The Art of Manliness - #203： The Real Life Most Interesting Man in the World

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast we've probably

00:00:18.580 all seen the Dos Equis most interesting man in the world commercials guy goes on great

00:00:23.280 adventures has great stories to tell he's friends with the rich and famous he's a fictional

00:00:28.700 character but here's the thing there was a guy in the 19th century that would put the most

00:00:33.380 interesting man in the world to shame his name is Frederick Russell Burnham he was a world famous

00:00:39.100 scout that did time was tutored by some of the great mountain men of the American West not only

00:00:45.780 scouted in America and took part in the Apache Wars went over to Africa for some adventures took part

00:00:50.740 in the Boer Wars that were going on over there in colonial Africa all the time prospecting for

00:00:55.960 diamonds oil gold you name it he was doing that on the side as well went to the Klondike to do some

00:01:01.560 prospecting there went to Mexico to go on some adventures and take part in some of the the

00:01:06.400 hijinks of the Mexican Revolution and then he also I mean he also was friends with some of the most

00:01:12.760 influential men in in world history Teddy Roosevelt was a close friend of his he was friends with some

00:01:18.460 of the big capitalists of the day friends with Lord Baden Powell the founder of the Boy Scout movement

00:01:23.360 and in fact as we'll see Frederick Russell Burnham had a significant amount of influence on the Boy Scout

00:01:28.280 movement anyways lots of stories from this guy there's a new book out about his life it's called

00:01:33.160 A Splendid Savage The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham the author is Steve Kemper and I have

00:01:37.860 him on the show today to discuss this guy who's not letting many people know about him today but he

00:01:42.460 lived an amazing life we're going to talk about his story he's a complex character he's a product of his

00:01:48.140 times why he went on all these adventures what was driving him and what we could possibly learn from

00:01:53.280 him so without further ado Steve Kemper a Splendid Savage Frederick Russell Burnham

00:01:59.060 Steve Kemper welcome to the show thanks for having me so you wrote the biography of what I would I'm

00:02:10.720 going to go out there and say this is quite he's quite truly the most like the real life most interesting

00:02:16.060 man in the world his name is Frederick Russell Burnham he was a famous scout prospector I mean

00:02:23.380 this guy did it all and we're going to get into his exploits that he he did during his life but let's

00:02:30.560 start from the beginning because his life was interesting from the very beginning he was born

00:02:34.360 in the Minnesota frontier and figuratively and literally he was born in fire can you tell us a little

00:02:42.200 about Burnham's early years in the Minnesota frontier and how his experience with the with the Sioux Native

00:02:48.040 Americans in particular formed the foundation for the rest of his life sure he was he was the son of a

00:02:56.260 preacher man and he who was a very educated guy who took a lot of higher education from the east and

00:03:04.220 went to a Winnebago Indian reservation on the Minnesota frontier and that's where Frederick was born

00:03:09.880 um on his timing as as usual was impeccable for trouble um a year and a half after he was born

00:03:17.160 the Dakota Sioux started a war when a lot of the men were away at our civil war and one of the

00:03:25.100 consequences was that they they attacked Burnham's homestead Burnham's father was away trying to get

00:03:31.860 some lead to melt down for bullets so Burnham's mother was there with him and she saw them coming and she

00:03:37.680 picked him up and ran and she realized um if I keep running with this baby they'll catch us both and

00:03:43.820 kill us both so she stuffed him in a shock of green corn stalks and kept running and told him not to

00:03:50.000 move next day she came back her homestead was burnt down corn stalks are scorched and she parts them in

00:03:57.240 there lying there quietly is her son Frederick Russell Burnham so that was his introduction to frontier life

00:04:03.480 and Indian warfare and uh beyond that introduction that initial introduction did he encounter the Sioux

00:04:10.820 later on in his childhood or did he I guess at one point his family moved to California um well the

00:04:18.380 Sioux kicked the the settlers in Minnesota and it really was a frontier it was not just it's just at

00:04:23.500 the edge of the frontier was turning into something else by the time Frederick was born

00:04:27.480 they kicked all the Sioux out and uh killed some of them but made the rest go to reservations so there

00:04:34.240 were no legal Sioux there for uh Frederick's early childhood but there were plenty of other Indians

00:04:40.180 around and he played with them a lot all the children did and that's partly where he started his

00:04:47.160 interest in woodcraft and Indian ways and you're right then they moved to California because his father

00:04:53.240 got sick and um they wanted to go to a new place a warmer place in hopes that it would help his health

00:05:00.480 it didn't and um he died when Frederick was 12 so but Frederick the mother and and Frederick's younger

00:05:10.000 brother decided to go back to Iowa because they had no means of of making a living Fred said at age 12

00:05:16.220 no I'm going to stay I'm going to be found on my own here and that's what he did yeah so that that was

00:05:22.040 amazing like he he and the reason he stayed behind because he wanted to pay off his mother's debt

00:05:26.120 because I guess she had to borrow some money to get back to Iowa because their family was destitute so

00:05:30.660 here's this 12 year old kid thing and like I got to take on my family's obligations and so

00:05:35.000 he started doing these odd jobs around California and then it ended up traveling around the southwest and

00:05:41.720 this is the time when the southwest was the wild west um what kind of work did Frederick do during this

00:05:48.660 time and how did what kind of and what sort of skills did he acquire with the jobs that he did that

00:05:53.000 helped him later on in his career as a scout well he started at age 12 as a messenger for western union

00:06:00.520 telegram he delivered telegrams from the the inner city of of the pueblo and los angeles was really

00:06:07.500 small at that time it was less than 10 000 people um and he did that 16 hours a day riding uh sending

00:06:14.360 delivering telegrams to ranches and villages outside of the pueblo he got tired of that

00:06:20.580 because it was sort of regimented and he became a freelance hunter for freighters camps in the

00:06:27.200 mountains of California the freighters would were hauling silver and lead bullion from the mines in the

00:06:34.360 mountains of California to los angeles which became the ornaments of the gilded age eventually

00:06:40.360 and those guys uh who were on the wagons needed to eat and Frederick learned he was a good shot and

00:06:48.040 he was a horseman and so he earned a living by hunting for supplying meat to these camps

00:06:54.360 and in the meantime he also met some of the old frontiers and some of the old Indian fighters from

00:06:58.940 earlier campaigns and began picking their brains about um how to how to read tracks how to follow a

00:07:05.700 course how to know what uh the size of someone that you're tracking the the number in their party

00:07:12.400 um how to avoid being um picked off and killed by someone who is is looking for you you know all these

00:07:20.100 skills you began to pick up as a youth in the southwest yeah that was amazing he had this great

00:07:25.680 apprenticeship during the southwest period like it was interesting like did he seek these mountain men

00:07:30.820 out or did he just somehow come across them and he impressed these mountain men and they took him

00:07:36.520 under his wing well my impression is that he sought them out that um he he had decided in Minnesota that

00:07:43.180 he wanted to be a scout he knew that from a young age and the people who were the repositories of this

00:07:49.720 knowledge were as you can imagine kind of gruff rough um old timers who didn't have a lot of patience for

00:07:57.460 teenagers who wanted to ask a lot of questions so he basically had to um hang around until they

00:08:04.680 saw that he was serious and that he had some talent and that they couldn't scare him off

00:08:09.700 and um that's how he that's how he learned i mean that for for burnham scouting was it was

00:08:16.360 i suppose romantic in some ways but essentially it was a very hard discipline that you had to practice

00:08:23.540 every day and um and learn a later a writer later on referred to him as the paderewski of scouting

00:08:30.480 because he had devoted so much time discipline and and work to um to doing the things that he could

00:08:37.260 do out in the wild yeah i mean his training was intense i mean he was almost like a monastic warrior

00:08:42.080 uh with some of the like he would make himself like i guess one of the things he did he'd prick

00:08:47.000 himself with pins so he could learn how to withstand pain um yeah i mean yeah yeah he he was he thought

00:08:56.380 that scouts a good scout had to be able to um still function when he was exhausted very thirsty very

00:09:03.820 hungry uh and and alone for long periods of time which for burnham he said that was the hardest part

00:09:11.800 because your mind would start to play tricks on you you know you can as we all know if you're alone

00:09:17.120 too much you become weird so there's a fine line in between um scouting as and staying alert and

00:09:24.920 scouting as a kind of psych psychopathology and he knew he had to tread that line and you you said

00:09:32.260 that his desire to become a scout it was sort of based on there were some romantic notions to it

00:09:36.780 because i guess burnham like a lot of young boys growing up in victorian england and america like

00:09:43.260 he read and devoured these adventure books um written at the time and these are the same books

00:09:48.880 like teddy roosevelt wrote read as a boy winston churchill can you tell us a little bit about this

00:09:53.320 adventure genre of victorian you know your anglo america anglo anglo world i guess we'll say

00:10:00.980 that uh inspired burnham and a lot of other young men to become adventurers

00:10:05.580 yeah you know it's a symptom of of both our the expansion west and the early symptoms of its

00:10:14.040 ending because that's when you become nostalgic and romantic about these things but these books

00:10:19.540 became very very popular in the 1860s and most of them were um um highly embroidered biographies of

00:10:27.380 frontier heroes such as davy crockett daniel boone kid carson and this was also the the decade in the

00:10:34.380 the era when dam novels became um available and everywhere and they were they were inexpensive

00:10:40.860 and they were had wide distribution and these were just unbelievable uh fantasies with uh the heroes

00:10:48.240 had names like deadwood dick and mustang sam and the titles were things like the scalp hunters

00:10:54.420 or um search for a white buffalo or you know steel coat the apache terror that's how and of course a

00:11:02.220 boy's going to eat this stuff up i did when i was when i was a kid i loved those old frontier stories and

00:11:07.340 and and things and so uh burnham was reading these as a as a child in minnesota and thinking like any

00:11:14.020 kid would wow i would love to be out there with the apache terror and the white buffalo and

00:11:18.280 deadwood dick and um so there's a romantic side of this and then you get out there and you realize

00:11:24.480 it's it's the wild west it's indians who want to kill you it's rough rough manners trying to scratch

00:11:31.860 a living most people failing um there's a lot of alcoholism and none of this stuff appeared in the

00:11:37.700 books right and also that you know the scouts in the books often appear to be a sort of and burnham

00:11:43.280 even talked about this um in his writings that you know as a child he wrote about these scouts in the

00:11:48.200 wild west that they just kind of solve things sort of like sherlock holmes right but he said actually

00:11:53.200 it's the job of a scout's really tedious and boring and monotonous yeah because you're sitting on a rock

00:12:00.360 waiting and waiting for something to show up or move or uh reveal itself so that you can report back

00:12:07.060 um it's not you know it's i guess it's sort of um and you have to stay constantly alert because

00:12:13.700 somebody's looking for you too to move and find out what you're doing um and the supplies that you

00:12:19.700 have to take it's all about preparation patience um being able to bear all these these um these

00:12:28.300 hardships and and bring back information that's valuable to uh to your commander and it's not for

00:12:34.420 everybody yeah burnham had that drive and um you know speaking of he read these stories about the

00:12:40.740 apache wars like burnham actually got involved in uh some of the apache conflict that was going on

00:12:47.640 during in the southwest as well as this feud that had no idea that exit that happened during the wild

00:12:53.780 west that was bigger than the hatfield and mccoys can you tell us a little bit about uh burnham's

00:12:58.200 involvement with uh not only the apaches but this uh family feud that was going on sure you know this is

00:13:04.020 it's really because we still haven't even gotten him out of his teen years right he's still a

00:13:07.920 teenager this is the crazy thing he's still a teenager and he's he's done all this stuff yeah

00:13:11.400 well the tonto basin feud is uh it's the bloodiest feud in u.s history and it was um a range war

00:13:18.760 essentially between sheep men and cattle men in this isolated part of arizona which was the most

00:13:24.920 isolated part of of america at that time it was the wildest part it was the the last part that was

00:13:30.660 settled it was the last state let into the union um um because it was so wild and that's where the

00:13:36.820 apaches were too um the chiricaba and and the mountain the white mountain apaches this was their

00:13:41.780 stronghold as well so it was very volatile the the tonto basin feud and there were two main families

00:13:48.480 and all the men on both sides were killed except for the one last guy who killed the last guy on the

00:13:56.100 other side and got away with it um went to trial twice but got off because he had good lawyers

00:14:01.080 he was funded by the wealthy sheep men so it's a and and burnham was associated with this he got

00:14:07.300 sucked into it as everybody did in in in central arizona because you either were for one side or

00:14:14.040 the other or you were you know you had to you had to have allies or you were going to get killed

00:14:18.160 and uh burnham was forced to choose and he did and he he was on the wrong side and he was chased a

00:14:24.740 few times i guess and um there was a price on his head but he he got away and lived so there's that

00:14:32.120 then the apaches yeah he he he admired the apaches very much they were for him the uh exemplars of of

00:14:40.640 scouting because they were they had iron bodies they had iron wills and they knew everything about

00:14:48.540 their environment they could survive in any conditions they could disappear um as uh george

00:14:54.180 crook who who was the best fighter against them he called them the tigers of the human species

00:14:59.120 because they were such great guerrilla fighters um and burnham admired them very much even though he

00:15:05.360 he fought them this was one of the things about him you know he his attitudes were based upon

00:15:10.140 the perspective from the saddle not from the armchair and i try to keep that in mind when

00:15:15.900 he's doing some of the things and saying some of the things about native people in his life

00:15:20.940 yeah i mean that was one of the sort of the contradictions that he had with him you talk

00:15:25.120 about this he's a guy filled with contradictions but like a lot of 19th century americans he had

00:15:29.420 these ideas about uh natives native people um and white people like the superiority of the white race

00:15:35.940 but at the same time he like he respected uh not only native americans but he went over to africa

00:15:41.680 like he there's a lot of he admired about um the native africans there um in colonial africa yeah

00:15:48.740 colonial africa at the same time he there's like he had this disdain for them as well yeah and this

00:15:54.600 was something shared that it wasn't just him it was like winston churchill theodore roosevelt even had

00:15:59.100 sort of the same uh attitudes sort of this mixture of disdain and admiration yeah yeah burnham he he

00:16:07.500 admired he made strong choices i mean he admired the apaches other indians he did not care for very

00:16:14.160 much he admired the apaches because of their military culture and their their absolute devotion

00:16:19.580 to uh physical fitness self-reliance self-discipline war hunting camouflagic scouting um other indians

00:16:27.920 didn't weren't that way and so he didn't care much for them in africa is the same thing the end the

00:16:33.840 belly tribe um he admired very much because they were it was a warrior culture they were incredibly

00:16:39.320 brave they were incredibly fit devoted to what to the mastery of their art which was war um other

00:16:47.540 tribes he didn't care for much but he thought he was on the progressive side of history so it didn't

00:16:52.180 matter what qualities these these other peoples had because they were inevitably in his view going to

00:16:59.940 be churned up by the progress of the white race which was the march of history which was inevitable

00:17:06.760 and he was glad to be doing his bit to make it happen so um he you know he was he was a he was a

00:17:14.760 racist but he was also a progressive and that's um it's not a contradiction in the minds of people

00:17:19.760 like roosevelt churchill and burnham right right that's i think it's something it's a mentality that's

00:17:25.040 really hard for modern americans uh to understand but i think you did a good job explaining the

00:17:32.100 mentality that why they would have that sort of mentality um so yeah so this is his time in the

00:17:37.920 desert southwest but what's interesting too while he's doing all this scouting uh in the southwest he

00:17:42.940 caught gold fever and this is something that would that would chase him the rest of his life so how did

00:17:48.900 his scouting and prospecting work in tandem with each other you know that's a good question um

00:17:56.460 well he was always after money as well i mean he's always after money you know he reminded me of

00:18:03.920 jack london a little bit jack london was always after money like the reason why he wrote all these

00:18:09.860 books was just so he could have money yeah well you know he was up there in the klondike i don't i don't

00:18:15.880 burnham doesn't um he mentioned some i believe but i don't know if they actually knew each other

00:18:20.260 when burnham got up there but you're right burnham he had these he wanted action and he wanted income

00:18:26.240 and those those two things often drew him to frontiers because that's where you could

00:18:30.560 find the action and you might find a bonanza because you were one of the first ones in you know

00:18:37.340 it hadn't been raked over yet so so i think there's there's that excitement and there's also the risk of

00:18:44.560 both scouting and mining you're you're taking a huge risk you're going into unknown territory you

00:18:49.900 don't know what you're going to find you don't know if it's going to be good fortune or failure

00:18:54.480 um both of them require knowledge of landscape and being able to read it for signs of what should

00:19:03.140 and shouldn't be there um you have to know how to spot the signs of gold and silver gold or silver

00:19:09.340 um if you're going to be a matter and then you have to be able to track those

00:19:12.860 because usually they appear as what's called float just uh loose stones that have flakes of gold or

00:19:19.980 veins of silver in them and then you have to figure out where did this come from you have to track it

00:19:24.320 back to the vein uh where it eroded from or the load where it came from and see if there really was

00:19:31.360 anything there if it's just going to be another empty hole so um i guess there's you know there's

00:19:37.460 there's some similarities between the two things right so during this time he started uh i guess was

00:19:43.360 he making his own claims during this time he was scouting the southwest well they were sort of you

00:19:49.540 know he he did one and then he did the other he alternated you know he would he would need money so

00:19:55.200 he'd have to go into the into the desert to look for for things that would give him a paycheck

00:20:01.280 sometimes that was as a hunter for mining camps and sometimes it was as a prospector and then if a

00:20:07.440 war broke out um an apache uprising occurred he would get himself hired on as a someone who could help

00:20:14.980 do that and he was still very young when the last apache campaigns were held but he was he learned from

00:20:22.660 some of those old scouts for for crook uh and kept mastering and learning and developing that

00:20:30.300 that's what he took to africa with him when he finally felt like their west was getting too hemmed

00:20:34.880 in and he had to go someplace new right and so this he's done this like he's like still in his like

00:20:39.680 20s right like early 20s what's interesting though this is a guy who was filled with wanderlust

00:20:45.080 desired action but the guy still got married um and he was married to the same woman his entire life

00:20:52.380 can you tell us a little about uh his wife blanche and the type of woman she was and like what

00:20:57.840 why she put up with burnham because it seemed like like she she she liked that he was so action-oriented

00:21:05.600 and then he he took her on these adventures but at the same time you could tell her in her diary and

00:21:09.560 her letters like she just wanted to settle down so why did she stay with burnham for their entire life

00:21:15.100 well that's a that's a really good question and the only answer is the is the completely illogical

00:21:21.680 one love you know it makes people do crazy things she they really loved each other this is a this is a

00:21:29.260 love story there's no doubt about it and uh she was she liked the excitement that she brought to his

00:21:35.020 life she wanted to travel with him i don't think she wanted to settle down so much as she just wanted

00:21:39.440 to be with him and um because she went with him all over the globe um in some pretty rough places

00:21:45.120 and and liked it and in fact she got um impatient in london just like he did and said i want you to

00:21:52.360 take me to patagonia let's get out of here and go you know do something remote but often burnham was

00:21:59.140 away because these places were often no place for women or he was at war and that's that was no place

00:22:05.720 for women at the time and so she pined for him and uh he pined for her too but it didn't stop him

00:22:11.880 from going and um that's one of the contradictions in him i think their letters are filled with longing

00:22:17.680 for each other romantic love all the way to the to the end um it's an amazing thing and they did

00:22:23.640 finally when when burnham was in his 60s uh get to start spending their time together okay so he gets

00:22:30.960 married early 20s um decides to fulfill his childhood dream of going to africa because

00:22:37.160 things in the wild west were just not wild enough for him and again so it seemed like in africa

00:22:43.060 burnham had two things going at the same time he had this scouting and prospecting going on at the

00:22:47.960 same time let's talk about his scouting first who was he scouting for and how did he i think you're

00:22:56.160 gonna have to like dig in deep into colonial african history for us because this was completely new to

00:23:00.580 me when i read your book i mean who was he working for down in um southern africa well it was the

00:23:08.340 british south africa company which had uh it was a what they called a chartered company um the british

00:23:13.920 government had had given a charter to the british south africa company to settle and mine a vast

00:23:22.220 section of africa which is uh these days it's known as rhodesia and it encompasses some of the other

00:23:28.560 countries near odysia which is now um zimbabwe so burnham wanted to go there because this was an

00:23:35.760 exciting new frontier he wanted to help uh the the white race progress and he wanted to make money he

00:23:42.660 wanted to prospect um southern africa had made millionaires of a number of people because of the

00:23:48.740 diamonds that were coming out of um south africa and the gold the famous rand and the famous diamond

00:23:55.820 mines of de beers they were they were booming and burnham thought i want some of that so he goes

00:24:01.060 over there for that and just as he reaches the settlement and there were only there were only

00:24:06.000 two little forts at the time in this part of africa just as he reaches there war breaks out with the

00:24:13.180 natives so instead of becoming a prospector he has to become a scout and uh he and another american

00:24:20.100 and a canadian were the three main scouts for the settlers the militia that went to war against this

00:24:27.000 very powerful kingdom of black warriors the end of belly tribe and they won because they had um

00:24:35.360 a gun that could mow down the natives um it's uh you know it's one of those things where a few hundred

00:24:43.800 people can dominate thousands because of of artillery guns charms and steel you know yeah and so yeah he

00:24:52.860 had these skirmishes with the natives but then he's also there's these fights and wars with the boars

00:24:57.660 um can you tell us a little bit about the boar wars and uh uh burnham's involvement with that

00:25:04.540 sure let me just uh just a little bit more background he they won that first war against the natives

00:25:11.160 another war broke out against the natives uh the natives rebelled eventually naturally to try to

00:25:17.260 take back their land and then burnham went to the klondike and then when he's in the klondike the boar

00:25:23.220 war broke out in southern africa and the british were getting their behinds handed to them by the boars

00:25:28.980 who were terrific guerrilla fighters because they knew the landscape they'd been there for a long time

00:25:34.020 the british were arrogant they marched in solid blocks of land that were easy to mow down

00:25:39.460 and they had no um they had no intelligence they didn't have military intelligence i mean um which

00:25:46.380 i guess it's sort of it it's the same thing as intelligence in war isn't it you have to have one

00:25:52.220 or you don't have the other and um so the commander of the british troops lord roberts heard from one of

00:26:02.140 his um officers the best scout i ever had was this american guy named burnham and i think he's in the

00:26:09.060 klondike let's see if we can find him so lord roberts sends a telegram and it gets to skagway

00:26:15.360 burnham happens to he gets it he comes home and tells blanche we're leaving in two hours i've been

00:26:20.720 appointed chief of scouts for the british army in in southern africa so that's how he got involved in

00:26:26.880 the boar war and that's where he became really famous um he you know he'd done some exploits

00:26:31.860 before that in the famous events in the native wars but the boar war is what really brought him

00:26:37.520 to world attention um and kept him there because he was behind the enemy lands over a hundred times

00:26:42.820 he was always doing things that were extraordinary and um and surviving them he got captured he escaped

00:26:51.080 um and then he's blowing up railroads and that sort of thing so he became very well known he was in

00:26:57.720 the london papers a lot that time yeah not just london i mean it also made its way over to america

00:27:03.320 and the new york times like his exploits would be there too yeah yep he was he was well known but

00:27:08.820 of course america were most americans were far the boars in that war um not the british and um so

00:27:15.620 he was he was well known but he was not um as as appreciated as he was in britain i guess you could

00:27:22.240 say by some people right and so for those who aren't familiar with the boar war the boars were i guess

00:27:27.400 dutch settlers that had settled there first in southern africa um is that right yes that's correct

00:27:35.720 right so it was like europeans fighting europeans yeah it was it was the white man's war they called

00:27:42.260 it and uh and of course a lot of black people had to pay the price for the white man's war but it was

00:27:48.680 a horrible horrible war it was very costly to the british it was it was terrifically costly to the

00:27:54.380 boars this who were the equivalent of the apaches in some ways a small group of mobile guerrilla

00:28:00.660 fighters um taking on an empire and um they held the british at bay for years and years and the british

00:28:07.700 boy it drained them it was like it was like their vietnam and uh it also was the beginning of um

00:28:14.900 concentration camps and um of trench warfare um it was things that the 20th century you know adopted

00:28:25.940 and were horrified by in the first world war but it happened first in the boar war right and so i mean

00:28:32.040 yeah uh burnham gained like world fame like i guess after the boar war like like him and his wife they

00:28:37.900 went up to london and like they had to to uh entertain all these you know dignitaries and i think even

00:28:43.640 like queen victoria wanted to meet with him but like she had to cancel for some reason yeah she got

00:28:49.200 sick and um and and that's why she canceled but burnham was awarded the distinguished service order

00:28:56.700 which is the highest medal that a foreigner can receive in britain and he received that from king

00:29:01.780 edward the seventh because of his actions in the boar war so while this was going on while he you know

00:29:07.800 in between these uh i guess times that scout when he's warring he's also doing prospecting in africa

00:29:15.220 um how did his prospecting in africa turn out or was that sort of a bust well i guess it depends how

00:29:23.560 you look at it he he he discovered many very wealthy veins of um and reefs they're called of gold

00:29:31.700 veins of copper um a soda a lake of sodium carbonate that he thought was there were all

00:29:39.760 these things were going to be his fortune he would because they were so fabulously wealthy um

00:29:44.400 that and he was partners you know he always he never wanted to just be on the payroll he wanted

00:29:50.180 to have a percentage because he was an entrepreneur and a risk taker and then things kept getting in the

00:29:55.820 way sometimes another war would crop up so that you couldn't get to the veins or his

00:30:01.420 partners would run out of money and they wouldn't develop the veins or his partners would would

00:30:06.520 screw him so he couldn't get the money that he deserved to get it it was it's really incredible

00:30:12.940 how tantalizing so many of these things were that he did the work for and then never cashed in on

00:30:18.860 but he did do well enough to um save enough money um so that his children could be educated and so that

00:30:25.580 he could take care of blanche for the rest of her life and blanche's parents and his own mother

00:30:31.240 so he he sent quite a bit of money back to the u.s um just before the boer war um he had enough

00:30:39.320 manning interest and land interest to do that um but he he wasn't fabulously wealthy he just was

00:30:46.100 keeping his family above poverty he knew that they would know they would never have to live in poverty

00:30:51.500 right which is not the same thing as being wealthy right but despite kind of being above poverty he was

00:30:57.140 world famous yeah that was his military stuff and that but that also made him um attractive

00:31:04.040 because he was successful at finding these these mineral deposits he was a mineral explorer

00:31:09.880 he was hired by syndicates um to explore other places in africa the gold coast of africa on the west

00:31:16.820 coast which is ghana we call it ghana now he he led an expedition there that was very successful in terms

00:31:23.000 of gold but he never saw much money from that at all and also in british east africa which is now kenya

00:31:28.780 um and he found this soda lake and he also a lot of um rich agricultural land and he saw nothing from

00:31:38.460 either of those things either okay so let's kind of do a recap here of this guy's life because we've

00:31:44.720 we haven't we've only skimmed the surface but so move okay almost got burnt by sues during the

00:31:51.480 sioux war in minnesota goes to california as a 12 year old boy by himself works for western union

00:31:58.020 delivering telegrams meets mountain men gets apprenticed by mountain men during his teenage

00:32:02.440 years late teenage years early 20s he's taking part one of the greatest biggest feuds in american

00:32:08.000 history fights apaches gets married goes to africa um is a scout in this these native wars uh um during

00:32:17.680 this for this charter company uh then he goes to the klondike to take part in the gold rush that was

00:32:24.260 going on there comes back take to be a scout for the during the boer war and all the while in africa

00:32:30.620 he is prospecting buying property etc uh that's a lot um and he became world famous and this is like by

00:32:39.040 by the time he's like i guess this is his 40s right yeah i think he's his late 30s in the boer war

00:32:44.640 you know yeah and and what's crazy too so okay this guy had some crazy adventures but during his

00:32:51.060 life he rubs shoulders with some of the most influential people in the world during the late

00:32:56.280 19th and 20th century uh who are some of the famous men that burnham you know this humble american scout

00:33:02.840 from the wild west you know that who are some of these men that he called friend well i guess

00:33:09.300 the for starters it'd be cecil rhodes who um was the the main partner in the british south africa

00:33:16.220 company who had this vision for southern africa as a the next great outpost of of british civilization

00:33:23.860 and he became um friends with with rhodes and and even business partners with rhodes they were a

00:33:29.820 lot alike in some ways you know risk takers the odds didn't matter the vision is what is what mattered

00:33:35.720 so he knew rhodes um and rhodes is the guys the the rhodes scholars named after him right

00:33:41.500 that's right um he was rhodes was one of the the the wealthiest men in the world at the time that

00:33:48.380 burnham met him but um he didn't care much about the trappings of wealth he was more interested in

00:33:52.660 this vision he had of of what to do with in africa and how to how to turn it into uh this gigantic

00:33:59.860 um extension of british civilization he was he's extraordinary that's what in nordicia of course

00:34:06.660 was named after rhodes um after the after the native wars and then rhodes funded what became

00:34:12.900 the rhodes scholarship because he also um was interested in preserving some of the ruins that

00:34:18.420 he found in in africa of course they they didn't believe that white that um that the natives had built

00:34:24.760 them they thought that maybe phoenicians had come down and done it in keeping with the racial

00:34:30.420 attitudes of the day this couldn't possibly be a product of native culture and it was of course

00:34:36.040 so he knew rhodes um he knew winston churchill because of um the boer war um they were shipmates

00:34:43.620 on the way back when burnham who had been severely wounded while he was blowing up um a railroad um and

00:34:50.080 had to crawl back to british lines with he cut up the canvas gunpowder sacks and put them on his

00:34:56.060 hands and knees so he could crawl back to the british lines they were on the same boat back to

00:35:01.000 to britain um churchill had just escaped from the victoria jail which was a famous episode in his life

00:35:07.220 they became friends um he was good friends with h rider haggard who was one of the most popular

00:35:12.940 novelist of the day um he wrote things like she and king solomon's minds and and he said

00:35:20.000 about burnham in real life he's more interesting than any of my heroes of romance which is quite a

00:35:25.380 compliment and then of course roosevelt he met roosevelt when roosevelt was um teddy roosevelt

00:35:30.460 was police commissioner of new york and they became uh good friends uh roosevelt asked him to become

00:35:38.080 a rough rider but burnham at the time was on the edge of the yukon river waiting for the ice to break

00:35:43.980 up so he could go down the river to the gold so he couldn't do it and later on he asked tr asked

00:35:49.500 burnham to be one of 18 officers for his um volunteer corps that was going to go to world war

00:35:55.800 one but woodrow wilson um vetoed that idea because he didn't want roosevelt to get any more publicity

00:36:02.340 so he was very good friends with him all his life um and some of the big capitalists of the day john

00:36:08.300 hayes hammond the guggenheims harry payne whitney edward harriman the railroad baron these were

00:36:14.120 people that burnham was in partnership with um various times he he knew a lot of um well-known

00:36:22.960 people and they all admired him um tr one mutual friend of of he and tr said that burnham was the

00:36:30.580 only man who could turn tr into a listener which is a pretty hot compliment yeah and in i mean i mean

00:36:37.240 it's amazing like some of the he sounds like i mean it's it sounds like a story like someone wrote

00:36:42.040 a story like it's fiction right from the 19th century like you'd see some movie like the

00:36:47.200 extraordinary league of gentlemen like this is but this was like burnham was like the real life

00:36:51.560 most interesting man in the world yeah and his life was so incredible that some people thought

00:36:57.720 have called him a liar by the way um and have said that he made stuff up and so this was of course you

00:37:03.620 can imagine i'm a reporter it was pretty disturbing to me when i came across these allegations about

00:37:08.920 some of the key events in burnham's life so i looked into this pretty hard and i i must say that

00:37:16.380 i found the evidence thin to non-existent that he was a liar that he made anything up he did all this

00:37:23.280 stuff there and a lot of it is corroborated by uh contemporary accounts his letters to all sorts of

00:37:30.460 people corroborate things that he was called a liar about i mean uh it is extraordinary it is almost

00:37:38.140 unbelievable that he that he did all these things but he did yeah and he was also friends with lord

00:37:44.340 baden powell the founder of the boy scout movement and this is kind of interesting uh burnham actually had

00:37:50.300 an influence on the scouting program um can you specifically talk about some of the the the insights

00:37:57.560 or influence that burnham provided uh baden powell with when he started the scouting program

00:38:02.320 yeah sure um he got to know uh baden powell in in uh rhodesia during the second mattabili war

00:38:11.460 um baden powell was an officer assigned there and the two of them went on at least one long scout together

00:38:17.280 he but burnham appears in baden powell's book about the about the um uprising and he was struck by how

00:38:23.300 much burnham could um could discern by just looking at what was around him and this meshed with baden

00:38:31.580 powell's worry that the um the boys of britain were losing the masculine values that he associated with

00:38:38.540 an outdoor life um self-sufficiency uh resourcefulness knowledge of nature physical toughness mental toughness

00:38:45.600 he thought that these things should be preserved and he wanted to to um teach them to boys and through

00:38:51.680 some sort of organization and um he talked about this with burnham and burnham said that that's a

00:38:57.920 great idea you know you should do that and so eventually um as we know baden powell founded the

00:39:04.780 boy scouts and other influence and they they became really good friends and baden powell would for for

00:39:10.520 decades would write letters picking burnham's brain about woodcraft and and how to do things in the woods

00:39:16.920 and how to tell things and read nature and everything um baden powell also by the way was

00:39:21.740 of an ardent advocate of scouting in the military and because he predicted that since the british had

00:39:29.140 turned their backs on scouting it was going to be disastrous militarily and that's exactly what

00:39:33.620 happened in the boer war anyway um to get back to burnham uh burnt baden powell came to southern

00:39:41.800 africa with the usual regalia of the british officer the pith helmet the red the red coat

00:39:46.420 and burnham said you need to take that off if we're going scouting because you look like a target

00:39:51.820 so he adopted burnham's stiff brimmed brown stetson hat and neckerchief and of course those two things

00:40:00.360 became um the main emblems of the boy scout uniform in later years there you go and i kind of wonder

00:40:06.640 i kind of wonder if the if the motto came from burnham too i have no proof of it but um be prepared

00:40:12.140 was certainly one of burnham's uh you know mantras and i wonder if he got that from from burnham yeah

00:40:19.680 i'm curious that happened too um so yeah burnham lived a fascinating life i'm curious like why do so

00:40:26.260 few people know about burnham today despite being world famous and all the stuff that he did during his

00:40:32.640 lifetime well that's the vagaries of history and in fame i you know there's there's not a real

00:40:40.700 answer that i've come up with about that uh he he's just burned brightly and disappeared he he didn't do

00:40:48.080 anything that was extraordinary that made him stand out as a historical you know monumental figure he just

00:40:57.680 did his job and seemed to be everywhere the action was and he knew a lot of famous people but

00:41:04.480 i don't know uh he he definitely i think he should be at least as well known as kit carson

00:41:10.440 and some of the other famous frontier heroes that we have i think partly that's that's partly the answer

00:41:16.960 he was a scout at a time when those skills were not in demand or valued as much he came after the myth

00:41:25.860 of the scout he was the real deal but he was after it and so uh he missed the mythology um

00:41:32.520 i'm just nattering on i don't really know why that's i think it's a good theory i think it's a

00:41:37.560 really good theory um how did burnham spend his twilight years and did he still have that itch for

00:41:42.220 adventure even when he was 60 70 80 years old yeah i don't think he ever lost that he he um he became

00:41:50.660 wealthy finally um we've we've left out in mexico by the way the whole he went down to mexico

00:41:56.620 yeah he was got mixed up in the mexican revolution and at one point he probably helps um save president

00:42:04.900 mckinley from being assassinated um that's another you know he was a bodyguard for like that big

00:42:10.000 meeting between diaz and mckinley at juarez and el paso yeah yeah um so he did that but anyway in his

00:42:17.980 later years he he he became uh he started looking into oil he became a partner with some wealthy

00:42:25.080 people who trusted him to become a scout for oil and he said we need to dig at this place

00:42:32.260 basically it was based almost right outside downtown los angeles and i don't know if you've

00:42:38.440 ever seen photos of los angeles in the um the 20s and the 30s but there are derricks everywhere you

00:42:43.820 could see them from any place in los angeles and a lot of people had drilled there already

00:42:48.200 and uh so his backers said no i don't want to do it and burnham said i know it's there i know it's

00:42:53.280 there they drilled it became one of the most productive wells in california made burnham a

00:42:58.200 millionaire and uh that was in his 60s finally he got his bonanza and his in his boyhood home i love

00:43:04.860 the symmetry of right but he lived to be um he lived to be 86 and he died in bed in his sleep

00:43:13.900 which is doesn't seem doesn't seem possible for a man who lived the life that he did

00:43:20.160 you know from scalps on the frontier to the atomic bomb but that's what he did yeah and like even in

00:43:25.960 his in his 70s he almost had like a brush with death like there was a car accident that he tumbled

00:43:30.040 down a mountain in hollywood hills yeah he was run off the road and spent um the car was pancaked

00:43:37.380 i mean you couldn't you couldn't kill the guy he just would not would not die um so yeah he survived

00:43:43.960 that like many other things and and got married very late in life to his secretary his wife blanche

00:43:49.080 died and uh he married um another woman when he was in his early 80s and um you know i think his

00:43:57.560 possessed for life to never never diminished yeah i mean what was driving burn in this entire time

00:44:03.300 like was it just like this romance or this just he just had this itch for novelty was it money fame

00:44:09.220 and why did he put himself in these dangerous areas over and over again well i guess you know

00:44:17.580 the the cheap simple explanation would we'd call him an adrenaline junkie these days he he had to be

00:44:24.460 where the action was he wanted to be taking risks he was drawn to frontiers and places of volatile

00:44:30.620 action he and um that's where he thought he felt most alive i remember you know in his memoir he talks

00:44:38.800 about coming under gunfire for the first time when he was 10 years old in in california and most you

00:44:44.520 know most of us would think that i prefer not to have anybody shooting at me ever again and barnum says

00:44:49.860 it it uh it was thrilling and it influenced my entire career so he had that in him since he was

00:44:57.020 a boy and also of course income so he's restless he's looking for he's looking for historical action

00:45:03.140 risk he's looking for prospects he's looking for money and it just kept his feet on fire and he kept

00:45:11.120 moving until he could find satisfaction in all those different areas i'm curious uh steve after you know

00:45:17.660 researching and writing about uh burnham i mean is there anything about his life that inspired you

00:45:23.240 to change yours a bit like you know model your life a little bit after burnham's

00:45:27.600 um i've been a freelance writer for over 30 years so i i have that riskiness i guess um

00:45:36.760 you know that what this really did was allow me to not only revisit my boyhood but then to think

00:45:43.860 about it and to think about american history in a much more complicated way than i was able to do

00:45:49.340 when i was 10 and riding on the range in my backyard you know what i mean yeah so it uh gave me deep

00:45:56.220 pleasure to read and and to write about all these these mountain men the apaches the soldiers the

00:46:01.380 prospectors and the miners and but then also to um to bring to it a vast a vast awareness of

00:46:10.200 how these things happened and why they happened and what is which parts of them are appalling which

00:46:16.260 parts are admirable because it's all america it's it's it's how we got where we are and if we don't

00:46:23.200 understand that you know we're not going to move ahead i mean how can burnham was against immigration

00:46:28.840 and look at him he went to africa to start over as an immigrant right um his parents his ancestors came

00:46:34.700 to america to start over as immigrants and he and he was against mexican immigration after growing up in

00:46:40.180 los angeles this makes sense and then you look at our presidential candidates two of whom were the

00:46:46.200 sons of immigrants and they were they were running on an anti-immigration platform america these things

00:46:51.480 they keep popping up um the racial stuff the the stuff about immigration the stuff about military

00:46:59.080 might what should we do and what is our place in the world um it all keeps popping up and it's very

00:47:06.040 rich rich rich material uh especially if you if you come to it with some knowledge of what came before

00:47:11.980 and yeah you can get that knowledge by reading about the life of uh burnham because he he lived it all

00:47:19.520 well steve this has been a great discussion literally like we scratched the surface and we skipped

00:47:24.960 as you said like we skipped over parts of his life uh his exploits in the klondike uh in mexico

00:47:31.280 um so where can people find out more about your book and your work well i have a website it's uh

00:47:38.440 www.stevekemperalloneword.net and there's some information about burnham in the book there you

00:47:46.600 can read the um the prologue to the book on the website or you can go to your local bookstore or

00:47:52.440 um an online bookstore and you can find the book and bad and read it and i hope you'll enjoy it yeah

00:47:59.340 well steve kemper thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure sure has thank you my

00:48:03.560 guest today was steve kemper he's the author of the book a splendid savage the restless life of

00:48:07.760 frederick russell burnham and you can find that on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere and really go

00:48:11.800 out and get it it is a fascinating story um some of them are unbelievable but they all happened go

00:48:17.240 check that out on amazon.com and for show notes for this show after you're done listening check out

00:48:21.860 aom.is slash kemper well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more

00:48:39.100 manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com

00:48:42.920 and if you enjoy this show and i've got something out of it i'd appreciate it if you give us a review

00:48:46.580 on itunes or stitcher help spread the word about the show as always i appreciate your continued support

00:48:51.060 and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - May 23, 2016

#203： The Real Life Most Interesting Man in the World

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