Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Polly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson, and today
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about what might have been the
Speaker 1: greatest fraud scheme of all time. It was certainly incredibly ambitious.
Speaker 1: And I have to credit our listener from Twitter who
Speaker 1: goes by shark Jack for this one, because I had
Speaker 1: never heard of the Baron of Arizona, which is hilarious
Speaker 1: because I was born in Arizona. Well. And and when
Speaker 1: he asked about it, I gave the same answer that
Speaker 1: I always give, which is, you know, we get a
Speaker 1: whole lot of listener suggestions, so I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 1: And then within thirty minutes it was like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: now Holly's really excited about us. Well, because then I
Speaker 1: looked it up and I saw this is so like
Speaker 1: in my niche but that there was in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: Vincent Price movie about it, and I love Vincent Price. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then it apparently was one of Vincent Price's favorite roles.
Speaker 1: But somehow I had missed it because I've always focused
Speaker 1: on his horror career. Uh. And then Edward worked as
Speaker 1: an extra on it, so I was like, this is fascinating,
Speaker 1: but clearly it was a fictionalized account. So then I
Speaker 1: looked up the real story and then I was completely
Speaker 1: fished in because it's insane and sort of a fun
Speaker 1: wild ride. UH. And we'd have to give a brief
Speaker 1: bit of background on how this whole thing could have
Speaker 1: played out, because it's a pretty massive flim flam scheme. UH.
Speaker 1: So in eighteen forty eight, the Mexican more ended with
Speaker 1: the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and according to the terms
Speaker 1: of that treaty, Mexico gave up most of what had
Speaker 1: been Northern Mexico. In an exchange, the United States agreed
Speaker 1: to honor existing property rights UH that were owned by
Speaker 1: Mexican and Spanish citizens in the newly acquired territory. In
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty three, the Gadsden Purchase added to this
Speaker 1: expanse of land and UH the agreement was maintained the
Speaker 1: Property Rights Agreement UH, and this combined territory would eventually
Speaker 1: become Arizona and New Mexico and Utah, UH, Colorado and Wyoming.
Speaker 1: And as you might imagine, there was some difficulties sorting
Speaker 1: out who owned what in this huge expanse of land.
Speaker 1: So there had been tracts of land that were granted
Speaker 1: to families or individuals by Spanish and Mexican authorities over
Speaker 1: decades and even centuries, and it had to be figured
Speaker 1: out who actually had rights to different parcels of land
Speaker 1: UH and often the supporting paperwork that would determine this
Speaker 1: was sometimes an ocean away. And it took decades to
Speaker 1: sort out all of this legal UH landholding issue. And
Speaker 1: during that time there were plenty of shady land grabs
Speaker 1: that were made by opportunistic fraudsters that wanted to profit
Speaker 1: from this real estate confusion that was going on. But
Speaker 1: none of these fraudsters were as aggressive or ambitious or
Speaker 1: as globe trottingly thorough as James Addison Reta Revus, who
Speaker 1: launched a really spectacular fraud attempt. Start with a little
Speaker 1: background on him. James was born May tenth, eighteen forty three,
Speaker 1: near Clinton, Missouri. This was five years before in the
Speaker 1: Northern Mexico was seeded to the United States. His mother
Speaker 1: was named Maria and she was part Spanish, and when
Speaker 1: he was eighteen, Rivas served in the Confederate Army in
Speaker 1: the Hunter's Eighth Division of the Missouri State Guard. While
Speaker 1: in the Army, he became a skilled forger, and he
Speaker 1: falsified documents for passes to get out of the service
Speaker 1: after it did not live up to his expectations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was still technically enlisted, but he would have these
Speaker 1: magical passes to go do other things and not actually
Speaker 1: do the duties that he was assigned. Uh. However, as
Speaker 1: he realized the Confederate Army was losing, he also switched
Speaker 1: sides to join the Union Army. A little bit of
Speaker 1: a flim flamer kind of from the beginning. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: had a botched forgery attempt that set him on the
Speaker 1: run to Brazil in eighteen sixty five. He returned to
Speaker 1: Missouri a year later and worked in a number of
Speaker 1: different jobs, from street car conductors, traveling salesman to store
Speaker 1: clerk before he finally landed in the real state business
Speaker 1: in St. Louis And. On May fifth of eighteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: James Addison Revs. Married Ada Pope, who was a woman
Speaker 1: he had known since he was a teen. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's just we're giving you the very brief background on
Speaker 1: him because the juicy part of his story is so
Speaker 1: big and full of details that we couldn't do the
Speaker 1: full long bio. So then we'll get right to things
Speaker 1: that happened in the Arizona territory, which we're crazy. Yes.
Speaker 1: In the spring of eighteen eighty three and Tucson, Holly's birthplace,
Speaker 1: uh he was, he officially filed a claim for a
Speaker 1: massive chunk of Arizona territory. As validation of his claim,
Speaker 1: he submitted papers indicating that the land had been acquired
Speaker 1: by George Willing and that he revis now had the
Speaker 1: rights to it, having been a partner with Willings. He
Speaker 1: also produced two trunk's worth of the documentation, allegedly from
Speaker 1: the Spanish and Mexican archives, detailing the claims history all
Speaker 1: the way back to seventeen fifty eight. Ye he kind
Speaker 1: of opted to overwhelm them with paperwork, and Rivas asserted
Speaker 1: that a seventeen fifty eight grant from King Charles the
Speaker 1: Third of Spain to Don Miguel Nemicia Silva de Peralta
Speaker 1: de la Cordoba, who he referred to as the first
Speaker 1: Baron of Arizona, included a tract of land of more
Speaker 1: than eighteen thousand square miles in the Arizona Territory, and
Speaker 1: that he, Revas, was entitled to it. This space extended
Speaker 1: from west of Phoenix to the outskirts of Silver City,
Speaker 1: New Mexico, and about fifty miles north of present day Oracle.
Speaker 1: And Rivas had a massed in these trunks of documents
Speaker 1: the history of the claims ownership through the Peralta family,
Speaker 1: then to George Willing, and then to himself. And the documents,
Speaker 1: all of which were forgeries, included wills. There were family
Speaker 1: papers and letters. There were Peralta family portraits. Uh, this
Speaker 1: first baron of Arizona was a complete fiction. He had
Speaker 1: just made this person up and developed a really extensive
Speaker 1: backstory for him. As soon as this land claim was filed,
Speaker 1: Revas started setting up a home for himself and making
Speaker 1: arrangements to manage his new land, even though the claim
Speaker 1: hadn't been validated. He started posting bills throughout the area
Speaker 1: instructing residents to arrange a meeting with his attorneys they
Speaker 1: could establish terms of rental agreements or negotiate offers of
Speaker 1: quick claims. Yeah, he just swooped right in and tried
Speaker 1: to steal the land right out from under people's feet.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of a cat I used to have.
Speaker 1: He was basically like, I live here now, I think
Speaker 1: all this is aline. Uh. Initially, the farmers, ranchers, and
Speaker 1: other settlers in the area were understandably skeptical about Rivas's claim,
Speaker 1: but then new spread that the Silver King Mine had
Speaker 1: paid Revas twenty five thousand dollars for a quick claim deed,
Speaker 1: and that the Southern Pacific Railroad had also agreed on
Speaker 1: a deal with him. So he was convincing some pretty
Speaker 1: high level people that he was in fact legitimate. And
Speaker 1: this atmosphere and attitudes about him started to shift, and
Speaker 1: the skepticism about him quickly turned to outright fear. To
Speaker 1: help support his position, Revas even created stone markers and
Speaker 1: had them placed all around the land as sort of
Speaker 1: a scheme to prove to the Spanish court had surveyed
Speaker 1: the territory that he claimed as his own. So frightened
Speaker 1: settlers had started paying Revas thinking that they were his tenants.
Speaker 1: Now and there were still a lot of people who
Speaker 1: believed him to be a fraud, and we're trying to
Speaker 1: expose him as a swindler. One of these skeptics was
Speaker 1: Royal Ad Johnson, who had become Surveyor General of Arizona
Speaker 1: while the claim was being reviewed. So his predecessor had
Speaker 1: been convinced by Vas's theatrics, but Johnson felt that the
Speaker 1: validity of the claim had not been thoroughly examined. He
Speaker 1: found discrepancies between some of Rivas's evidence and independently sought
Speaker 1: duplicate documentation from the archives in Mexico City. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: while the claim was being reviewed and he was still
Speaker 1: acting tenant fees, Revus was also dealing with two lawsuits.
Speaker 1: One of those was filed on behalf of George Willings family,
Speaker 1: and another was filed by Territory Territorial Attorney General Clark
Speaker 1: Churchill and was related to his land holdings which were
Speaker 1: being affected by Revs's claim. The Willing family's efforts to
Speaker 1: regain some of their lost fortune sort of fell apart.
Speaker 1: They ran out of money and weren't able to continue it,
Speaker 1: and the court ended up ruling in favor of Churchill
Speaker 1: in the second suit in eight five. Rivers's blossom. The
Speaker 1: Churchill case spurred on his critics and skeptics. The tide
Speaker 1: of public opinion against him was further fueled by the
Speaker 1: Surveyor General's contention that Rivers's claim could not be validated.
Speaker 1: So it would seem like his claim to this huge
Speaker 1: swath of the southwest was dying out. But he had
Speaker 1: a backup plan, he really did. Uh. So Reva's actually
Speaker 1: put together a second claim uh and filed it in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven. And the second claim he was advancing
Speaker 1: on behalf of a woman named Sophia Loretta Michaela de
Speaker 1: Peralta de la Cordoba, the great granddaughter and sole heir
Speaker 1: of the original grantee. Uh. Sophia was conveniently also married
Speaker 1: at this point to James Rivers and Rivas to support
Speaker 1: his his claim and sort of you know, build ground
Speaker 1: swell started going by the name j A Peralta Rieves.
Speaker 1: So remember he already had a wife. Yeah, he didn't
Speaker 1: remember her. She Ada was actually granted a divorce in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three, citing her husband's apparent desertion as grounds
Speaker 1: to sever their legal union. Yeah, he seemed to not
Speaker 1: factor her in at all. He kind of left her
Speaker 1: and never went back. Uh. And to substantiat all of
Speaker 1: this new information in his new claim, Rivas had traveled
Speaker 1: to Spain, and he brought back a new important information
Speaker 1: and documentation about the Peralta claim. There were a additional
Speaker 1: dramatic tales of this orphan lost Peralta who eventually became
Speaker 1: his wife, and of course a slew of newly unearthed documents,
Speaker 1: all of which were of course forgeries. Well, and then
Speaker 1: then there's the part where it's just awfully convenient that
Speaker 1: he happens to have found this air in air quotes.
Speaker 1: While Rivers once again attempted to set himself up and
Speaker 1: behave as though this claim had already been certified, this
Speaker 1: time he met a lot of resistance, and once again
Speaker 1: Royal A. Johnson, who had briefly been out of the
Speaker 1: office of Surveyor General of Arizona but then had returned,
Speaker 1: was ready to inspect the claim with a fine tooth comb.
Speaker 1: So Johnson, in eighteen ninety made a full report on
Speaker 1: the alleged Peralta grant, and in the introduction to this
Speaker 1: report he states, in my report, I shall maintain first
Speaker 1: that the King never recommended the grant as alleged by
Speaker 1: the claimants. Second that no such grant as the alleged
Speaker 1: pearl the grant was ever made by the Viceroy of
Speaker 1: New Spain. Third that, admitting the legality of the alleged grant,
Speaker 1: there are no legal claimants before this office, and none
Speaker 1: in existence so far as the records show. Fourth that,
Speaker 1: again admitting its legality, it is absolutely impossible to establish
Speaker 1: its boundaries, the alleged grant having never having been bounded
Speaker 1: or surveyed, and without identified boundaries, it fails. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he said he was going to maintain all that, and
Speaker 1: he really really did that. He so did so in
Speaker 1: a move that would win over any history lover's heart.
Speaker 1: He made this incredibly detailed study of particularly the oldest
Speaker 1: documents that Rivas had submitted, and then compared them wherever
Speaker 1: possible to similar documents of the Spanish court at the time.
Speaker 1: He also had a tracing made of Carlos the Third
Speaker 1: of Spain's signature from seventeen fifty nine sent to him
Speaker 1: via the Interior and State Departments, and he found a
Speaker 1: discrepancy when comparing it to the signature that was found
Speaker 1: on the Rivas doc mints. He goes on to note
Speaker 1: differences in the shaping and placements of the letter s
Speaker 1: throughout the throughout the documents, and the suspicious consistency of
Speaker 1: the use of the same pen being used for multiple
Speaker 1: offices signatures on documents. That's my favorite part, and that
Speaker 1: the pen is in fact modern to their time and
Speaker 1: like the inks were not appropriate. Uh. Some people, even
Speaker 1: when they talk about the Royal Johnson's report and his research,
Speaker 1: talk about it as sort of like proto forensics, that
Speaker 1: he just got into such nitty gritty of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: The following passage points out the logic flaw in many
Speaker 1: of Rivas's document copies, and to quote next in order
Speaker 1: considering this document comes three pages of written matter in
Speaker 1: the same handwriting. It purports to be a copy of
Speaker 1: the report of the Inquisition on the grant proposed to
Speaker 1: be given to Peralta, and also a copy of the
Speaker 1: grant actually made by the Viceroy of New Spain, as
Speaker 1: well as a lame description of the locusts of the grant.
Speaker 1: The original report of the inquisition and the original grant
Speaker 1: of the Viceroy, made about the middle and last century,
Speaker 1: are not produced and unquestionably have not been found, but
Speaker 1: in lieu of the original papers so very important in
Speaker 1: considering these case. These poor substitutes are produced, why the
Speaker 1: locus of the original cannot be established when correct copies
Speaker 1: can be made from them? I am at a loss
Speaker 1: to understand. The reason dictates that if bona fide copies
Speaker 1: from originals on file can be produced, there ought to
Speaker 1: be no trouble in locating the place of deposit in
Speaker 1: such original originals. When we stop and reflect on the
Speaker 1: learned body of men comprising the Holy Inquisition, this alleged
Speaker 1: copy is but a sorry exhibit of their handiwork at
Speaker 1: producing certified records. It lacks every appearance, with the possible
Speaker 1: exception of old age, that would naturally be expected in
Speaker 1: a certified record of such important documents by such an
Speaker 1: education aided body of men. I love this whole report.
Speaker 1: It's long, but you can read it in its entirety
Speaker 1: on archive dot org, and will link to that in
Speaker 1: the show notes. But he basically goes through all of
Speaker 1: Revas's supporting documentation page by page, like we're talking trunks
Speaker 1: and trunks by this point of papers and documents, and
Speaker 1: he breaks down why each of them is false and
Speaker 1: cannot be verified. He also uses some pretty impressive historical
Speaker 1: research to disprove various elements of the case, including learning
Speaker 1: about some various legal protocols that would have been in
Speaker 1: place throughout the land grant's journey that are in no
Speaker 1: way evidenced in the documentation. It is really super impressive.
Speaker 1: It also brought Johnson much acclaim and appreciation. As you
Speaker 1: can well imagine, his diligent research finally outed a suspected
Speaker 1: fraudster who had been swindling settlers and companies out of
Speaker 1: money for more than a decade at this point. So
Speaker 1: when he submitted this report and he had carefully documented
Speaker 1: all of the ways that Revis's documentation was in correct,
Speaker 1: it was like you probably could hear a cheer throughout
Speaker 1: the Southwest. I'm imagining there are people who still believed
Speaker 1: believed him, because that is how it would be today.
Speaker 1: There would be people who were insisting that the entire
Speaker 1: inquest was wrong. Well, Rivas certainly was. You would think
Speaker 1: that he would slink away in shame at this point,
Speaker 1: but now you would be wrong. Rivas filed a lawsuit
Speaker 1: against the United States and Claims Court, saying that their
Speaker 1: land had been wrongfully taken from them. He sought eleven
Speaker 1: million dollars in damages. Yeah, and he drummed up all
Speaker 1: kinds of witnesses to back up his claims about his
Speaker 1: wife Sophia's lineage and that she was in fact a
Speaker 1: real peralta, and he uh seemed to feel like his
Speaker 1: claims were supported by all of his evidence. A government
Speaker 1: investigator sent to Spain discovered evidence that Rivas had been
Speaker 1: to the government archives in Seville. Speaking with archives staff,
Speaker 1: it appeared that Rivas had likely planted documents there and
Speaker 1: he was wanted by the authorities. There's a whole wacky
Speaker 1: story about how he was working with an archivist to
Speaker 1: try to find a thing and they couldn't find it together,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly it showed up, and they got really
Speaker 1: suspicious of him, and uh, one of the the managers
Speaker 1: of the archives made them number all the documents really
Speaker 1: carefully and catalog them before Revas could come back in.
Speaker 1: But suddenly he had another document that was not numbered
Speaker 1: and was folded differently than everything else, and was trying
Speaker 1: to say that he had found it in a box,
Speaker 1: like it's a whole crazy this thing is like the
Speaker 1: best telenovella ever. Well, and I was just thinking, just
Speaker 1: happened on the Good Wife? And then evidence was also
Speaker 1: uncovered that witnesses that Revas had a arranged that we're
Speaker 1: going to vouch for his wife's lineage, had in fact
Speaker 1: been paid large sums of money for their testimony. Not
Speaker 1: looking good at this point. Shall we take a moment
Speaker 1: from all of his drama, though, and have a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsor? That sounds grand? Alright? So back to
Speaker 1: the wild story of James Revis so in e. T.
Speaker 1: Ninety Ford. While the government was compiling its evidence in
Speaker 1: this case, Revas wrote a letter to one of his attorneys,
Speaker 1: James O. Broadhead, the sort of I think he's trying
Speaker 1: to establish the validity of why all of these wild
Speaker 1: twists and turns of his stories were completely natural and it.
Speaker 1: The first thing he does is outlines the acquisition of
Speaker 1: the Willing papers, beginning with how he met Dr Willing,
Speaker 1: who claimed to be related to a man Revas had
Speaker 1: known and trusted. So in this tale, Revas writes that
Speaker 1: Willing came to him as a real estate agent in St. Louis,
Speaker 1: and that Willing had purchased a large tract of land
Speaker 1: in the Arizona Territory from Miguel Peralta, the son of
Speaker 1: the owner, for about twenty thous dollars in gold dust
Speaker 1: and mules with pack saddles, And according to the Revas letter,
Speaker 1: Willing had told him quote when the trade was made,
Speaker 1: I had no paper on which to write the deed.
Speaker 1: So I scoured the camp and found a sheet of greasy,
Speaker 1: pencil marked camp paper upon which I wrote the d
Speaker 1: And as there were no justices nor notaries present, I
Speaker 1: had it acknowledged before witnesses. And I shall take you
Speaker 1: with me and show you the deed because I have
Speaker 1: it in a safe in Mr Hall's office, he being
Speaker 1: a friend of mine whom I can trust. Every part
Speaker 1: of this is so funny to me, because there is
Speaker 1: always like a lot of layers of drama. And well,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a real deed because I just bought
Speaker 1: it off this guy and his elderly father was there
Speaker 1: and very old, and I traded mules and I we
Speaker 1: didn't have a paper, so I just wrote it on
Speaker 1: like a scrap of paper, And everybody said that was cool.
Speaker 1: Like people keep saying, you can tell who's lying because
Speaker 1: they're giving you too much detail. And Revas is a
Speaker 1: master of detail. Yeah. He goes on at length about
Speaker 1: how he was initially not sure that any worthwhile enterprise
Speaker 1: could come out of this property. But then he became convinced,
Speaker 1: and so he offered to join Willing and his enterprise
Speaker 1: if Willing would make Vas an equal partner and ownership.
Speaker 1: Rivus goes on to say that while he and Willing
Speaker 1: were traveling to Arizona separately, Rivas was detained due to
Speaker 1: ill health, and at that point Willing arrived in Arizona,
Speaker 1: but then died, and Willing supposedly had all the pertinent
Speaker 1: documents of ownership with him, and after initially exhausting other
Speaker 1: means of obtaining verification of his rights to the property,
Speaker 1: Rivas claims to have made a contract with Willing's widow
Speaker 1: entitling him to the same portion of the estate that
Speaker 1: he had bargained with her late husband for, and then
Speaker 1: he eventually bought out her interest. As all good soap
Speaker 1: operas go, there's a twist at this point in Revas's story.
Speaker 1: While investigating the matter of doctor Willing, he discovered that
Speaker 1: there was a charge of fraud against Willing. Rivas's letter
Speaker 1: goes on to say that the rightful heir was in
Speaker 1: the person of a child, one of a pair of
Speaker 1: twins born near Los Angeles, California, who was then supposed
Speaker 1: to be living in northern California, and who bore the
Speaker 1: name of the mother then dead, who would, if living,
Speaker 1: be the only lineal descendant of the round grantee. Then
Speaker 1: the most perfect happenstance. Reva's claims to have bumped into
Speaker 1: this girl in question, who was fourteen at the time,
Speaker 1: on a train car what luck, and he fell in
Speaker 1: love with her, which was also very handy, although they
Speaker 1: did not marry until she was older, so just too
Speaker 1: he was many things, but apparently waited for her to
Speaker 1: be kind of a more mature age before he married her.
Speaker 1: His tale goes on to include this full cast of characters,
Speaker 1: each of whom gives him some piece of vital information
Speaker 1: to the Peralta land puzzle, and then magically mysteriously disappears.
Speaker 1: One such instance involves a woman who tells him all
Speaker 1: about the surviving twin and that the Miguel Peralta who
Speaker 1: sold that willing the land was a fraud, and Revas
Speaker 1: claims to have drawn a picture of her, being artistic
Speaker 1: in my nature, and writing her name in his notebook,
Speaker 1: But then he accidentally lost the notebook in which he
Speaker 1: did that. Whoops, so he can't remember her name because
Speaker 1: he lost that notebook even though he took copious notes.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of that throughout this letter. And the
Speaker 1: letter is UH linked in our show notes. It's in
Speaker 1: uh an part of an article that another scholar has
Speaker 1: written about that particular letter, so you can read the
Speaker 1: whole wacky thing, and it really is. It reads like
Speaker 1: a you know, threepenny opera sort of situation. Historians dismissed
Speaker 1: this letter is largely fiction, and you know, point out
Speaker 1: that it's an ornate web that's woven to justify Revis's
Speaker 1: first claim involving Dr Willing and his deeds and then
Speaker 1: how he kind of back pedaled and switched horses to
Speaker 1: you know, being married to the Peralta family and how
Speaker 1: this worked out, and of course most people are of
Speaker 1: the group opinion that he kind of plucked this orphan
Speaker 1: out of nowhere and then told the people caring for her, no, no,
Speaker 1: she's actually royalty, and they believed him because he was
Speaker 1: a master flim flam man, and then she was kind
Speaker 1: of raised from that point on as a baroness and
Speaker 1: then he married her and so they believed it. At
Speaker 1: that point, and we're willing to really dig in and
Speaker 1: assert the truth of his claims. Oh, so many people involved.
Speaker 1: And George or you know, also known as Doc Willing
Speaker 1: was really a real person who had been a doctor
Speaker 1: and then turned to prospecting. He likely sought out Revas,
Speaker 1: who was a real estate agent because of his reputation
Speaker 1: for forgery. Willing really did die suddenly right after filing
Speaker 1: his claim in Arizona, and his death was never investigated,
Speaker 1: but was likely the result of foul play. It was
Speaker 1: not the first time that he had been part of
Speaker 1: a nefarious deal. No, he was definitely one of you know,
Speaker 1: the people who saw this whole kind of weird trying
Speaker 1: to sort out the land and who really owned it
Speaker 1: as an opportunity. So this was not the first time
Speaker 1: he had made a land grab their odds where somebody
Speaker 1: was angry at him and killed him. So the revous
Speaker 1: civil trial over this documentation and his rights or not
Speaker 1: to the land started on June third of eighteen. But
Speaker 1: although the United States District Court's challenged to Revas's claims
Speaker 1: had actually been on the U. S. Land Claims Court
Speaker 1: docket for two years, at that point, it had been
Speaker 1: filed initially in February one of eighteen ninety three, and
Speaker 1: then they were working on their case the whole time,
Speaker 1: which is also the point at which Revas wrote this
Speaker 1: letter to his attorney. Once the case went before the court,
Speaker 1: Reva's not only lost it, but found himself being indicted
Speaker 1: on criminal charges, and on June seven, eighteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: James Rivers's criminal trial began and he was convicted of
Speaker 1: attempting to defraud the U. S. Government, and he was
Speaker 1: sentenced to two years in prison and find five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: He was incarcerated in the Santa Fe Penitentiary, although on
Speaker 1: April nineteenth of eighteen ninety eight, he was released three
Speaker 1: months early for good behavior. At this point, Sophia was
Speaker 1: living and working in Colorado and had the couple's twins
Speaker 1: with her. After traveling the country trying to get investors
Speaker 1: interested and development plans for Arizona, James finally settled for
Speaker 1: a while with the family, but they wound up getting
Speaker 1: divorced in nineteen o two, and on November twenty, nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: Rivas died of bronchitis in Denver, Colorado. He was seventy
Speaker 1: one at the time, and he was buried in a
Speaker 1: pauper's grave, and he had spent some time in the
Speaker 1: poorhouse various points in between his divorce in nineteen o
Speaker 1: two and the twelve years before he passed away. So
Speaker 1: he really went from being kind of this man living
Speaker 1: a grand life too barely scraping by. On February fourteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, Arizona became United States the state. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: a barony at all. Uh. And there are some historical
Speaker 1: footnotes that actually say he never claimed himself to have
Speaker 1: the title Baron of Arizona, although he did refer to
Speaker 1: his wife Sophia as the Baroness, so he kind of
Speaker 1: gets that name more by historians than of his zone, accord.
Speaker 1: But he certainly claimed to own the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: I'll is my mind in a way, it doesn't blow
Speaker 1: my mind at all, because I know people who have
Speaker 1: been defrauded of things and and and people. A lot
Speaker 1: of people are, you know, our trusting souls that other
Speaker 1: people take advantage of. But at the same time he
Speaker 1: was putting fake markers all over the desert. I just
Speaker 1: him floored by how devoted he was to this scheme
Speaker 1: that he traveled all the way to Europe to plant
Speaker 1: documents that would could later be found to support him.
Speaker 1: Like he really, uh went to some great lengths to
Speaker 1: try to Yeah, like he the fact that he found
Speaker 1: a supposed air to get married to instead of just
Speaker 1: like moving on to some different scheme. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: dug in at that point. And it makes me wonder
Speaker 1: how much of his sort of fraud was planned out
Speaker 1: ahead and how much of it he was kind of
Speaker 1: making up as he went along because he was in
Speaker 1: too deep at that point, but he didn't want to
Speaker 1: back out of it. Uh, But it's quite astounding to
Speaker 1: think about. Do you also have some listener mail? I do,
Speaker 1: and this is from our listener Jackie, and she is
Speaker 1: one of many that wrote us about this in the
Speaker 1: Prince Sotto podcast, where I mentioned the discrepancies depending on
Speaker 1: what piece of historical writing you're reading about Prince Sotto's
Speaker 1: age when he got married. And I feel foolish because
Speaker 1: this is a part of Asian culture that I, for
Speaker 1: some reason, have never known about, even though it's quite
Speaker 1: common well, and it's one that I knew about, but
Speaker 1: it didn't occur to me that it would apply in
Speaker 1: this case, which we'll talk about in a minute. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh and Jackie, like I said, is one of
Speaker 1: several people that wrote us, so I just plucked one
Speaker 1: of the many out. She says, Dear ladies, I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan of the podcast as well as several others
Speaker 1: from the House Stuff Works family. I just finished listening
Speaker 1: to Your Prince Sotto podcast and wanted to mention something.
Speaker 1: The confusion on his age is when he got married
Speaker 1: could in part be explained by how Korea measures age.
Speaker 1: Instead of starting at zero on the day a person
Speaker 1: is born and then accumulating months and years, every person
Speaker 1: starts out at one year old. For example, I was
Speaker 1: born in nine, which means that I am twenty four
Speaker 1: years old and Western standards. However, in Korea, I would
Speaker 1: be twenty five years old. H I. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I feel foolish that I never knew this, but also uh,
Speaker 1: and I think some of our listeners that wrote about
Speaker 1: it mentioned this as well. That your birthday is not
Speaker 1: where your age changes. The new years where your age changes,
Speaker 1: so that could account for things being sometimes one year
Speaker 1: different sometimes two, depending on who did the math of subtraction,
Speaker 1: who converted the ages to UH from like the Asian
Speaker 1: stand the Korean standard to Western standards, and who didn't
Speaker 1: write well. And I think when we were recording the episode,
Speaker 1: I just assumed wrongly perhaps um that like often when
Speaker 1: we get into the ages of people in the more
Speaker 1: distant past, often there are inaccuracy. Just attributed it to
Speaker 1: that being the way that it works sometimes because it
Speaker 1: didn't really occur to me that if a if a
Speaker 1: source were translating from Korean, that someone would change that
Speaker 1: year without noting that they had done so, which I
Speaker 1: don't know why I would think that that would automatically
Speaker 1: be a thing, because it's clear that often UH, translations
Speaker 1: and history books and things take liberties that they maybe
Speaker 1: should not without noting that they've done that. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and it's one of those things that sometimes, uh, to
Speaker 1: them it seems so obvious. Of course I transliterated the
Speaker 1: year to the to what the Westerners would think it was,
Speaker 1: or vice versa, or I kept it exactly the same
Speaker 1: and didn't notate that it's a different aging system. Just
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating and cool and confusing confusing. Well, and
Speaker 1: we I mean that's Tracy said. They're oftentimes where we're
Speaker 1: looking up historical figures and there is some discrepancy just
Speaker 1: because different records have fallen into different hands of people.
Speaker 1: Different records may have been written with different penmanship that
Speaker 1: isn't always legible, and so a best classes made. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many different things that happen where especially the
Speaker 1: further back you go, the more things get a little
Speaker 1: wobbly in terms of exactness when it comes to dates.
Speaker 1: But so that was cool. So thank you for all
Speaker 1: of you that wrote in. And now I know a
Speaker 1: new thing, all right. I love knowing new things. If
Speaker 1: you would like to write us, you can do so
Speaker 1: at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We're also on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash missed in History on Twitter at
Speaker 1: missed in History, on Tumbler at missed in History dot
Speaker 1: tumbler dot com, and you can find our Pinterest boards,
Speaker 1: which are very very busy places these days. Just pinterest
Speaker 1: dot com, slash missed in history. Uh. If you would
Speaker 1: like to learn about a topic that is sort of
Speaker 1: related to what we've talked about today, we can go
Speaker 1: to our website and type in the word the words
Speaker 1: con artists and you will get how con artists work.
Speaker 1: We can all agree that Revas was quite a on
Speaker 1: our you would like to learn about that or almost
Speaker 1: anything else you can think of. Can you do that
Speaker 1: at our website, which is how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because
Speaker 1: it has stuff works dot com. Netflix streams TV shows
Speaker 1: and movies directly to your home, saving you time, money,
Speaker 1: and hassle. As a Netflix member, you can instantly watch
Speaker 1: TV episodes and movies streaming directly to your PC, Mac,
Speaker 1: or right to your TV with your Xbox three, sixty
Speaker 1: P S three or Nintendo we console, plus Apple devices,
Speaker 1: Kindle and Nook. Get a free thirty day trial membership.
Speaker 1: Go to www dot Netflix dot com and sign up now.