind
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Speaker 1: of cemented the Portuguese control over this because um, there
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Speaker 1: the the West Indies, like what we now refer to
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Speaker 1: as like Indonesia, the Indian subcontinent, Australasia. Basically, Um, that
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Speaker 1: was the place where we wanted to get to. The
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Speaker 1: Europeans wanted to get to, but they couldn't do it
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Speaker 1: overland any longer. Well, the Gama sailed down around Africa,
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Speaker 1: past the Cape of Good Hope and up to India
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Speaker 1: and came back and said, Okay, Portugal owns the world now,
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Speaker 1: And they kind of did as far as being the
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Speaker 1: dominant traders of the of the time, at least for
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Speaker 1: the for pretty much the whole sixteenth century. UM in Europe,
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Speaker 1: of course wouldn't have that. So the Dutch and the English,
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Speaker 1: you know, ponied up, and well ponied up means they paid.
6:45
Speaker 1: They manned up, I guess, and said, you know what,
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Speaker 1: we gotta get on the on the scene here because
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Speaker 1: Portugal is kicking her butt in the spice trade. And
6:55
Speaker 1: I looked up the whole spice thing just to get
6:57
Speaker 1: a little more into it, because I was like, why
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Speaker 1: we're spices such a big deal. Well, he who controls
7:02
Speaker 1: the spice controls the universe. Well, it was kind of true.
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Speaker 1: Back then, UM, spices were were a huge deal because
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Speaker 1: uh one, Europe didn't have these exotic spices because they
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Speaker 1: didn't grow there. They had they had the head garlic,
7:17
Speaker 1: the head onion, and they had like horzerdish. That's about it.
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Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, these exotic spices, uh, come come,
7:25
Speaker 1: come around, and it makes crappy meat tastes better, It
7:29
Speaker 1: makes spoiled meat taste edible, and other bad foods that
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Speaker 1: have gone bad. Yeah, gruel just spice the crap out
7:37
Speaker 1: of it. And um, it was expensive, so it became
7:40
Speaker 1: like a sign of nobility. So like if you were
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Speaker 1: entertaining and you were like either noble or wealthy, you
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Speaker 1: would like really turn it on to your guest if
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Speaker 1: you like brought out the spice tray like along with
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Speaker 1: the meal that's already spiced, and they would just sample
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Speaker 1: different little spices and it was like a really big thing.
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Speaker 1: And then top it all off, it was served by
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Speaker 1: a captured human being wearing like bright feathers, so you
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Speaker 1: could really show off for your guest's Uh. Spice is
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Speaker 1: also improved health. They were used medicinally to treat dozens
8:14
Speaker 1: of maladies. Well, let's get to the star of this episode.
8:18
Speaker 1: Preserved meats not there yet. Oh sorry, well salt, yeah,
8:23
Speaker 1: how we get j Yeah, salt was so valuable they
8:26
Speaker 1: like hit it in the Tower of London. Oh yeah,
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Speaker 1: I think they called it the Salt Tower even for
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Speaker 1: a little while, not officially. And then peppercorn evidently was
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Speaker 1: one of the most valued. It was like a really
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Speaker 1: huge deal you had pink peppercorn. Yeah. Plus it's not
8:41
Speaker 1: cheap pepper even to this day. But they would actually
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Speaker 1: use peppercorn as rent in areas where like there didn't
8:47
Speaker 1: have money, so they would use this currency and like
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Speaker 1: paid peppercorn rent to your landlord. In the background, somebody shouting,
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Speaker 1: bring out, you're dead and you're paying your rent and peppercorn.
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Speaker 1: So that's that's a primer on why it's such a
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Speaker 1: big eel to get spices back in the day. Well.
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Speaker 1: Plus also ultimately the reason why people were doing everything
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Speaker 1: and anything like memos shut down. Um, the silk rows
9:09
Speaker 1: in fourteen fifty three, Columbus sets sail in fourteen Yeah,
9:15
Speaker 1: so in less than forty years. Um, like we're like, okay,
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Speaker 1: we have to figure this out. But I think the
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Speaker 1: big driver of it always money. Sure, there was a
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Speaker 1: merchant class that could make money from selling this stuff
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Speaker 1: to the nobility. That's right there, you have it. There
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Speaker 1: you have it. So where were we Portugal ruling the
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Speaker 1: spice trade, um. And then the Dutch are like, we
9:37
Speaker 1: gotta put a stop to this. We need to go
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Speaker 1: form a corporation chartered company, one of the world's first.
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna butcher this. It's Dutch man. I mean, that's
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Speaker 1: hard to say. The ver Verinigdish Indiese Company or the
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Speaker 1: Dutch East India Company in English, the VSC, which is
10:02
Speaker 1: probably what we'll call it, or we if we refer
10:04
Speaker 1: to the Dutch, that's what we're talking about, because they
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Speaker 1: were representative of the Dutch government. It was a government
10:12
Speaker 1: establishing government um initially funded company that the the Dutch
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Speaker 1: came about and said, hey, Portugal, you're not the only
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Speaker 1: guys on the map now. And then shortly after that
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Speaker 1: the English said, the English said, you know what, We're
10:27
Speaker 1: going to form the East India Company, which, by the way,
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Speaker 1: we should do an episode on just itself. And it
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Speaker 1: was brutal, just the crazy stuff that the East India
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Speaker 1: Company did, killing him the name of spice. Yes, and
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Speaker 1: the Dutch did too. We'll see pretty much everybody did.
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Speaker 1: Your Europeans were brutal, um. But uh so the E
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Speaker 1: i C. The East India Company or the the English
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Speaker 1: um and the Dutch suddenly hit the scene and gave
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Speaker 1: Portugal a run for its money and basically rested control
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Speaker 1: away from Portugal and started dividing it between themselves. That's
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Speaker 1: the scene in the West Indies, that's right. And then
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Speaker 1: they all said, hey, let's go west and check out
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Speaker 1: what kind of fur is being traded. I'm sorry, that's
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Speaker 1: the scene in the East Indies. Would you say West Indies? Yeah? Yeah, um,
11:15
Speaker 1: nice catch. So they the v O C in the
11:19
Speaker 1: E I C England, in Holland, let's call it okay,
11:24
Speaker 1: or we're calling the Dutch, or maybe we should just
11:27
Speaker 1: say that from Amsterdame. Okay, they're all the same. Jerry's laughing.
11:31
Speaker 1: Let's call it the the Netherlands. Everyone in rotter Damn
11:34
Speaker 1: is really mad at you right now, Um Rodder. Name
11:38
Speaker 1: is very nice. Actually, I would imagine I think all
11:41
Speaker 1: of it, all of the Netherlands are nice, lovely, lovely country.
11:45
Speaker 1: Um okay. So uh so they both say, let's go
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Speaker 1: check out the New World because there's gotta be some
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Speaker 1: fur there, and let's do it. Let's let's beat the
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Speaker 1: Portuguese over there. Let's do it, I mean not together
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Speaker 1: in a charter. Yeah, um, we can do it, right.
12:04
Speaker 1: So yeah, now they were competing. They didn't do anything together.
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Speaker 1: It was all competition. There's a competition in the east
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Speaker 1: for the Spice Islands, and now there's a competition in
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Speaker 1: the west and specifically in the um northeastern what is
12:16
Speaker 1: now the northeastern United States. And the whole thing began
12:19
Speaker 1: with um like you were poking fun at Henry Hudson
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Speaker 1: who tried to look for a northeast passage to China
12:25
Speaker 1: for the Dutch. Though that was I was on his own.
12:28
Speaker 1: He was an English explorer. I thought was the northeast.
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Speaker 1: Then the said, hey, while you're up there, look for
12:34
Speaker 1: a northwest passage. Try that one and we'll pay you.
12:37
Speaker 1: Now here's what I was curious about. Was he like
12:39
Speaker 1: a trader to his country for doing this or was
12:42
Speaker 1: it just like all bets are off when you're hired.
12:45
Speaker 1: I think it was you. Well, Christobal Cologne was I
12:50
Speaker 1: think he was Portuguese. No, he was Genoese. He was
12:52
Speaker 1: Italian and he was exploring for um, the Spanish when
12:56
Speaker 1: he landed on Hispaniola. So yeah, it was I think
13:00
Speaker 1: whoever whoever would pay for your expedition. And yeah, so
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Speaker 1: Henry Hudson, I don't believe I've ever heard him considered
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Speaker 1: a trader for that. But he basically contracted out with
13:12
Speaker 1: the Dutch. That's right, the V O C. And he
13:15
Speaker 1: didn't find that Northwest passage, but he did discover, um,
13:18
Speaker 1: the Hudson River. He did. It wasn't called that until
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Speaker 1: he found it Long Island in another place called Manhattan.
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Speaker 1: And now we get to the crux of our story
13:31
Speaker 1: because the Dutch are aware that there's a place called
13:34
Speaker 1: Manhattan and they want to check it out because it
13:37
Speaker 1: has awesome street food. He uh, he did little trading
13:43
Speaker 1: there initially, and that's how he kind of established for
13:47
Speaker 1: the Dutch was by taking part in some commerce. Yeah,
13:51
Speaker 1: because first, um, we're fairly lucrative. There were nothing compared
13:56
Speaker 1: to spices, but they were enough to like get an
13:58
Speaker 1: interest for nothing compared to peppercorn because we were lousy
14:04
Speaker 1: with animals at the time. Yeah, like we didn't know
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Speaker 1: what we're doing. Just kill them all and the fur
14:10
Speaker 1: is easy to come by. Peppercorn though, doesn't grow here.
14:14
Speaker 1: All right, you're ready, I'm ready, okay, so uh he
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Speaker 1: uh he claims it for the Dutch. The States General
14:24
Speaker 1: of the Netherlands set up the Dutch West India Company
14:28
Speaker 1: after this you know revelation that they have you know,
14:32
Speaker 1: trading partners over there, that's right, And it became New Netherland,
14:37
Speaker 1: not New Belgium, not New or New Amsterdam. Yeah, new
14:42
Speaker 1: New Amsterdam is New York exactly. New Netherlands is the
14:45
Speaker 1: area around New York. Yeah, specifically, I think New York,
14:50
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Connecticut, Um, Delaware and parts of Pennsylvanian and
14:55
Speaker 1: Rhode Island like a lot a lot of area. So
14:58
Speaker 1: the the Dutch West India Company sends a bunch of
15:01
Speaker 1: Dutch people the colonize and start hanging out, uh, kind
15:05
Speaker 1: of making friends with the local Indians, the lenape Algonquin
15:10
Speaker 1: Lennapee tribe. So I also read that there were Delaware,
15:14
Speaker 1: the Meadowak, and the Wappinger were all there or whoppinger, Um,
15:18
Speaker 1: we're all in the area as well. Um, So the
15:22
Speaker 1: Dutch are like hanging out around these people are the
15:26
Speaker 1: new guys, and they're talking here there. And within five
15:28
Speaker 1: years the director himself of the v o C, Peter Minuit,
15:35
Speaker 1: shows up and he's basically just coming to check on
15:38
Speaker 1: this newly established colony, and while he's there, one of
15:42
Speaker 1: the things he does is um try to establish claim
15:46
Speaker 1: for the Dutch of Manhattan by buying it from the
15:50
Speaker 1: local tribe. Yeah. Well, at first, so the Indians are
15:53
Speaker 1: all like, we don't, we don't trade land and air
15:57
Speaker 1: and water. That's that's for everyone to use. And then
16:00
Speaker 1: the Dutch, we don't understand that. The Dutch said, have
16:02
Speaker 1: you tried liquor? And composedly suppose this is what Jay
16:09
Speaker 1: McGrath says. She's pretty good at history generally. I just
16:12
Speaker 1: looked at that. I couldn't find the liquor. I couldn't
16:14
Speaker 1: find any other great sources for that. So according to
16:16
Speaker 1: this article, um, the Dutch said, hey guys, let's um,
16:20
Speaker 1: let's partake in some liquor, and the Indians on the
16:23
Speaker 1: island drank it with them and got really drunk. And
16:27
Speaker 1: that's where the name Mannhattan supposedly comes from, which I
16:30
Speaker 1: guess it would be in an algonquin tongue because that's
16:34
Speaker 1: what everybody spoke up there. But it was Manna hatch
16:40
Speaker 1: Tannian and the hatch tani, which means the place we
16:44
Speaker 1: all got drunk. Yeah, that's where Manhattan comes from. Supposedly
16:48
Speaker 1: that's the legend. Well that's what they say. The Dutch
16:50
Speaker 1: trans translated that into Mannahatta and then that eventually became Manhattan. Right,
16:56
Speaker 1: So the Dutch are there, Peter Minuit's there, and he's like,
16:59
Speaker 1: you know what, it's just let's see what we can
17:02
Speaker 1: do and let's try to buy this um. Like you
17:04
Speaker 1: said that, the Indians at the time, supposedly nowhere in
17:10
Speaker 1: in the New World um understood or believed in the
17:14
Speaker 1: concept of owning land. So the idea of an Indian
17:18
Speaker 1: saying I will see this land to you you you
17:22
Speaker 1: have to also follow that up at the image of
17:24
Speaker 1: them turning around and laughing to his friends. Right, And
17:27
Speaker 1: not only that, apparently Manhattan wasn't um inhabited. It was
17:30
Speaker 1: a place where they hunted and fished and kind of
17:32
Speaker 1: hung out sometimes. But apparently no local tribe lived on Manhattan,
17:37
Speaker 1: so which made the idea of one of them selling
17:39
Speaker 1: it to them even funnier. And no one knows which
17:43
Speaker 1: which group the Dutch um bought this from. The only
17:47
Speaker 1: record of this this transaction ever taking place was a
17:51
Speaker 1: letter written by Peter Minuit, who just mentions offhand, Um
17:55
Speaker 1: the next year that oh, yeah, we bought Manhattan for
17:59
Speaker 1: a chest of of stuff for sixty guilders. Yeah, that's
18:04
Speaker 1: the old rumor two dollars bought Manhattan, and that's you know,
18:08
Speaker 1: been disputed here and there. Um, well, the sixty guilders
18:12
Speaker 1: is what he wrote that he spent. He spent for Manhattan.
18:15
Speaker 1: But how much that was worth at the time, Like
18:18
Speaker 1: you said, a lot of people said twenty four dollars.
18:20
Speaker 1: They've seen a thousand. It wasn't much, right. Um. I
18:24
Speaker 1: did a little more reading on this too, and it's
18:26
Speaker 1: because you know, of course, the person you think is boy,
18:28
Speaker 1: the Native Americans got rooked out of Manhattan and who
18:32
Speaker 1: knew at the time, But like you said, they didn't
18:35
Speaker 1: even own it, so they sort of pulled a fast one.
18:38
Speaker 1: And in the end, I think most historians think that
18:42
Speaker 1: neither party really fully even understood the terms of the sale.
18:47
Speaker 1: And it wasn't like, oh my gosh, we have these
18:50
Speaker 1: trinkets now. It was hey, we've got some potential military partners,
18:54
Speaker 1: and the Dutch were like, hey, we've got some potential
18:56
Speaker 1: trade partners. So it was a lot more. It a
19:00
Speaker 1: lot more than the sixty guilders right, and even the trinkets,
19:04
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, that's under dispute as well. They they
19:07
Speaker 1: it's all. It's also in addition to the twenty four dollars,
19:10
Speaker 1: which is estimated in the nineteenth century, is kind of
19:13
Speaker 1: a way to make the Indians look like idiots. UM
19:16
Speaker 1: saying that it was just a box of trinkets makes
19:19
Speaker 1: it sound like he makes them sound even dumber. But
19:22
Speaker 1: probably what it was where like axes, metal kettles, UM, scissors,
19:27
Speaker 1: just stuff like the Indians just technology. They didn't have
19:30
Speaker 1: them cutting in so UM. The I guess the idea
19:35
Speaker 1: that the man that the Indians selling Manhattan for two
19:39
Speaker 1: dollars is um false at the very least, it's it's
19:43
Speaker 1: been um taken out of context. But what we have here,
19:47
Speaker 1: I think what you're saying is that there's two parties,
19:50
Speaker 1: neither of which are in any um position to sell
19:53
Speaker 1: or buy this land, who do just that UM. And
19:58
Speaker 1: the sale of Brooklyn actually is a lot better re recorded.
20:03
Speaker 1: There's it's a lot better documented UM. From sixteen thirty
20:07
Speaker 1: six to six eighty four, over like twenty two treaties
20:11
Speaker 1: the local Um tribes sold Manhattan or Brooklyn piece by
20:15
Speaker 1: piece like what amounted to like twelve thousand guilders over time.
20:20
Speaker 1: And um historians now see that as the Indians kind
20:23
Speaker 1: of figuring out that if you sold this land that
20:27
Speaker 1: you didn't even think you owned to the Europeans, it
20:30
Speaker 1: was a way of staving off your eventual removal, and
20:34
Speaker 1: that they were basically doing it. They kind of mastered,
20:37
Speaker 1: like pawning the Europeans, so they were on views of land,
20:43
Speaker 1: they weren't the rubes that they're painted to be. Oftentimes.
20:47
Speaker 1: I think that's the point here. Yeah, I like that. Okay,
20:49
Speaker 1: they said, check out park Slope. Can you imagine the
20:52
Speaker 1: baby carriages one day and the young yuppiece who will
20:55
Speaker 1: be living here are they're still yuppies if not in
21:00
Speaker 1: name and practice. Yeah. Um. So the long story short
21:04
Speaker 1: is that the Dutch now believed that they own Manhattan
21:07
Speaker 1: and New Netherlands in short order, like by the end
21:11
Speaker 1: of the seventeenth century, they own what's now New York,
21:14
Speaker 1: New Jersey in Connecticut, right, that's right. At the same time,
21:18
Speaker 1: back east in the East Indies, things are starting to
21:21
Speaker 1: heat up, specifically around what I said earlier is the
21:26
Speaker 1: star of this episode. This as far as spices go nutmeg. Uh.
21:32
Speaker 1: Nutmeg was very valuable. It tasted yummy when sprinkled on
21:35
Speaker 1: puddings and desserts. And uh it was an approdisiac. Supposedly
21:41
Speaker 1: it was hallucinogenic. Uh powder it's an abort of fashion,
21:46
Speaker 1: which means it can cause abortions. Really, so if you're pregnant,
21:50
Speaker 1: you were supposed to touch nutmeg. Interesting, I didn't done that. Yeah. Uh.
21:54
Speaker 1: And during the Black Plague, they would wear nutmeg around
21:57
Speaker 1: their neck. And if you think that sounds a little inky,
22:00
Speaker 1: it might have actually kept the fleas away that carried
22:03
Speaker 1: the Black plague, so it may not have been simply superstition, right,
22:08
Speaker 1: So they were kind of smart. Plus again we get
22:10
Speaker 1: to what what really drove people the mark up big time.
22:15
Speaker 1: They they some traders marked it up as much as
22:18
Speaker 1: six thousand percent. That's a lot of profit which would
22:22
Speaker 1: make people go crazy for it, which is what the
22:25
Speaker 1: Dutch did. That's right. And at the time, up until
22:28
Speaker 1: about the mid nineteenth century, the only place you could
22:30
Speaker 1: find this stuff was in the Banda Islands in Indonesia
22:35
Speaker 1: group of islands got this nutmeg. This one island in particular,
22:40
Speaker 1: uh Powella Run, which they called run yeah, that one
22:45
Speaker 1: was lousy with us. It's one of the smallest islands
22:48
Speaker 1: of the Banda Islands, but it was like just covered
22:51
Speaker 1: in nutmeg. And there's how many, I think five islands
22:55
Speaker 1: to the band is and um four were controlled by
22:58
Speaker 1: the Dutch clearly out right, and then one was controlled
23:02
Speaker 1: by the British. And the Dutch um landed on the
23:05
Speaker 1: band Islands and kicked the Portuguese out. It did their
23:08
Speaker 1: little treaty thing with the locals, which they like to do.
23:12
Speaker 1: The locals said, okay, thanks for the money. I don't
23:15
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about, and proceeded to trade with
23:17
Speaker 1: other people. Well, yeah, they wanted to establish the monopoly
23:20
Speaker 1: the Dutch did. Yeah, they're saying like we want to
23:23
Speaker 1: be the only exporter of nutmeg, right, you can only
23:26
Speaker 1: sell to us. And then here signed this. But the
23:29
Speaker 1: locals did. They had no idea what what was going on,
23:32
Speaker 1: and they didn't understand this concept or they just didn't
23:35
Speaker 1: really care if the Dutch wanted a monopoly or not.
23:39
Speaker 1: So long story short, the Dutch brutalized the Banda natives.
23:44
Speaker 1: Um Uh carried out like raids and massacres of villages,
23:50
Speaker 1: executed chiefs, basically um wipe themselves out of the local
23:57
Speaker 1: population that was capable of growing nutmegs, so they had
23:59
Speaker 1: to import colonists from the Netherlands to come grow the nutmeg.
24:04
Speaker 1: That's right. But they had their monopoly, well almost the monopoly,
24:08
Speaker 1: because the British still had the control of run um.
24:11
Speaker 1: And like you said, even though it was small, it
24:13
Speaker 1: was lousy with with nutmeg. It's so crazy that nutmeg
24:16
Speaker 1: was like the reason all this was going on. I've
24:19
Speaker 1: got like four whole nutmeg nuts in my pantry right
24:23
Speaker 1: now and it's like nothing to men to see my pants.
24:26
Speaker 1: I didn't understand that. It's like, what's that good for?
24:29
Speaker 1: I just have one in my pocket, gets rid of police.
24:34
Speaker 1: Uh alright, So the Dutch um you were saying, they
24:38
Speaker 1: didn't quite have a monopoly because the British had a run. Exactly,
24:42
Speaker 1: the British had run so uh, they would dip um.
24:46
Speaker 1: They would dip the nutmeg and lime the dutch wood,
24:48
Speaker 1: which would mean it can't grow like if you planet. Yeah,
24:51
Speaker 1: because think about it, if you're exporting nutmeg, it's the
24:54
Speaker 1: fruit the mast of the nutmeg tree, which means it's
24:57
Speaker 1: also the seed, which any smart person could take that,
25:01
Speaker 1: put it in the ground in a similar climate and
25:03
Speaker 1: grow nutmeg, and then all of a sudden, the Dutch
25:04
Speaker 1: doesn't The Dutch don't have that monopoly any longer, so
25:07
Speaker 1: they very ingeniously dipped it in line. That was that
25:11
Speaker 1: jerk move. It is a jerk move, but it's a
25:14
Speaker 1: good way to control that's true. But it didn't quite
25:18
Speaker 1: work because somebody decided, one of the higher ups that
25:22
Speaker 1: we need to partner up with England here instead of
25:26
Speaker 1: trying to like war them out of business with a nutmeg,
25:29
Speaker 1: let's partner up um. In sixteen nineteen they signed a
25:33
Speaker 1: cooperation agreement, but there was a commander of the v
25:36
Speaker 1: o C Yahn Pierre Soon Cohen, who said, screw that
25:43
Speaker 1: and screw your agreement. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna
25:45
Speaker 1: burn down all the nutmeg treats. Yeah, he seems like
25:48
Speaker 1: a very vindictive kind of guy, like he wanted the
25:51
Speaker 1: British out. He wanted the Band Islands just under Dutch
25:55
Speaker 1: control so badly that even after his the higher up
25:58
Speaker 1: said well, we're cool with the British, he was like, no, no,
26:01
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just gonna burn the whole island down.
26:04
Speaker 1: That's all right, he was crazy, he was yeah. Uh.
26:07
Speaker 1: So fast forward to the Second Anglo Dutch War. The
26:11
Speaker 1: Dutch finally get control of Run Yeah in sixteen sixty six.
26:17
Speaker 1: And then right after that they the Dutch in the English,
26:20
Speaker 1: said all right, things are a little out of hand,
26:22
Speaker 1: right now, let's end this war with the treaty, Yeah,
26:26
Speaker 1: very appropriately named Treaty of Bretta. Well back up a
26:31
Speaker 1: little bit before this. In sixteen sixty we need to
26:34
Speaker 1: point out what's going on back in Manhattan. England took
26:38
Speaker 1: control of Manhattan pretty much by sailing four ships into
26:42
Speaker 1: the harbor, and because the fur trade wasn't as lucrative
26:45
Speaker 1: as they thought it was gonna be, the West India
26:48
Speaker 1: Company from uh Holland said, you know, we're not so
26:52
Speaker 1: concerned about that area, so we're not going to fortify
26:55
Speaker 1: it too much. We're not gonna send him a lot
26:56
Speaker 1: of ammo. So basically, when the English showed up in
26:59
Speaker 1: sixteen four and said surrender, they went, okay, like, will
27:04
Speaker 1: surrender because the Dutch are, you know, Motherland kind of
27:07
Speaker 1: forgot about us over here. They don't care about us,
27:10
Speaker 1: and so come on, it's yours. And by this time
27:14
Speaker 1: also they'd formed the first brewery, remember blocking Christiansen, So
27:18
Speaker 1: they were just getting drunk. Yeah, They're like come on,
27:20
Speaker 1: and and of course England was like sweet yeah, um,
27:24
Speaker 1: so thank you for that. By the way, um, the
27:28
Speaker 1: the Dutch in the English after what was the war
27:31
Speaker 1: that that was the Second Anglo Dutch War, second of three,
27:34
Speaker 1: I think, and in the Treaty of Breta um between
27:37
Speaker 1: the Dutch and the English um settled. A lot of
27:41
Speaker 1: disputes ended that war, but they had disputes in the
27:44
Speaker 1: in the West Indies. So this way the Dutch had
27:47
Speaker 1: all of the in the East Indies had all of
27:49
Speaker 1: the band Islands. Um. The There was a lot of
27:53
Speaker 1: skirmishes between the Dutch and the English in Surinam over
27:57
Speaker 1: cocoa and sugar plantations. And finally, in the Treaty of Bretta,
28:01
Speaker 1: which was very much in the duchess favor, the English
28:07
Speaker 1: ended up with Manhattan. They said, you just had that,
28:10
Speaker 1: You're already there and it was kind of um, as
28:12
Speaker 1: man puts it in was kind of a booby prize,
28:16
Speaker 1: like you know. The English were like, if you can
28:20
Speaker 1: keep that, it's all right, and like no, no, we
28:22
Speaker 1: want you to have it. We're so grateful for the
28:25
Speaker 1: for the islands and for Surinam. You keep Manhattan, and
28:30
Speaker 1: today the Olsen twins lived there, at least one of
28:34
Speaker 1: them does. Uh. So in the end, England kept Manhattan,
28:39
Speaker 1: which they kind of already had. The Dutch kept Run
28:42
Speaker 1: which they kind of already had again by that point. Um,
28:45
Speaker 1: but England kind of pulled a fast one by taking
28:50
Speaker 1: lime free nutmeg and planning it on different islands. Granada,
28:55
Speaker 1: who came out on top England, I would say, so,
28:59
Speaker 1: so they sorted in it up, trading Manhattan for nutmeg.
29:02
Speaker 1: That's a really really roundabout way to put it. Uh
29:05
Speaker 1: And then of course in sixteen seventy three the Dutch
29:08
Speaker 1: retook Manhattan said no, no, no, it's ours again. There
29:12
Speaker 1: was a third war, uh Anglo Dutch War, but they
29:17
Speaker 1: were also fighting the French at the same time, which
29:20
Speaker 1: really screwed them. They went bankrupt basically, and finally in
29:25
Speaker 1: sixteen seventy four, the Treaty of Westminster, they finally said,
29:28
Speaker 1: all right here, officially once again, you have Manhattan. Man
29:32
Speaker 1: that's where like all over the place, weren't they you
29:37
Speaker 1: you you're new that's it. That's all for nutmeg and Manhattan.
29:43
Speaker 1: I'd like to do more history of New York stuff.
29:45
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, it's cool, great topic, very cool.
29:49
Speaker 1: Uh well you got anything else? Yeah? If you want
29:52
Speaker 1: to learn more about nutmeg, you should type that word
29:55
Speaker 1: into the search part house stuff works dot com. You
29:57
Speaker 1: can can also type in East India, come Benny Dutch,
30:01
Speaker 1: West Indies company like all sorts of cool stuff, and
30:05
Speaker 1: it'll bring up all sorts of cool things TI Manhattan.
30:09
Speaker 1: You'll be pleasantly surprised if you type that into the
30:11
Speaker 1: search part. It's probably a drink maybe article in there
30:16
Speaker 1: that would pleasantly surprise me. Um so, I said, handy
30:19
Speaker 1: searcher bar, which means it's time for listening, made Josh
30:25
Speaker 1: appropriately enough. This is about Robert de Niro talking New
30:28
Speaker 1: York area. Hi, guys, I worked in the service industry
30:32
Speaker 1: for about ten years. This is about tipping the way
30:36
Speaker 1: from salad bars to four star hotels, and I've had
30:38
Speaker 1: tons and tons of stories. Most memorably is the one
30:41
Speaker 1: I had when I served Mr Robert de Niro named
30:43
Speaker 1: spando Um. This is about seven years ago. I was
30:47
Speaker 1: acting as doorman at the Fairmont Washington, d C. Nice Place.
30:52
Speaker 1: De Niro stayed with us for about three nights, and
30:54
Speaker 1: I happened to work every day during his stay. Because
30:56
Speaker 1: I worked the night shift, had several opportunities to greet
30:58
Speaker 1: him and his lovely life and pretty much no one
31:01
Speaker 1: else was around. His wife was very charming and talkative
31:04
Speaker 1: and would indulge the driver in genuine conversation. Uh. This
31:08
Speaker 1: would afford me time to fit in a little small
31:10
Speaker 1: talk with the man himself, and his reactions were classic DeNiro.
31:14
Speaker 1: He even shrugged his shoulders when he spoke the man
31:16
Speaker 1: is a movie. Can you imagine being DeNiro? Where people
31:19
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, that's so DeNiro. He's just like
31:22
Speaker 1: that's me, Like, please stop it. Anyways, for some reason,
31:27
Speaker 1: his wife and himself took a liking to me and
31:29
Speaker 1: requested me to assist him in checking out of the
31:31
Speaker 1: room at the end of the stay. He had three
31:33
Speaker 1: beautiful children, all mixed race like myself, and he had
31:36
Speaker 1: to tend to one of them who was dealing with
31:38
Speaker 1: an eye infection. A manager, luggage and their checkout and
31:41
Speaker 1: proceeded down to the driveway at the entrance. It was
31:44
Speaker 1: all hands on deck, including the general manager, all supervisors,
31:47
Speaker 1: and my bell staff. Problem is on a checkout like this,
31:51
Speaker 1: too many people getting the way of us, Lackey's receiving
31:53
Speaker 1: any kind of proper gratuity. On top of that, celebrity
31:57
Speaker 1: stind to have what we call a fixer, someone who
31:59
Speaker 1: acts as a little man between the hotel and the guests, because,
32:02
Speaker 1: of course the guests. I don't want to talk to
32:03
Speaker 1: the bellhop, got someone else do that. Uh So I'm
32:07
Speaker 1: waiting next to his vehicle, luggage is packed, not expecting
32:10
Speaker 1: any tip because it's part of the course with this
32:13
Speaker 1: kind of checkout, and I can't complain having had the
32:15
Speaker 1: opportunity to serve someone I admired greatly. At that point,
32:18
Speaker 1: Mr de Niro walked up to the fixer and I
32:21
Speaker 1: heard him say, are these guys taken care of of course?
32:24
Speaker 1: The fixer replies, oh, yes, of course, of course, of course,
32:26
Speaker 1: knowing darnwell that wasn't true. That's when de Niro pulls
32:29
Speaker 1: the most classic move ever. He looks at the fixer
32:32
Speaker 1: and says, okay, well, I want to take care of
32:34
Speaker 1: them myself. I wish I could do a de Niro.
32:36
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna embarrass myself, though I'm surprised you can't.
32:40
Speaker 1: Uh proceeds to hand out twenty dollar bills to all
32:43
Speaker 1: of the bell men. Uh, simply for holding the door open.
32:46
Speaker 1: Then he walks over to me, thanks me for my service,
32:48
Speaker 1: and shakes my hand. My heart is beating like Jimmy Conway.
32:51
Speaker 1: I looked Jimmy Conway's boot in Billy Batt's face. I
32:54
Speaker 1: looked down and there are five bills folded up neatly
32:58
Speaker 1: in my palm. He see seriously folded up the bills
33:01
Speaker 1: in his bomb and shook my hand like Scorsese had
33:04
Speaker 1: just called action. Uh. The only thing I could think was, wow,
33:08
Speaker 1: he really just did that. I basically blacked out after that.
33:12
Speaker 1: And that it's from Corey Osborne and he came to
33:14
Speaker 1: and wrote the email. Pretty cool. I love that de
33:17
Speaker 1: Niro taking care of the common man. Yeah, and Boo
33:21
Speaker 1: on the fixer his Yeah. I thinks this, buddy, that
33:26
Speaker 1: was a great one. Thanks a lot, Corey. That was
33:28
Speaker 1: a good tipping story. That was maybe the best one
33:30
Speaker 1: we got, I think. So, um, let's see what else, Chuck, Yeah, nothing,
33:36
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything for anybody to write in about. Uh.
33:39
Speaker 1: If you got any interesting Manhattan history stories, that's a
33:43
Speaker 1: great one, or Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Historical Society is killing
33:47
Speaker 1: you know, our friend Rachel Grundy does uh literary pub crawls.
33:52
Speaker 1: So seek out the Literary pub Crawl in South Manhattan
33:57
Speaker 1: and Rachel and her cohorts will take you aroun onto
34:00
Speaker 1: the pubs and you'll drink and learn about the famous
34:02
Speaker 1: people who wrote there and drank there. Yes, that's great, Chuck, Sure,
34:07
Speaker 1: um so yeah what Chuck said? And you can wrap
34:10
Speaker 1: it up in a tweet. Forty characters are less, two
34:16
Speaker 1: s y esk podcast. You can join us on Facebook,
34:19
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you
34:22
Speaker 1: can send us an email wrap it up spanking on
34:26
Speaker 1: the bottom. Send it to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
34:30
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
34:38
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34:48
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