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Long Live Harriet · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: An untested hypothesis remains just that a hypothesis. In order
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  Speaker 1: to be proven right or wrong, it must be subjected
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  Speaker 1: to experimentation. Scientists test their hypotheses all the time. It's
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  Speaker 1: how we make advancements in things like medicine, physics, and
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  Speaker 1: other scientific disciplines. But sometimes the people looking to advance
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  Speaker 1: civilization aren't scientists at all. They're just regular people seeking
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  Speaker 1: a better life, and all they want is to see
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  Speaker 1: if their theories are true, that such a life is
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  Speaker 1: out there somewhere, even if they have to build it
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  Speaker 1: for themselves. It all started with one man, at Tienne Kabe,
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  Speaker 1: a French legal scholar born in seventeen eighty eight. But
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  Speaker 1: despite his education in law, Kabe had little regard for
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  Speaker 1: its strict black and white rhetoric. He took a keen
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  Speaker 1: interest in politics and eventually moved to Paris, seeking out
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  Speaker 1: secret revolutionary organizations looking to upset the status quo. His
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  Speaker 1: day finally came with the Revolution of eighteen thirty, which
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  Speaker 1: saw the removal of conservative King Charles the Tenth and
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  Speaker 1: the appointment of the more liberal Louis Philippe to the throne.
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  Speaker 1: Cabey's efforts during this time also earn him a swanky
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  Speaker 1: government job as Attorney General for the island of Corsica,
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  Speaker 1: but this didn't stop him from voicing his displeasure toward
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  Speaker 1: other conservative branch as a French government. After enough complaining,
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  Speaker 1: he was not only removed from his position, but also
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  Speaker 1: exiled to England. Still, he didn't let this setback stop him.
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  Speaker 1: While he resided in Britain, Kabe focused much of his
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  Speaker 1: work on political and economic study, which he channeled into
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  Speaker 1: a new novel. It was titled Voyage on Icare and
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  Speaker 1: told the story of a fictional communal town called Ikorea.
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  Speaker 1: In this place, everyone was equal. There was no monarchy,
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  Speaker 1: no feudal system, and no one persecuted anyone else for
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  Speaker 1: standing up for what they believed in Korea was a utopia.
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  Speaker 1: After his five years in exile, Kabe returned to France
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  Speaker 1: and had his story published. Much to his surprise, it
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  Speaker 1: became a huge success, and not just as a bestseller.
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  Speaker 1: Readers of Voyage on icare really connected with its message.
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  Speaker 1: It was a message that promised everyone's needs would be
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  Speaker 1: met and provided for despite their current status. People wanted
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  Speaker 1: a real Ikorea where they could speak their minds without
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  Speaker 1: consequence and live truly free lives. Kabe hadn't just written
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  Speaker 1: an allegorical novel criticizing the current French government. He had
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  Speaker 1: crafted a blue print for a utopian society, and readers
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  Speaker 1: wanted to live there. By eighteen forty three, the author
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  Speaker 1: claimed that there were at least fifty thousand French citizens
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  Speaker 1: who believed in the promise of Ikorea. Four years later,
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  Speaker 1: he published an article titled let Us Go to Ikorea
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  Speaker 1: with instructions on how to colonize a portion of America.
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  Speaker 1: For that exact purpose, Kabey soon found the perfect spot
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  Speaker 1: to build his utopian vision. It resided across the Pond
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  Speaker 1: in America, a place full of promise and possibility, the
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  Speaker 1: state of Texas. He secured a million acres of land there,
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  Speaker 1: and on February third of eighteen forty three, almost seventy
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  Speaker 1: French citizens left home to start new lives in what
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  Speaker 1: would eventually become the Ikorea of their dreams. They finally
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  Speaker 1: arrived in Texas in late March. Kabey had promised them
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  Speaker 1: a huge swath of land that was close to the
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  Speaker 1: Red River and fertile ground for growing crops, but once
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  Speaker 1: they got there, the early Koreans found that they had
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  Speaker 1: been duped. The land was actually twenty five miles away
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  Speaker 1: from the Red River and measured nowhere near one million acres.
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  Speaker 1: They had only three thousand acres on which to build
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  Speaker 1: their homesteads, all of it broken up into smaller tracks
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  Speaker 1: with plots owned by the state of Texas in between. Honestly,
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  Speaker 1: a map of the place looked kind of like a chessboard,
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  Speaker 1: where the black squares were the Ikorean owned land and
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  Speaker 1: the white squares were not. More people continued to come over, though,
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  Speaker 1: but they soon realized that they just weren't cut out
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  Speaker 1: for utopian living. Kebey lost a number of followers who
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  Speaker 1: eventually returned to France, but some stuck it out, looking
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  Speaker 1: to make a go of it despite the odds against them,
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  Speaker 1: and their leader even managed to push the odds in
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  Speaker 1: their favor. He was in New Orleans when he came
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  Speaker 1: across a group of individuals who had fled their original
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  Speaker 1: home in Navu, Illinois, due to threats of violence from
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  Speaker 1: the surrounding communities. This fledgling organization happened to be the
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  Speaker 1: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, also known
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  Speaker 1: as Mormons, and they were only too happy to sell
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  Speaker 1: their old land to Kobey for a paltry price. So
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  Speaker 1: he and his followers eventually left Texas and moved north
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  Speaker 1: to Illinois, where there were already homes built and waiting
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  Speaker 1: for them thanks to the former Mormon owners. Unfortunately, Koreans
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  Speaker 1: still had a huge problem. Despite being a communist utopia,
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  Speaker 1: Ikorea required money to survive in an otherwise capitalist society.
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  Speaker 1: Tools and materials from outside had to be paid for.
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  Speaker 1: The struggle to survive as a communal enclave surrounded by
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  Speaker 1: a diametrically opposed economic ideology caused tension among the people.
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  Speaker 1: They began voicing their complaints out loud, to the point
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  Speaker 1: where Kabai became the very thing that he hated. A dictator.
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  Speaker 1: He forbade speaking ill of his efforts or of the
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  Speaker 1: community as a whole, He also outlawed things like tobacco
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  Speaker 1: and alcohol. Between the growing discord among his people and
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  Speaker 1: the fraud charges he was facing back home from former Ikoreans,
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't long before his utopian experiment collapsed. He was
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  Speaker 1: ousted from his role as head of the colony in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty and decided to set out on his own
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  Speaker 1: with a small group of loyal Ikoreans in tow. He
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  Speaker 1: died of a stroke a month later, but other members
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  Speaker 1: splintered off and settled down in Corning, Iowa, where they
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  Speaker 1: tried to build their ideal city of the future from
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  Speaker 1: the ground up. And they got close, but an increasingly
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  Speaker 1: younger demographic challenged the older established community members who didn't
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  Speaker 1: want to see certain changes, such as women getting the
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  Speaker 1: right to vote. By eighteen eighty six, all traces of
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  Speaker 1: Korea and its various factions had all but disappeared. To
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  Speaker 1: quote Nathaniel Hawthorne, eager souls, mystics, and revolutionaries may propose
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  Speaker 1: to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams, but
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  Speaker 1: evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the
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  Speaker 1: secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow
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  Speaker 1: of a dream we all have that one friend or relative,
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  Speaker 1: the one who lingers a bit too long at holidays
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  Speaker 1: and gatherings, who consistently makes themselves the center of the drama.
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  Speaker 1: They're always around, and they're a bit more high maintenance
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  Speaker 1: than everyone else. Harriet was a lot like that. She
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  Speaker 1: was born around eighteen thirty on the island of Santa Cruz,
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  Speaker 1: but quickly made her way to the nearby island of
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  Speaker 1: Santa Maria, off the coast of South America. She lived
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  Speaker 1: there for some time until a visitor from England arrived
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty five aboard a research vessel named HMS Beagle.
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  Speaker 1: His name was Charles Darwin. You've probably heard of him.
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  Speaker 1: He had left England in eighteen thirty one on board
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  Speaker 1: the Beagle to study various flora and fauna throughout his travels,
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  Speaker 1: and he did all of that. Darwin was a naturalist
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  Speaker 1: after all. He cataloged and studied a number of different
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  Speaker 1: species of plants and animals during that voyage. But then
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  Speaker 1: there was Harriet. Darwin met her on his first trip
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  Speaker 1: to the Galapagos Islands. She, along with two others, joined
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  Speaker 1: him on board the Beagle. Unfortunately, caring for Harriet and
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  Speaker 1: her two siblings became a bit too much, and they
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  Speaker 1: were eventually adopted by John Clemens Wickham. Wickham had been
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  Speaker 1: the first lieutenant on the Beagle, serving under Fitzroy while
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  Speaker 1: Darwin was a board. Wickham then became captain for a
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  Speaker 1: short time before retiring to Australia with Harriet and her
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  Speaker 1: two brothers, Tom and Dick. She resided with him in
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  Speaker 1: Brisbane at a place called Newstead House for the next
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  Speaker 1: nineteen years. Then in eighteen sixty Wickham departed Australia to
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  Speaker 1: spend his final years in France. Tom, Dick and Harriet,
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, left Newstead House for the Botanic Gardens.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's important to understand that paperwork concerning the movement
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  Speaker 1: of all the involved parties is pretty scarce. It's believed
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  Speaker 1: by some that Wickham could not have adopted Tom, Dick
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  Speaker 1: and Harriet because he wasn't in England in eighteen forty
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  Speaker 1: one to collect them. Others argue that he actually was
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  Speaker 1: there to get them and then he took them to Australia.
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  Speaker 1: And Darwin's involvement has also been disputed, since he never
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  Speaker 1: actually set foot on the island where Harriet was born.
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  Speaker 1: But even though she was not native to any of
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  Speaker 1: the islands he visited. It's widely believed that he was
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  Speaker 1: in the right place at the right time. Harriet had
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  Speaker 1: found her way there and she was chosen to accompany
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  Speaker 1: him on his journey. Either way. She lived at the
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  Speaker 1: Botanical Gardens until nineteen fifty two, seventy years after the
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  Speaker 1: death of Charles Darwin, and during that time she was
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  Speaker 1: mistaken for a boy and called Harry, named for Harry Oakman,
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  Speaker 1: the groundskeeper there at the Botanical Gardens. It wasn't until
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  Speaker 1: she moved to the Gold Coast when it was discovered
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  Speaker 1: that Harry was actually a female. From then on she
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  Speaker 1: was called Harriet. By now she was over one hundred
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  Speaker 1: and twenty years old and as I'm sure you can guess,
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  Speaker 1: she was not a person. Harriet, along with Tom and Dick,
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  Speaker 1: were tortoises, and the Gold Coast of Australia was home
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  Speaker 1: to Flay's Fauna Sanctuary, which would become her residence for
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  Speaker 1: the next thirty five years. She made one last move
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven to the Dtrolia Zoo's Queenland Reptile Park.
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  Speaker 1: This zoo was quite special, as its founders, Bob and
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  Speaker 1: Lynn Erwin had a son who loved all kinds of animals.
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  Speaker 1: He grew up to be a voice for wildlife conservancy
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  Speaker 1: and education. Along with his wife Terry. Steve Irwin became
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  Speaker 1: known by his nickname the Crocodile Hunter, and among the
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  Speaker 1: many creatures under his care at the zoo was Harriet.
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  Speaker 1: Harriet had a good life there, according to the Australia
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  Speaker 1: Zoo's website. She ate a regular diet of fresh vegetables
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  Speaker 1: and hibiscus flowers, and the Irwins considered her an honorary grandmother.
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  Speaker 1: She was beloved by both staff and visitors alike. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: Harriet passed away on June twenty third of two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and six of heart failure, but she lived to the
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  Speaker 1: ripe old age of one hundred and seventy six, and
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  Speaker 1: her legacy was just as wild as her. She was
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  Speaker 1: the only creature on Earth that had been roommates with
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  Speaker 1: both Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin. And to that, I say,
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  Speaker 1: kriike I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the
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  Speaker 1: Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or
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  Speaker 1: learn more about the show by visiting curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
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  Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
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  Speaker 1: the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.