Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So back
Speaker 1: when this pandemic began, we selected ten episodes to go
Speaker 1: on our Offbeat History Playlist, which was a playlist that
Speaker 1: we dropped of things that were a little more light
Speaker 1: in tone so that there might be a nice distraction.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I had selected to
Speaker 1: include was our two parter on the Great American Hippo
Speaker 1: Ranch Plan. And so in re listening to those just
Speaker 1: for a quality check, I realized that I mentioned during
Speaker 1: them that it would be really, really fun to do
Speaker 1: an entire episode on Fritz Duquine because his life was
Speaker 1: I don't know a better word to describe it, bananas.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a journey, a very a lot of journey.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I envy both his bravado and his energy.
Speaker 1: But so here I am. It's almost four years later,
Speaker 1: finally doing that thing. Uh, and that two parter has
Speaker 1: spawned another two parter because we are talking about a
Speaker 1: man who changed his life story to suit his needs.
Speaker 1: He worked under an estimated forty aliases, and he lived
Speaker 1: a life that was very full, but it also directly
Speaker 1: involves a lot of significant historical events. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that Ducane excelled at was escaping custody. And
Speaker 1: this first part is going to cover his early life
Speaker 1: up to an escape that serves as a major shifting
Speaker 1: point in his life. And then next time we will
Speaker 1: cover a whole bunch of his time as a saboteur,
Speaker 1: spy and journalist, among other things, right up to the
Speaker 1: end of his life. And I want to give you
Speaker 1: heads up that this episode does contain brief mentions of
Speaker 1: sexual violence. Decane's parents, Abraham and Minna, lived in East
Speaker 1: London in Cape Province, South Africa, and Abraham was a
Speaker 1: hunter who just lowly built up a fortune by selling
Speaker 1: hides as well as tusks and horns. The Duquesnes were bowers.
Speaker 1: These were Dutch and Huguenot settlers and their descendants who
Speaker 1: made their homes in Southern Africa starting in the seventeenth century.
Speaker 1: Frist was born on December twenty one, eighteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: and his full name was Frederick Luguno Jubert Ducaine, and
Speaker 1: at this point the spelling of that last name was
Speaker 1: d u q u e n n e. His spelling
Speaker 1: of it changed later on in his life. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you hear someone who is a French speaker pronounced it,
Speaker 1: particularly the way his parents spelled it, it will be
Speaker 1: more like Duquenne, where that a sound is a little softer.
Speaker 1: And then as he lived his life, Duquesne in that
Speaker 1: sort of harder a sound, americanized style became part of
Speaker 1: it and he started spelling it differently. The blurred nature
Speaker 1: of Fritz's life story begins right there at the beginning,
Speaker 1: at least in terms of how he presented himself. This
Speaker 1: will come up over and over that he kind of
Speaker 1: crafted his persona h I don't even want to say carefully,
Speaker 1: because he was sloppy in details at times, but to
Speaker 1: suit his needs. And while he was born in the
Speaker 1: Duquesne home, what he liked to tell people was that
Speaker 1: he was born on the run as his parents traveled
Speaker 1: with other white European descendant Afrikaners and were attacked by
Speaker 1: a group of black Africans. He claimed that he came
Speaker 1: into the world hearing gunfire. This was just one of
Speaker 1: the many stories that Fritz would eventually tell as he
Speaker 1: crafted this very complicated and completely unverifiable backstory, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that he spent most of his time as a
Speaker 1: teen being educated in England, he claimed that in those
Speaker 1: same years he had been captured by a Bantoo speaking
Speaker 1: tribe and had saved himself by making the daughter of
Speaker 1: the tribal leader fall in love with him. A lot
Speaker 1: of this is racially very problematic. Oh yeah, Like the
Speaker 1: whole story of of of European colonialism in South Africa
Speaker 1: is like, we're going to touch on it some, but
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of pieces that are very racist
Speaker 1: and problematic. Oh yeah, we will talk about Duquesne as
Speaker 1: an adventurer, but we don't really delve into the the
Speaker 1: really problematic and difficult thing that the attitude of virtually
Speaker 1: all white European descendant men who categorized themselves as adventurers
Speaker 1: had really really unfortunate and incorrect attitudes about the people
Speaker 1: that were native to the places they like to explore.
Speaker 1: It's coming up on the show many times. So I
Speaker 1: felt like Duquesne's story is busy enough. We didn't need to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of venture over that territory again. Um,
Speaker 1: But the Ducheans did certainly find themselves in the conflict
Speaker 1: between the black and white inhabitants of South Africa. Fritz
Speaker 1: is actually alleged to have killed a Zulu man who
Speaker 1: was attacking his mother when he was still just a boy,
Speaker 1: and then to have been involved in a much larger
Speaker 1: battle between the Dutch descendant Africanners and a group of
Speaker 1: Bantu men when he was just well. And while these
Speaker 1: stories do seem to have at least been grounded in
Speaker 1: some actual events of conflict, we should note that this
Speaker 1: information comes from sources that are all written from the
Speaker 1: Boer point of view. In eighteen o six, the Cape Colony,
Speaker 1: which had been controlled by the Dutch until this point,
Speaker 1: fell under British control during the Napoleonic Wars. This led
Speaker 1: to a lot of friction between the Boers and Britain
Speaker 1: over a number of issues. The biggest one was Britain's
Speaker 1: antislavery stance. Many Boers decided to move to more rural areas.
Speaker 1: They eventually founded Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Written
Speaker 1: recognized those independent republics. Although it's violence between the Boors
Speaker 1: and the native Bantu people's escalated. Britain moved in its
Speaker 1: troops into these republics under the pretext of keeping the peace.
Speaker 1: There's really a motivation in this whole mix that was
Speaker 1: outside of diplomacy and politics for Britain. That was the
Speaker 1: discovery of gold and diamonds in the area, and the
Speaker 1: ports around the Cape that were active trade routes also
Speaker 1: added value to trans of all that Britain was really
Speaker 1: eager to control. Yeah, it was initially like, oh, sure,
Speaker 1: you have your own countries. That's fine. Wait, your countries
Speaker 1: have stuff. Uh, we have that stuff. We have to
Speaker 1: help you. We're helping, We're helping. Uh. This is of
Speaker 1: course the very broad strokes version of all of this,
Speaker 1: but ultimately a struggle for control of the region escalated,
Speaker 1: unsurprisingly into military conflict. The first of these, which was
Speaker 1: called the First boo Or War or sometimes the First
Speaker 1: Anglo Boer War or the Transvaal Rebellion, and you will
Speaker 1: even find other names, started in December eighteen eighteen, and
Speaker 1: it resulted in a British defeat. Fritz was just three
Speaker 1: years old when this played out, but the ongoing hostility
Speaker 1: toward Great Britain in the area was part of a
Speaker 1: culture that he just grew up in, and in an
Speaker 1: odd twist. Despite this anti Anglo sentiment, Fritz was, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned just a moment ago, sent to England for
Speaker 1: school as a teenager allow Julie, at the behest of
Speaker 1: an uncle on his mother's side, who recognized that there
Speaker 1: was just no comparable education in southern Africa. The story
Speaker 1: goes that after attending private school and graduating, Fritz moved
Speaker 1: on first to Oxford for a year and then to
Speaker 1: the Belgian at Cole Militaire in Brussels. When he was
Speaker 1: there he learned about artillery and engineering as well as explosives.
Speaker 1: He also became proficient in fencing and swordsmanship, and according
Speaker 1: to the kind of legendary Duquesne accounts, this resulted in
Speaker 1: the deaths of three different challengers in duels the rose
Speaker 1: over the affections of young ladies. These assertions, though, are
Speaker 1: not really backed up with any kind of attendance records
Speaker 1: at Oxford or at Cold Militaire, and there is also
Speaker 1: an alternative account of these years, also told at various
Speaker 1: points by Duquesne, in which he claimed that he had
Speaker 1: been en route to Europe from Africa a board a
Speaker 1: steamer after a break between his English schooling and his
Speaker 1: advanced studies so Be where he went to university, when
Speaker 1: suddenly his plans shifted. According to this story, he said
Speaker 1: that he met a man on that journey while he
Speaker 1: was on the ship, who convinced him that he would
Speaker 1: learn more if he took his school money and used
Speaker 1: it to travel around the world, And so the two
Speaker 1: men set off together, and allegedly this journey ended when
Speaker 1: Ducaine's father caught up to the pair in Singapore partying
Speaker 1: like crazy and then sent Fritz back to school. But
Speaker 1: as Fritz was either on a globe trotting, drinking binge
Speaker 1: with his new much older friend, or learning about explosives
Speaker 1: in military school, the issues between the Boors and the
Speaker 1: British back home were escalating. This would become the Second
Speaker 1: Boer War. There were a lot of circumstances in the
Speaker 1: mix leading to the cause of this. The ideologies of
Speaker 1: Britain versus the Orange Free State and the Republic of
Speaker 1: Transvaal also known as the Republic of South Africa were
Speaker 1: still at odds. Annexation of parts of Transvall by Britain
Speaker 1: were once again the focus, as was this battle over
Speaker 1: the control of valuable resources like gold. In things boiled
Speaker 1: over and twenty two year old Fritz was ready to fight.
Speaker 1: Fritz claimed that he had been summoned to return home
Speaker 1: from Europe to join the fight in a letter from
Speaker 1: his father, but it seems as though Abraham Ducane was
Speaker 1: actually already dead. By an ultimatum, though was issued jointly
Speaker 1: by Transvaal and the Orange Free State, that British troops
Speaker 1: had to be out of Boer territory by October. Even
Speaker 1: that did not happen, and so on October twelfth war
Speaker 1: was declared by the Boers and Britain began closing all
Speaker 1: of the ports along the coast. Duquesne arrived home, whether
Speaker 1: at the behest of his father or someone else, as
Speaker 1: all of this was happening sometime in December. We'll get
Speaker 1: into Fritz's life in the military after we pause for
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break. Fritz was commissioned as a lieutenant
Speaker 1: and was assigned under the command of Piat Jubet, the
Speaker 1: Commandant General of the Republic. Now. Fritz claimed throughout his
Speaker 1: life that Jubert was his uncle. His mother's maiden name
Speaker 1: was Hubert, and he said that Piet had been the
Speaker 1: one to send him to school in England, but that
Speaker 1: family tie has never actually been confirmed. Initially, the Boers
Speaker 1: fared quite well in the war against the British. Although
Speaker 1: the Transvaal and Orange Free State military was made up
Speaker 1: of farmers and hunters, many of them led pretty nomadic lives.
Speaker 1: Those were men who could shoot and track as a
Speaker 1: matter of course, from the time they were kids, and
Speaker 1: they were comfortable out in the beld, that's the undeveloped
Speaker 1: grasslands of southern Africa. This entire conflict was harder for
Speaker 1: the British soldiers than anticipated. Britain had become kind of
Speaker 1: accustomed to just swooping into areas of conflict with nations
Speaker 1: that had less fortified militaries and then wrangling just efficient
Speaker 1: and decisive victories. That's not what happened here. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of back and forth in the fight with
Speaker 1: the Boers, and Fritz thrived in the conflict. He became
Speaker 1: so well known for his stealth that people started calling
Speaker 1: him the Black Panther of the Veld. Although that may
Speaker 1: have been the nickname that he gave himself, he definitely
Speaker 1: told people about it for the rest of his life. Though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: anytime you look up any sort of article about him,
Speaker 1: anytime he appears people will use that moniker, and I
Speaker 1: still wonder if he just decided, like I'm a black panther,
Speaker 1: I'm a black panther of the veld Um. In early
Speaker 1: spring of nineteen hundred, Fritz Dukane was actually injured in
Speaker 1: the war. He was shot in his right shoulder and
Speaker 1: he continued fighting, though, even as the Boers found themselves
Speaker 1: with fewer and fewer successes. To be clear, this was
Speaker 1: a lot of incredibly bloody fighting. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of men lost for both the Boers and Britain uh
Speaker 1: and in some cases the far militia of the Boers, though,
Speaker 1: were able to take advantage of their knowledge of the
Speaker 1: term rain and make themselves almost undetectable to British troops,
Speaker 1: and that offered them a chance to open fire without
Speaker 1: the enemy ever anticipating it. This is kind of one
Speaker 1: of those conflicts where you see some shifting away from
Speaker 1: traditional military engagement into more guerrilla warfare. As the tide
Speaker 1: had turned, there were concerns that the finances of chanz
Speaker 1: walls Burg government could fall into the hands of the British,
Speaker 1: and a plan was made to move the country's gold
Speaker 1: stores to Europe in secret so millions of pounds of
Speaker 1: gold the exact value ranges from a million dollars to
Speaker 1: five million dollars was loaded with other valuable state papers
Speaker 1: onto a series of wagons to be taken quietly to
Speaker 1: the coast and then sent on from there. And allegedly
Speaker 1: none other than Fritz Ducane got involved in this whole story.
Speaker 1: So Fritz, according to the tale, intercepted the wagons with
Speaker 1: fake credentials that he was carrying that claimed to be
Speaker 1: from Transwall's president Paul Krueger. Ducuese had several other men
Speaker 1: with him, white accomplices, as well as several black servants,
Speaker 1: and they took those wagons that they had common to
Speaker 1: here deeper into the wilds. It is possible that once
Speaker 1: the gold was stashed in a series of caves, Ducane
Speaker 1: actually conspired with the head of a nearby tribe to
Speaker 1: have all of his men killed in exchange for the
Speaker 1: oxen that had been pulling the wagons, leading him to
Speaker 1: be the only one left alive who knew the gold's whereabouts.
Speaker 1: We do not know if this story is true. I
Speaker 1: feel like we say that after everything uh conveniently, all
Speaker 1: of the players in this story, other than Duquesne were
Speaker 1: killed or would be impossible to track down per his story,
Speaker 1: but he used this tale once again as a yarn
Speaker 1: that would bolster his reputation throughout his life. In June
Speaker 1: of nineteen hundred, he was injured, he had a lance
Speaker 1: go through his foot, and Ducane went on the run,
Speaker 1: but was soon captured by the British. It was only
Speaker 1: the first of seven real captures. He escaped when the
Speaker 1: town that the British troops took him to for imprisonment
Speaker 1: turned out to have burned down, and in the confusion
Speaker 1: upun Having discovered that their destination was burned down, Fritz
Speaker 1: made a run for it, and then, after finding another
Speaker 1: group of Boer fighters andy real military structure was gone
Speaker 1: at this point, he joined up with them. They were
Speaker 1: defeated in their next fight, though, and he was taken
Speaker 1: prisoner again. This time, he started up a friendly conversation
Speaker 1: with one of the soldiers to get that soldier relaxed,
Speaker 1: and then as they crossed a bridge, Fritz hit the
Speaker 1: soldier hard over the head, knocking him out, and then
Speaker 1: jumped into the river. He managed to hide in the
Speaker 1: bush by the bank until the British troops gave up
Speaker 1: looking for him and moved on. Duquesne planned to then
Speaker 1: travel on foot until he could get to a port,
Speaker 1: with the hope being that he could get on a
Speaker 1: boat and be taken to where he could rejoin the
Speaker 1: main thrust of the Boer forces. But after a few
Speaker 1: days of walking, he was captured by colonists from Portugal
Speaker 1: and he was turned over to British authorities. From there,
Speaker 1: he was transported to the port city of Lorenzo Marquez
Speaker 1: now known as Maputo in Mozambique, and he was put
Speaker 1: in an actual prison. It was actually like a cell
Speaker 1: in a castle style prison. Uh That made his plans
Speaker 1: for escape a little bit limited, but of course that
Speaker 1: was always his plan. Literally every time he got in
Speaker 1: hot water, his next thought was how can I get
Speaker 1: out of here? He managed to slip through a ventilation
Speaker 1: shaft into another room at one point, but that was
Speaker 1: not a cell. But then he was seen right away
Speaker 1: and was immediately taken back into custody and put back
Speaker 1: into his cell. From there he was shipped to Lisbon,
Speaker 1: where he was jailed, but found it much more comfortable
Speaker 1: than his previous captivity had been. He claimed to have
Speaker 1: befriended the jailer and also had a romance with that
Speaker 1: man's daughter, but whether or not it was comfortable to
Speaker 1: Caine still wanted out. He eventually managed to escape again,
Speaker 1: although the details are not clear. This time he made
Speaker 1: his way to Brussels after in Kiddies and Paris, and
Speaker 1: he made contact with Transvaal's representative there that was William
Speaker 1: Johannes Lads. It was there and through this discussion with
Speaker 1: Lads that Decane's life as a spy began. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll do a brief aside and say that there you
Speaker 1: could have some pedantic discussions over whether he was more
Speaker 1: of a saboteur or a spy. At various points in
Speaker 1: his nefarious dealings career, um he got labeled a spy generally,
Speaker 1: So even though this particular part to me seems more
Speaker 1: like a saboteur, we'll go with it. Uh. Lades suggested
Speaker 1: that Fritz pose as a board defector and joined the
Speaker 1: British military. This was something that happened a number of
Speaker 1: times as some of the Boers got tired of the fighting,
Speaker 1: and Fritz's background and his military expertise ensured that he
Speaker 1: would be sent right back to the Anglo Boer War there,
Speaker 1: the plan was that he would desert and join up
Speaker 1: with the Boers again. But this plan was really really risky.
Speaker 1: As we said, defectors not that uncommon, but they were
Speaker 1: known as judas Boers and they were viewed with utter
Speaker 1: contempt by their countrymen, and it was entirely possible that
Speaker 1: Fritz would be shot on site by his fellows before
Speaker 1: he could reveal his ruse. When Decaine got back to
Speaker 1: South Africa in March of nineteen o one, he was horrified.
Speaker 1: Most of the Boer farms had been burned. There was
Speaker 1: a huge homeless population of Boer women and children who
Speaker 1: had lost their husbands and fathers to the fighting. They
Speaker 1: were put into camps that were poorly managed and resulted
Speaker 1: in really high mortality rates and sheer misery for those
Speaker 1: who managed to survive. But the real horror for Fritz
Speaker 1: Ducane was learning what happened to his family. He thought,
Speaker 1: because they were so rural and it would just be
Speaker 1: his mom and his sister who was a little bit younger,
Speaker 1: and his uncle who was blind, that people would just
Speaker 1: leave them alone. But their farm had been burned, like
Speaker 1: so many others. The one surviving servant had told him
Speaker 1: that his uncle had been hanged and then mutilated, his
Speaker 1: mother and sister had both been raped by British soldiers.
Speaker 1: His sister had been shot, and his mother was then
Speaker 1: taken to camp as a prisoner disguised in his British uniform.
Speaker 1: Fritz was able to find his mother at a nearby camp,
Speaker 1: and she was very, very sick, dying according to Fritz's
Speaker 1: later account, of syphilis, and she had a seven month
Speaker 1: old baby. Decane knew that he couldn't save his mother,
Speaker 1: so he made her a promise quote, as long as
Speaker 1: I live, I will never draw one breath but to
Speaker 1: pay back the English for what they have done. I
Speaker 1: pledge my soul that for every drop of rotten, poisoned
Speaker 1: blood in your body, I will kill a hundred Englishmen.
Speaker 1: So for Fritz this completely changed his drive to fight
Speaker 1: the British on behalf of his people. It's just a
Speaker 1: personal vendetta. He spoke for the rest of his life
Speaker 1: about how deeply he hated all Englishmen for what had
Speaker 1: happened to his family, and he held a special level
Speaker 1: of hatred for Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener, who headed up
Speaker 1: the British military effort during the time and had directed
Speaker 1: this scorched Earth campaign and bore territory, and Duquesne immediately
Speaker 1: set to work on his first act of vengeance. His
Speaker 1: plan was to turn Cape Town, which was a place
Speaker 1: that had become sort of the English headquarters in South Africa,
Speaker 1: into a place with as much pain and suffering for
Speaker 1: Great Britain as the misery that they had caused the Boers.
Speaker 1: With about twenty conspirators, he planned a massive bomb attack
Speaker 1: for the night of October eleventh, nineteen o one. Explosives
Speaker 1: were to be placed throughout the city, at the docks,
Speaker 1: at the utilities, around municipal buildings, basically everywhere, and as
Speaker 1: part of this plot for It's actually attended a social
Speaker 1: event that night in his full British uniform. He was
Speaker 1: quite respected within the British Army. But then as he
Speaker 1: tried to leave the event, Duchese was arrested on charges
Speaker 1: of conspiracy against the British government and espionage. And it
Speaker 1: turned out that one of the twenty men that Fritz
Speaker 1: had trusted had become worried that his own property in
Speaker 1: Cape Town would be destroyed by all this, so he
Speaker 1: blabbed the entire scheme to British authorities. So hang on
Speaker 1: to that betrayal. We are about to get into its repercussions,
Speaker 1: but first we're going to take a quick break to
Speaker 1: hear from the sponsors. Fritz Duchane, still technically a British
Speaker 1: Army officer, was court martial and when he was questioned
Speaker 1: along with the nineteen other men, Fritz confessed to his
Speaker 1: own involvement in the plot, but claimed the other men
Speaker 1: were strangers to him. The only one that he could
Speaker 1: not deny knowledge of was the man who turned him in.
Speaker 1: When Fritz was called a trader, he denied it, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: I am a Boer, not a Britisher. Duchese continued. He
Speaker 1: explained to the court his political point of view that
Speaker 1: Britain had invaded where the Boers were simply trying to
Speaker 1: live their lives as they wished, and he also revealed
Speaker 1: what had happened to his family at the hands of
Speaker 1: British soldiers. Fritz and his accomplice Is were declared guilty
Speaker 1: and sentenced to be shot at sunrise the following day,
Speaker 1: but Fritz Decane did not die. With the dawn in
Speaker 1: the night, a British general made him an offer that
Speaker 1: if he gave the British Army the communication codes that
Speaker 1: the Boers were using, he could live to fight for
Speaker 1: his country. He would not be freed, but he also
Speaker 1: would not be executed. He grudgingly agreed with this. He
Speaker 1: watched the firing squad carry out the sentence on his
Speaker 1: co conspirators before he was taken to a cell where
Speaker 1: he was asked to translate a number of Boer communications.
Speaker 1: Ducaine always claimed that he didn't translate the codes and
Speaker 1: betray his country, but instead created new codes to confuse
Speaker 1: the British. He also wrote a number of letters to
Speaker 1: his captors complaining about the food and the treatment that
Speaker 1: he was receiving, including a list of expletives that he
Speaker 1: had been called and saying, quote, this is not likely
Speaker 1: to do any good and hurts the feelings of the
Speaker 1: prisoner that just tickled me. In the midst of all
Speaker 1: of this, He's like, my feelings are hurt when you
Speaker 1: call me these bad names. And of course he tried
Speaker 1: to escape. That was his jam. So this is pretty ingenious.
Speaker 1: We mentioned it briefly in the Hippo episode, but we
Speaker 1: can go into a little more detail here. He used
Speaker 1: a spoon like the classic old school movie Troupe to
Speaker 1: scrape away the mortar that was holding the stones of
Speaker 1: the exterior wall of his cell, and he did this
Speaker 1: slowly over time until he felt like he had gotten
Speaker 1: enough stones loose that he could get out. But when
Speaker 1: the night came that he thought that he was ready,
Speaker 1: there was enough loose mortar for him to escape. As
Speaker 1: he was pushing them out, a stone from above those stones,
Speaker 1: which had lost its support as he had been scooting
Speaker 1: those stones below out, fell on top of him and
Speaker 1: it pinned him to the ground. So from that point
Speaker 1: on he was kept in irons. He was also shipped
Speaker 1: away to Bermuda on a ship that sailed from Cape
Speaker 1: Town on November seven one, which carried three forty prisoners
Speaker 1: of war. As part of this change in circumstance, he
Speaker 1: was told that he was exiled from South Africa forever.
Speaker 1: He took this news very badly, but he was oddly
Speaker 1: okay with a transfer to a penal colony in Bermuda
Speaker 1: I s meant that he might have another chance at escape.
Speaker 1: He tried to put together an escape plan during the voyage,
Speaker 1: which involved taking the captain of the ship prisoner that
Speaker 1: was foiled by the men being a little cavalier with
Speaker 1: their discussions and being found out. As a consequence, all
Speaker 1: of the conspirators and that attempt were placed in cells
Speaker 1: with worse conditions than the already rough situation that they
Speaker 1: had been in prior to this plan. Yeah, they they
Speaker 1: had apparently had you know, not great provisions, cleanliness, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Before this, But then they were just put in like
Speaker 1: the grossest part of the ship. Uh. Fritz maybe learning
Speaker 1: that you can't trust groups, tried to escape on his
Speaker 1: own leader when his shackles had been removed so that
Speaker 1: he could get some exercise on deck. He actually killed
Speaker 1: a guard in the process and threw him overboard, and
Speaker 1: then he hid in a hawse hole, hoping to jump
Speaker 1: into the water when night fell, but he was recaptured
Speaker 1: before that could happen. But because there was no body,
Speaker 1: he was not officially found guilty of murder. Throughout this journey,
Speaker 1: he wrote a number of letters to various authorities about
Speaker 1: his poor treatment in the awful provisions. This is something
Speaker 1: that became sort of a hobby throughout all of his
Speaker 1: various imprisonments in life, of which there were a lot
Speaker 1: more to like. I was like, well, I tried to escape,
Speaker 1: I might have murdered someone. I definitely conspired with the
Speaker 1: other prisoners, but they're treating me so bad. I would
Speaker 1: really like better food. So once the ship got to Bermuda,
Speaker 1: conditions improved considerably for the Boer POWs, although they were
Speaker 1: still captive. Then Fritz, as ever, was plotting with escape possibilities.
Speaker 1: They were on small islands apart from the main island,
Speaker 1: so the prisoners had more freedo of movement within these
Speaker 1: military camp zones. There were some escape attempts by other prisoners,
Speaker 1: particularly because there were a number of Boer sympathizers on
Speaker 1: the main island who would harbor them, but most of
Speaker 1: them were recaptured. Yeah. Once once British authorities realized like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're making a run for the island because these people
Speaker 1: will let them stay in their houses, they started watching
Speaker 1: those houses and the islands a little more tightly, even
Speaker 1: in shackles. Though, Fritz, who had always been a ladies
Speaker 1: man since he was a teenager, managed to woo a
Speaker 1: young woman while in Bermuda. Alice Wortley was the daughter
Speaker 1: of the u S director of Bermuda's agriculture and she
Speaker 1: found Fritz Duchane fascinating, even though she literally met him
Speaker 1: when he was in shackles sitting with other prisoners. Uh
Speaker 1: he was well educated and he could speak multiple languages,
Speaker 1: and the two of them were really strongly drawn to
Speaker 1: one another. As the word reached Duquesne about the Anglo
Speaker 1: Boer War coming to a close and peace terms being
Speaker 1: reached in May of nineteen two shifted his plans a
Speaker 1: little bit. He still wanted to escape, but there was
Speaker 1: no home that he could go back to, and there
Speaker 1: was no fight that he could take up there on
Speaker 1: the part of his people. So Fritz, like all the
Speaker 1: other Boer POWs, was offered release if he signed an
Speaker 1: oath of allegiance to the British Crown. A lot of
Speaker 1: the other Boer prisoners readily did so, but Fritz and
Speaker 1: a number of the other men were just not willing to,
Speaker 1: even though refusing meant that they would stay in prison.
Speaker 1: Fritz was making other plans, so one night, during a rainstorm,
Speaker 1: Duquese made his move. He slipped out of his tent
Speaker 1: through a barbed wire fence and, in what he described
Speaker 1: as the thrill of his life, swam through water filled
Speaker 1: with sharks to the main island, where he sought help
Speaker 1: from one of those known Boer sympathizers. She actually knew
Speaker 1: that it was a little dicey to take anybody in
Speaker 1: at this point because of the heightened awareness, and so
Speaker 1: she handed him off to another sympathizer, and that person
Speaker 1: helped him make his way to the capital city of Hamilton's.
Speaker 1: Duquesne knew that he could not just board a ship.
Speaker 1: He was a wanted man. All of the docks and
Speaker 1: the ships in ports were being watched, so he set
Speaker 1: up a life for himself in Hamilton's. First, he disguised
Speaker 1: himself by shearing off all of his hair. Then he
Speaker 1: made the acquaintance of a sex worker named Vera and
Speaker 1: became her manager. But this was of course, not something
Speaker 1: he intended to be his new life. It was a
Speaker 1: means to an end. Meeting men to arrange rendezvous with
Speaker 1: Vera meant that he heard all the latest information about
Speaker 1: what was happening at the docks from the sailors who
Speaker 1: made up a significant portion of that business. Moreover, it
Speaker 1: gave him a chance to steal clothing from one of
Speaker 1: Vera's customers one night and then pretend to be that
Speaker 1: drunken sailor when returning to his ship, which was the Margaret.
Speaker 1: By the time Duquesne was discovered as a stowaway, the
Speaker 1: Margaret was well on its way to Baltimore. Fritz has
Speaker 1: spent more than a day at that point in the
Speaker 1: brig because when he had boarded, apparently stumbling drunk, which
Speaker 1: was fake, the first mate had thrown him in there
Speaker 1: to sober up, not realizing it was not their regular
Speaker 1: crew member but an interloper. The once Boer spy had
Speaker 1: found himself aboard a very nice yacht belonging to Isaac
Speaker 1: Edward Emerson. This was the inventor of the ant acid
Speaker 1: Bromo Seltzer. Emerson questioned the stowaway and got Ducane's entire story,
Speaker 1: at least as Fritz chose to tell it, of the war,
Speaker 1: his imprisonment, his unwillingness to swear an oath to Britain,
Speaker 1: and his escape from prison. When Emerson asked Ducane if
Speaker 1: he had ever been at sea, Fritz said no, but
Speaker 1: that he thought he would make a good steward, and
Speaker 1: Emerson agreed that he would and allegedly replied, I think
Speaker 1: everything will turn out fine for you in America. So
Speaker 1: while the yacht's owner seemed to like Fritz, the captain
Speaker 1: did not. Nuchane was convinced he would be turned in
Speaker 1: if he arrived in Baltimore with the ship, so he
Speaker 1: plotted an opportunity to jump and swim to sure After
Speaker 1: studying maps of their planned course as the Margaret slid
Speaker 1: past Great Fox Island in Chesapeake Bay, he made his
Speaker 1: move and he arrived after a swim in Maryland. He
Speaker 1: next made his way to Pennsylvania and then to Paterson,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, where he had a contact and a place
Speaker 1: to stay. Incidentally, ten years later, when Duquane applied for
Speaker 1: naturalization to become a citizen of the US, he said
Speaker 1: that he had arrived in Baltimore on September twelve night,
Speaker 1: you know, to aboard the Margaret as a crew member
Speaker 1: and an immigrant from Bermuda. So this is where we
Speaker 1: are going to take a pause in Fritz's story because
Speaker 1: I mean, next time it's gonna get really weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh Fritz. Um, I have a grudging sort of love
Speaker 1: for him because he's very fun. For listener mail, I
Speaker 1: am gonna read one from our listener Ashley, which is
Speaker 1: about our emergency medicine episodes, and Ashley writes, Hi, Tracy
Speaker 1: and Holly, my partner and I listened to your emergency
Speaker 1: medicine episodes together and love them. My partner is an
Speaker 1: e R resident in a major city, and I'm a
Speaker 1: historian and an archaeologist. Your episodes have been getting me
Speaker 1: through my days working remotely and kept my spirits up.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all you do, um, Ashley, thanks to
Speaker 1: both you and your partner for having jobs that are important. UM.
Speaker 1: Keeping history alive is always very dear to our hearts,
Speaker 1: and of course anyone working in emergency medicine right now
Speaker 1: needs to have all of the accolades thrust upon them.
Speaker 1: She also writes some great topics you may be interested in. Uh, sure,
Speaker 1: it's a few that are pretty cool, and she said,
Speaker 1: if you read all of this, thank you for taking
Speaker 1: the time, and thank you for making an awesome podcast. UM.
Speaker 1: We almost never read our suggestions in listener mail out
Speaker 1: loud because we might use them. UM, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure to thank Ashley, especially because her partner
Speaker 1: is an e R residence super important, and that also
Speaker 1: means that Ashley is living in a heightened state of
Speaker 1: probably stressed as well. So thank you both, because uh,
Speaker 1: we would be lost without you. Um. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us, you can do so at
Speaker 1: the History podcast at i heart radio dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also find us everywhere on social media as Missed
Speaker 1: in History, and if you would like to subscribe, you
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