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A Tale of Two Hansons: Busting Myths About the 'First' US President · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. That is Mr Max Williams
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: on the audio ones and twos here give him a hand. Uh,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: they call me Ben Noel. You and I are fans
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of well, I don't know if we can say we're
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: fans of early American history, but I think we're both
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: fascinated by how many strange stories are out there. It's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: sort of moving into the world of myth Sometimes. Yes,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: it's weird, right, I mean, you know, you got share
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: George Washington, Cherry Tree not telling a lie type mythology,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and then you've got I don't know, didn't George didn't
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln do something mythological as well that was sort
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of debunked. Maybe it's all about, you know, sort of
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: like Luke I Am your father, Like I think Darth
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Vader never actually said those words, but it just sort
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: of gets carried on. Is the thing people repeat, and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: then before you know it, people believe that that's actually
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: what was in the movie. History is not like a
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: movie though, because we don't really have a rewind or
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: like chapter markers or like a DVD. Men, you remember those.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: That was a big deal when DVDs came out, and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: now it's like no one even thinks about it anymore.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: We blu rays for like the super nerves, the steel
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: boxes and all that. There's no steel box blu ray
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of history. No, No. And you know, I was in
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: a very interesting conversation with some historians actually over the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: break since last time we recorded, and one of them
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: brought up this fantastic point. She said that we have
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to remember that as you go further back in time,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: fewer and fewer people are literate. So when written record
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: we're reading is actually a history of the literate class,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: right from their perspectives. Yeah, which often comes with a
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: pretty big slant, does exactly exactly as way Beyond History
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: is written by the winners, because you know, let's be honest,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of winners were illiterate. Anyhow, This is this
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: is important because what we're talking about, and I love
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the example you brought up at George Washington. What we're
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: talking about is the way that a seed of fact
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: can become legend, rumor even a myth, and it can
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: happen more quickly than you might imagine. So let's present
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: just the top headline today's episode. We're gonna pull this
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: from black history dot com. Uh, this is an excerpt
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  Speaker 1: from a two thousand nine article by Audrey Peterson, and
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: it's excellence worth of read. We're just gonna read this
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  Speaker 1: this one clip. The story goes that on November five,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: John Hanson, of African descent, was elected the first President
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  Speaker 1: of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation, the
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  Speaker 1: precursor to our present constitution. Now, no, if this is
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: in that position, would have been the precursor to our
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: what we know now as the president, right right, right,
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  Speaker 1: So if this is true, then that means that America's
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  Speaker 1: first black president, the first black president of the US
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  Speaker 1: far preceded former President Barack Obama. Again, if that's true,
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  Speaker 1: hold the phones. I've never heard of this, I mean
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I have, I have now, But you think it would
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: have been something that would have been discussing, you know,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: during President Obama's inauguration, election run up and all of
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: that stuff. This is not something that I've seen thrown around. Well,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: it turns out there's a reason for that. There's another
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: John Hanson. I believe it's spelled exactly the same way.
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  Speaker 1: Um John Hanson who was elected to the Senate of
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  Speaker 1: Liberia in the mid nineteenth century. The real John Hanson
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  Speaker 1: are the real John Hanson that occupied this position. The
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  Speaker 1: first President of the Continental Congress was in fact a
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  Speaker 1: white man of European descent, and it was often confused
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  Speaker 1: with John Hanson, the Senator of Liberia from the mid
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth century. So easy to confuse the handsens, you know,
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  Speaker 1: of two hands it's not the tail of two handsons. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's true. It's the kind of the way like people
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  Speaker 1: sometimes confuse the band Hanson for the band Nirvana, you know,
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  Speaker 1: because there's like, really the singers are all both blonde.
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  Speaker 1: Getting a joke, There's a there's there's like a funny
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  Speaker 1: internet trope where people will take a picture of like
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  Speaker 1: kind of like lame nerdy type band and have like
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  Speaker 1: a more edgy type band name on it. I was
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  Speaker 1: like one with Hanson Brothers the egxactly as they were
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: both three pieces. I've got it. I do have to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: point out I may be in a glass house situation
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: when it comes to throwing stones about confusing people. I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: don't think I quite have Facebook blind this, but I
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: have a tough time. You know, I don't really relish
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the world of celebrity, and for years, and you know this, dude,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: because we talked about this off air for years, I
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: did not know that Kira Knightley and Natalie Portman are
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: two different people. I just thought, very prolific actor, very
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: easy mistick to me. I'm Kieran Nightley has literally been
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the stunt double for Natalie Portman in a movie before.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I don't doubt that, and that's it was the the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: second trilogy of Star Wars. They have they have, you know,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Natalie Portman is I don't know the character's names, but
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: print Queen Amadalg and then that she has a stand
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: in literally that's not just a stunt double, but in
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the movie an actual, like fake version of her. Yeah, okay,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: well I don't feel like Max with the facts, right,
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  Speaker 1: That's good. That's that's how I figured out two with
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a with a Star Wars conversation. But I'm bringing this
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: up because I think it's an okay example because dunking
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: on myself here. But also let's understand that I made
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: that mistake for years with the benefit of a profound
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  Speaker 1: amount of audio video audio visual information, right, with Google
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  Speaker 1: at my fingertips and I was still thinking, oh weird, huh.
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  Speaker 1: More than one person look at that, So imagine how
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: easy it is to mix people up over the great
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: game of telephone that is history. We know a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about how this confusion came about, and right now
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  Speaker 1: it is still a rumor that a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: believe that the first president of the US was not
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  Speaker 1: George Washington, but was actually this man, John Hanson, man
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  Speaker 1: of African descent. If you look at some of the
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  Speaker 1: myth busting work that's been done on this, especially great
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: article Missed and History dot com, you'll see that part
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  Speaker 1: of the mix up is traced back to uh comedian
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  Speaker 1: and activists named Dick Gregory. Uh. Dick Gregory may not
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  Speaker 1: have started this myth, but he seems to have popularized
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  Speaker 1: and perpetrated it. He had an article that claimed Hanson
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  Speaker 1: was a black and be the first president. And here's
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  Speaker 1: how he breaks it down. He says, Okay, Hansen was
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  Speaker 1: the first president, like we said, under the Articles of Confederation,
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  Speaker 1: one year term. He got a lot of stuff done.
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  Speaker 1: Fast forward, six presidents later, the Articles of Confederation fail.
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  Speaker 1: The Constitution comes into play in see and after that
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: George Washington is elected. And the quote that really stood
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: out to us, or to me at least, is the
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  Speaker 1: question phrase this way is racism and not the Constitution
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the reason we start counting presidents with Washington. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: racism is a real thing. So that's a possible explanation.
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  Speaker 1: But like we point out earlier, like you said, no
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: we got Hansen mix up his tailor to Hansen's. The
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  Speaker 1: sites that repeat this claim often have a dagara type.
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  Speaker 1: Remember those the old photography things of of the of
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  Speaker 1: the black John Hansen. And again that guy is a
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  Speaker 1: real guy. Like you said, he's a senator, but he's
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a senator from a different country. Uh. And if you
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  Speaker 1: go to the Library of Congress, you'll see the same
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  Speaker 1: photo and they're talking about this Liberian senator. So we
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: threw a line in there that might have caused some
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: of our stute, ridiculous historians to take a pause. Dick
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  Speaker 1: Gregory an American comedian, What does he what does he
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  Speaker 1: have to do with this? Dick Gregory also, by the way, hilarious,
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  Speaker 1: So you're asking, what did Dick Gregory have to do
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  Speaker 1: with all this influential comic, influential thinker, right, I and
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: an activist of course. Well, it goes back to an
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  Speaker 1: appendix in a book called rembermembering John Hanson, and in
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: nine a genealogist in this appendix said that John Hanson
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  Speaker 1: did not have partial Swedish heritage like a lot of
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  Speaker 1: his previous biographers and other families scuttle Butt had long claimed.
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  Speaker 1: They said, instead, John Hansen was the grandson of a
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  Speaker 1: guy named John Henson, who was an immigrant, an indentured
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  Speaker 1: servant from Barbados who arrived in Maryland in sixteen sixty one,
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  Speaker 1: freed in sixteen sixty six. But John Hansen's wealthy immigrant grandfather,
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  Speaker 1: also named John Hanson, actually shows up in Maryland before this.
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  Speaker 1: I know. It's like for anyone who's read uh hundred
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It gets confusing
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  Speaker 1: when a lot of characters have the same name. So
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  Speaker 1: the research disproves this theory. But this is where Dick
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  Speaker 1: Gregory comes in. He picks up on the story on
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  Speaker 1: the story of this barb Ato's immigrant and he says
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  Speaker 1: this Caribbean immigrant Henson was either black or partially black,
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  Speaker 1: and so President John Hanson, he says, was the grandson
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  Speaker 1: of this Caribbean immigrant John Hinson, and Gregory looked at
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  Speaker 1: it through something that was called the one drop rule.
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  Speaker 1: If you're familiar with that, that phrase, it was the
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  Speaker 1: idea you've you've heard it quoted before, especially in historical yards.
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  Speaker 1: It was the idea that anybody would quote one drop
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  Speaker 1: of non European blood was non European, right, and this
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  Speaker 1: was often brought up in in the time of chattel slavery.
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  Speaker 1: So Dick Gregory says, all right, because of that one
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  Speaker 1: drop rule, this means that Hanson, because he was descended
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  Speaker 1: from that immigrant from Barbados, was the nation's first black president.
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  Speaker 1: But for all intensive purposes, but that's that's where the
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: story and the confusion starts. You'll even see claims that
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  Speaker 1: if you look on a two dollar bill that one
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  Speaker 1: of the individuals on the back of the two dollar bill.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm pantomiming a bill here, because
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  Speaker 1: I don't have one in my hands, and we're an
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: audio show, so it looks like I'm just holding my
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: thumbs weirdly at you guys. But anyway, the idea is
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that if you look at the two dollar bill, you'll
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  Speaker 1: see one of the individuals on the back appears to
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  Speaker 1: be African American, that's the claim, and then therefore, to
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  Speaker 1: Dick Gregory, that meant this guy was John Hanson. But
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: again it's not true. We know that part is not true.
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  Speaker 1: But there are other things I think we need to
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  Speaker 1: drill down into to further differentiate our Hanson's because we
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: researched this. I don't know about you guys, but even
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  Speaker 1: I am getting like a little confused. I've gotta draw
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  Speaker 1: a little hands and V handsOn list here. Yeah, and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: you know, when you start digging a little deeper, time
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  Speaker 1: starts to play into it in terms of like some
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: discrepancies and some things that don't quite line up. Um.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: John Hansen UM, who was a resident of Maryland, was
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  Speaker 1: definitely in the picture way before John Hanson, the Senator
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  Speaker 1: from Liberia. Was Hanson of Maryland was born in seventeen
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  Speaker 1: fifteen in Port Tobacco Parish in Charles County, uh in
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: at the time the province of Maryland. UM. He was
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  Speaker 1: elected President of the United States and assembled Congress in
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: November of seventeen one. UM and that would have been
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  Speaker 1: when he became the first president to serve a one
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  Speaker 1: year term. Under those you know, by laws or provisions
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  Speaker 1: in the Articles of Confederation. In seventeen eighty one, he
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  Speaker 1: signed the articles after Maryland joined the other states, you know,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: intense to ratify these Articles of Confederation. So a lot
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  Speaker 1: of the documentation gets a little hazy. We don't have
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  Speaker 1: full confirmation of the dates of John Hansen of Liberia's
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: kind of tenure and and the things that he accomplished,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: but he is said to have been more of a
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds kind of guy, and he was UM.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: One of his main focuses as a as a lawmaker
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: in Liberia was to relocate African American individuals to Liberia.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: But he had some ulterior motives. Apparently he was working
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: alongside the American Colonization Society and was actually luring African
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Americans who were hoping to better their lives in the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: lives of their families into Liberia. But apparently he had
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: some seriously kind of self serving motivations for doing this. Um,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: he apparently kind of collaborated or colluded with that society
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to try to trick African Americans into Libraria to what
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: he heard two or I guess maybe I am specifically,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: but what was sort of considered to be a quote
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: unquote better form of slavery. Um, that's not really a thing, No,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it's unfortunately. Yeah, so this guy wasn't a good guy.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: He was not taking care of his his his people.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: In fact, he was actively you know, plotting against them. Well, yeah,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: there's there's a problem. The idea was that, you know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: maybe they were stopping a greater evil. But as as
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: pointed out in a great article on the black loop
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: dot com which drills down in his two dollar bill idea,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: slavery is slavery, and no matter how you try to
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: spin it or frame it, people are intelligent and they
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: know the difference between freedom and slavery. So website that
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: have presented arguments about the two dollar bill idea used
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: photos of both Hanson's. Okay, but the issue with the photos,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: as you said, like its centers on the timeline of events.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: We know that there are a lot of discrepancies in
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: those timelines. The photo of Hanson, the Liberian senator that's
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: used to support these claims, it's strange because photography wasn't
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: really commercially a thing until eighteen thirty nine. Also, John Hanson,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the Maryland Guy, Okay, let's just start calling them Maryland
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Hanson and Liberian hands Maryland Hanson died in seventeen eighty three,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: way before there would be a photograph around. So we
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: do know that Liberian Hanson was definitely a person from
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the African diaspora. He was black, but that does it
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: necessarily mean he was an advocate for people of color,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: at least the way we consider today. I mean, like,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: think about a better form of slavery? What is that?
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: You know? And then there's the other myth. So we've
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: separated our Handsen's We we got that, we got that
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: handsome out handled Hansen. Uh. And now we have to
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: ask ourselves, well, what about this other guy? What about
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: this um? What about Maryland Hanson? Was he really the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: first president of the United States? Is that part of
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the claim true? Now? It's not. It's totally not, And
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: there isn't a cover up. He wasn't like erase from
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: history and some grand conspiracy. Uh. The truth is that
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: even in his own time, he wasn't considered the president
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of the United States. Uh. And he couldn't have been
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that because the office of the President of the United
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: States didn't exist while he was alive. As a matter
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of fact, the country known as the United States of
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: America didn't exist while he was alive. He was down
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: with the planning stages, you know what I mean, Like
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: he was working on the album, but he wasn't there
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: for the first show. So that's that's an awkward way
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to put it. Yes, yes, obviously the Declaration of Independence,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the Articles and Confederation they both used the phrase United
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: States of America. But uh, these documents weren't really meant
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: to create this single, unified nation the superpower at the time.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: In fact, colonial leaders were worried that if they created
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: a national government that was too powerful, it would it
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: would spell trouble, and they refused to have a federal
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: or excuse me, a central government have serenity over everything.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: They kind of pictured that Congress as a an admin
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: really for thirteen different states. Well, yeah, you know, it's
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: kind of that seems like a reasonable intent, um, you know,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: something to kind of keep the trains running on time,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: to help sort of sort out dispute, sort of codify things.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: But do you think that we stayed true to that
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: original intent with the way you know, Congress has kind
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of evolved or mutated over the years. Ben Uh not
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: not really, No, I don't think that. I'm thinking, no,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: thinking no. I mean federal taxes, various federal departments that
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: have sprung up in the intervening centuries. Yeah, there's very
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: much a federal government. There are, still, of course, state
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: level things, right, That's the reason that we are in
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: surreal situations where federal laws don't always agree with state laws.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about the hot button stuff right now.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about like a very easy thing to say
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: yes to marijuana legalization. It doesn't matter if you smoke
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: it or not. It's a lot of money for a
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: state like Colorado ran out a weed and then got
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: rich the first year they legalized that stuff. Um, but
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: it is confusing if you are outside of the US
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: to say, wait, isn't that illegal? And you would say, well,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: you can get arrested for it in Georgia, but not
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: in California or in Colorado. Also the federal government says
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: it's illegal. That's right, not to mention that. Let's say here,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Let's say you've been visiting Los Angeles or somewhere in
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: California and you you know, you go to one of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the weed shops and buy some gummies. Then you fly
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: back with them. Technically, you know, when you're at the airport,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you're in federal territory, right and depending on your end destination,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: that could have different consequences. You know. It's very very weird,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: very fuzzy. It's very it's very weird. So what did
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: they do Instead of making a federal from it? They
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: made this this Congress that would do like housekeeping. You know,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to other countries, will make war, and they
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: could mainly you know, hire out whomever they needed, kind
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of let's say crowds, you know, subout all of these
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: administrative tasks um that could be performed on behalf of
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the states, you know, things like declaring war and you know,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: and and fighting for peace and uh, dealing with the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Native Americans that might have lived outside the states, to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: create to mint money, borrow money, um to you know,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: administer the post office, and to help solve things like
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: boundary disputes or issues. But this is something that that
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: does hold true. Congress couldn't raise money to carry out
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: these tasks by taxing the states. You had just alluded
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: to that ben you could neither raise troops in order
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to defend the country or wage war against aggressors. It
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: couldn't even require or compel other states to comply with
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: any of the laws that it passed as a body.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: So it puts it kind of a weird middle ground,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: right right. It's like you have you are officially the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: group that drives the car, but you cannot ask us
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: for gas, So that's like, what are you gonna do
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: with the car? Then? Uh? That Yeah. Through those reasons
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: we've just outlined, you can see how the Congress and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the Articles of Confederation was very, very limited in authority,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and it was in no small way hamstrung. It didn't
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: have the powers to carry out the duties that it
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: was supposed to carry out. So the Articles of Confederation
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: did not create a nation called the United States of America.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: In the first two articles they state this, they created
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: an alliance of thirteen independent and sovereign states who had
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: agree to be cool with each other. Basically the quote
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: is into into a film league of friendship with one
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: another while retaining their severenity, freedom, and independence. So the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: title of this confederacy of this like colonial super friends,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: was called the United States of America. But there wasn't
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: a nation by that name created by the Articles of Confederation.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like through a modern analog, it's kind
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of like the European Union is a bunch of independent countries,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: and the European Union itself is not a country. It's
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a It's a weird difference that might seem hair splitty
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and semantic, but it's very important for our purposes today
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: because it means that John Hansen wasn't the President of
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the United States because it didn't exist at the time.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: He was instead the first person chosen to run Calm
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Chris this limited Congress under the Articles Confederation. Yeah, this
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: is this is a story of semantics on many levels,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: isn't it. When we think about the President of the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: United States. It's also important to remember that something that
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: often people forget, and I certainly did until I was
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: recently reminded that we're talking about presidents elected under the
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: US Constitution. Right, So the first president elected under the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: U s Constitution was in fact George Washington, but the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: precursor of the constitution, the Articles of Confederation, um that
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: one also called for a president, and that man was
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: John Hanson. Yeah, he was one of eight people who
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: would be appointed to serve a one year term as
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the president of this different thing. Uh. The first was,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: as you pointed out, John Hanson. So he's the first
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of let's call him the first of those kind of presidents.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: His actual title is President of the United States in
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Congress assembles. Uh, that's that's what he did. It's not
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the actual it's not like the Biden or the Bush
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: or the Obama that you would think of today. Uh.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Instead it's or I don't know, they ab Lincoln instead.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: This president. Uh, I don't know. He was limited in powers.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: He did do some stuff. I don't want to take
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that with a handful of things. No, no, no, you
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: could you could list off some accomplishments that that he
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: could certainly uh raw ra himself over in some speeches.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: He ordered all foreign troops off American soil. He ordered
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you should get out of here, you you foreign troops
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: off our soil. Um. He ordered the removal of all
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: foreign flags, presumably also from our soil, because you've gotta
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: have somewhere to stick the flag. And that was a
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: big deal, which required some you know, bravado to pull off,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: because you know, we know that so many countries in
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Europe had kind of carved up the United States into
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: their own little fiefdoms, and this was him saying, no,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: your your history be damned and your you know, conquest
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: of our land is for not begne with you is
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Stroppean conquerors, sexilologists. I just wanted to say that. I
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: love it. It's a great word. Um So get get
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to a nunnery, is what he said, quoting Shakespeare, because
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: that's the he was into that. He was also known
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: for being a big Shakespeare buff That's not true, but yeah,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: so he he established the Great Seal of the US
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: just staying with the eagle clutching the that's the big one.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: He wean eagles seemed cool. They're scary. One of his
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: clushing arrows and its talents. That would be cool. That's
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: pretty awesome. That is that is an enduring piece of iconography. Yes, agreed.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I just would have paused on that one because I
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: love pictured. So you've got like a one year term, right,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: you know you have limited time. Did he just take
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: a day off one day and say, okay, guys, we
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: need to stay up. I know we got a lot
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of other stuff going on, but no one bothered me.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I got mcquill, I got some parchment. I saw an
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: eagle earlier. I got this. I like that idea. You
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: think he sketched it himself or what did he that
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: he just kind of like brainstorm at with some like
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: you know, with some artists. He big pictured it, you think, yeah,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: exactly that probably probably he probably sketched a rough version
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of it, like on a white board. You know, it's
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: a dry erased pan, because that was a thing, you know,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a dry race quill rather um. Yeah, but that but
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: that's a big deal. I would argue that's probably when
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: we talked about lasting in terms of things we think
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: about or see all the time. That's that's a big deal.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: That hangs like that's in the war room. Man, no
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: fighting in the war room. But yeah, look at that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: crazy bird clutching those arrows. That's a was a fighting
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: bird right there. I wanted his original sketch, you know what,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: in this thought experiment. I hope his original sketch was
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: just terrible, but he was married to the idea and
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: they like had somebody go back and fix it. I
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: love it. I hope that bird looks doofy. I mean,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about this because you know, Ben Franklin fought
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: really hard to make the national burnard turkey. Yeah. Yeah,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I'm just envisioning role though, guys. I mean Ben Franklin
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: was known as a bit of a why the turkey
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: just because of its like place as a food staple
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: in our They're terrifying. Yeah, they're monsters, dude. Remember we
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: were on the road in Boston for stuff they don't
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: want you to know. And the one thing that beautified
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that very divisul town is people wouldn't joke about turkeys.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: They were like, they're stupid, they rolled deep, they'll get you.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: You can't show you can't show far to the turchis.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: They're wicked horror now. But they're only scary though, because
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: they're so weird and alien looking and like they're so
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: dumb that has kind of come at you, gobbling away
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: with their weird little red waddles. But eagles, eagles will
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: swoop down from on high and like snatch off your wig,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: not to mention that they're clutching arrows, you know, maybe
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: presumably flaming arrows, and they can drop on you. I
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: just think I think we made the right choice, is
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: all I'm saying. Yeah, agreed, agreed, that's true. That's true.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: That's true. All all I'm saying is that is a
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: thing that we see and think about a lot. And uh,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: if that's the legacy of John Hanson, I would argue, well,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: he also did. He also established the Treasury Department, the
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: position of the Secretary of War, the first Foreign Affairs Department,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: which is the predecessor of the State Department. He had
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: another lasting, uh lasting tradition. He declared that the fourth
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Thursday of every November was gonna be Thanksgiving Day. And
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: that's still true in the US today, and we do
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: eat turkeys, so maybe there's maybe some remnant of Ben
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Franklin's original weird idea is around, right, Turkey is considered
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: American on that day at least. But yeah, so he
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: did some stuff despite Hansen did some stuff despite having
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: a limited position. Uh, it's pretty impressive that he accomplished
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: so much in such a small amount of time, from
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: just November five to November three, sev two. And he
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: remained an anti federalist until he passed away. So that
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: that's an important point too, because not only was he
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: not the first president of the nation of the United States,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: he was against the idea of a central federal government.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: He wouldn't have wanted the job, which makes this myth
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: so um interesting and paradoxical. After his one year stin
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: as President of Congress, he retired from public office entirely,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and he passed away shortly thereafter, on November seventy three.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: He was buried at a place called Oxen Hill, Manor,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: which was his nephew's plantation, and then his family line
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: died out. A lot of his personal papers from the
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: time are missing, essentially, like his life, the actual details
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: confirming different nuts and bolts of his life, they're pretty scant,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: so his as a figure, he is open to that interpretation,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and that might be where part of the confusion comes from,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you know. And John Hansen's family line is also um
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: basically vanished. There's just not a lot of information about him,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and the John Hanson House no longer exists. And of course,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: with you know, the advent of the Internet, which is
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: just sort of like absurdly extra version of oral tradition,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: you know, and rumor milling that can really cause things
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to spend wildly out of control. There is just an
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: absolute glut of misinformation on this person. And I think
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: because of the tenuous place that he kind of occupied
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: in the history of the presidency, it's almost like there
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: was no room for him, you know what I mean,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: ben Like like it's almost like it was an inconvenient
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: detail that was like hard to know how to frame
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: because all a big part of history too is having
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: a narrative and knowing how to frame things in in
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: consecutive order and where where things kind of makes sense.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And when you throw him in there, you know, it's
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: sort of throws the whole George Washington was the first
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: president narrative into disarray. So it seems like, you know,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: there have been, uh, some attempts to kind of snip
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: him out of the cultural record. He barely escaped an
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: attempt in two thousand eleven to have his statue removed
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: from the National Statutory Hall, and in two thousand and
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: eleven there was the completion of a John Hansen National memorial.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately that's really the only effort that's been made
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: to honor this man. And you know, I got a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: point out it is me perhaps oversimplifying things, but I
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: feel that I have to point out so much confusion
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: could have been prevented if they had just not used
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the same term, if they had just called why can't
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: he be like the um, big big Daddy of Congress,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: or like why can't he you know, be, uh, the
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Emperor of Congress. No, they wouldn't have done that prime minute.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know something. They could have had another title,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: but calling two separate kind of jobs president obviously that's confusing. Yes, well,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I mean you gotta think about they use president first,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: so that means that we would have had the Constitution
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: would have to change the title. What will we call
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: that office now? Ah? That reminds me of the early
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: move to try to make George Washington Emperor, which is
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: a story for another day. But at this point, we
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: hope you have enjoyed our, at times a little confusing
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: exploration of how the tale of two Hanson's led to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: a modern American myth. Uh you know, and honestly, we
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: got a little confused. I think it's safe to say
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: it a couple couple of points of research. But but
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: still it's important to know these stories because we are
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: at a time where, you know, you would think with
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the age of ubiquitous communication and knowledge at your fingertips
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the world would be better at fact checking and finding
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the truth. But what we're seeing is the opposite. It's
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: actually easy or for misinformation to spread and for things
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: tall tales and myths to become accepted as fact. So
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: it's something you always have to dig into. Just look
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: a little past the headline. Um. Also, oh no, I
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: think we we miss our one requisite mental flaw shout
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: out we always like to do. Did you see that article? Yeah,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: five other Americans who were kind of sort of president.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Great title in Aftricantrell. Yeah, no, it's it's a thing,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and I think it really does come down to the
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: official narrative, the official record. It needs to be tidy,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: and often that means sanitizing, you know, ikey parts of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: American history as we know, or you know, simplifying the
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: narrative that Columbus discovered America and had had breakfast with
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the Indians. You know. I mean, it's like, come on,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: it's it's a way of of simplifying, oversimplifying obviously things
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and distilling it down to sort of like a nationalistic
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: kind of rara narrative that's easy to force down the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: throats of like school children. And at this point we
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: want to hand the quill to you, fellow ridiculous historians.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Thanks as always for tuning in. Uh. We'd love to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: hear your ideas on other strange stories and or myths
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: about the early days of not just the US, but
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: of any country before the mid nineteen nineties, which again
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: is our arbitrary cut off for what constitute's history. What
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: does constitute history? We asked ourselves that question all the time.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: It's anything that happened before the early nineteen nineties. It
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: is fair game. Um. But you can find us all
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: over the internet on Ridiculous History on Facebook, or we
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: have a Facebook group Ridiculous Historians that you can join.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: You two can be a Ridiculous historian officially and then
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: be part of the conversation there. You can also find
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: this on Instagram um as a show or as individual
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: human people um as in other media situations. I am
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: pretty much exclusively on Instagram at how now, Noel Brown, Ben,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: how can people find you? I'm so glad you asked.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: No you can find out about my misadventures, my verious
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: secret projects. It's killing me. I can't mention these on air,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: but you can find out about this by going to Twitter,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: where I'm at Ben Bullet hs W the old school
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians know what that stands for. Or you can
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: find me on Instagram, where in a burst of creativity,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I am called at Ben Bolland bo w L I
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: n message me for book recommendations. Uh, show me pictures
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: of your pets. I'm always down. Mr Max Williams. I
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: hear you're a legend on Twitter. Legend is the very
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: incorrect way of describing me. Legend, an alleged legend. I
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: like that. I like that. You can find me on
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Twitter at at L underscore Max Williams. I mean, most
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: of my stuff is gonna be a sports you know,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Masic League Baseball lockout right now is the fun one
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: going on? Um and then you know the occasional rolling
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: up Betton m hmm yep, I'll find you. I know
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: where you live. Well, are you guys nemessies? Now you
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: can't have that nessies about a hot tub? Yeah, it's
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: a thing. It became a thing us so so at
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: that Ben, did you know Frank was in the hot
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: tub too? So that's our show. That's fine, that's fine,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: we're wrapping up the show. Thanks Max, thanks so much.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Casey Pegrob, thanks to Chris Rossi, Otis Eves,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Jeff Coat, who else, no Jonathan Strickling the question back recently.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: If you didn't want to listen to last week's episode,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you should because spoiler alert, he pops in there and
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: and it was actually really nice. And then later that
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: day I had a long conversation with him about something
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: other a secret work related project of my own. But
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I hadn't talked to him in ages, either in character
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: or as a you know, relatively agreeable human person. So
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: miss that guy. We'll have him back, maybe on a
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: little bit more of a ran dumbly rotating schedule. Yeah,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: let's see if we could also convince our good friends
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: on the on the Ridiculous Universe to maybe have a
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: quister crossover. What are we talking about. We're talking about
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: two awesome shows, Ridiculous Romance and Ridiculous Crime. If you
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: like our show, you are going to love them. So
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: get the to the podcast platform of choice and check
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: it out today. Another spoiler alert, Noel and I will
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: be dropping by the Ridiculous Romance show later on. I
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: think we're gonna I don't know what do we want
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: to tease? What this one is well, let's just say
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit naughty. We can get. They go
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: a little naughtier on their show than we go on
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: this one. So if you want to hear Ben and
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I in full naughty body mode, then then check us
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: out and that comes around and we'll see you next time, folks.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.