0:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The rate of violent deaths, for kings throughout European history, has been roughly 20%. 0:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The rate of violent deaths in the history of American kings, 100%. 0:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Every king in our national history has died of violent death. 0:20 [SPEAKER_00]: The rate of murder among the kings of Europe, as opposed to battlefield deaths or bloody accidents, has been roughly 15%. 0:28 [SPEAKER_00]: North America, again 100%. 0:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Every American King has been murdered. 0:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Stranger Yet, every King in American history has been assassinated in the harbor of St. James, Michigan, and also born in the tiny town of Sapione, New York, and married to five women. 0:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And every King has owned a personal canon and received a revelation from God. 0:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Stranger Yet, every King in American history has been strange. 1:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you heard me right, James Jesse String, the only king in American history. 1:08 [SPEAKER_00]: James String was the self-coronated king of Beaver Island, the largest island in Lake Michigan, on the opposite side of the Michigan streets, from Maconau Island, exponentially more famous and roughly 45 miles to the east. 1:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Maconau is a delicate Victorian resort home to the governor's 1:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Beaver Island, on the other hand, wild 10 times larger than it's like here on counterpart. 1:36 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a relatively wild and remote place, with less than 700 inhabitants still today. 1:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The Kingstring was not an opportunistic hillbilly, exporting the wilds of Northern Lake Michigan. 1:50 [SPEAKER_00]: He was a well-educated man. 1:52 [SPEAKER_00]: He was a scientist and a correspondent for the New York Tribune. 1:58 [SPEAKER_00]: He was even a member of the Michigan House of Representatives. 2:02 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a natural history of B. Ryleind, was published by this Smithsonian. 2:08 [SPEAKER_00]: But on the day of July 8th, 1850, he held a wooden septer and wore a ceremonial breastplate and kneeling before a crowd of 300, and a 10 crown decorated with a cluster of glass stars. 2:23 [SPEAKER_00]: He also became a king. 2:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And at least for that day, he looked apart. 2:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Darning a bright red flannel robe topped by a white collar with black speckles. 2:35 [SPEAKER_00]: At the kind of robe, you've probably seen in European royal portraits, with a touch of the Dalmatian coat of Kruela Deville. 2:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Days earlier, an angry mob had gathered to kill the Mormon leader, and scatter his followers from the island. 2:51 [SPEAKER_00]: But string was, as he tended to be, one step ahead. 2:56 [SPEAKER_00]: He had purchased, in secretly brought, to his beaver island compound, an army cannon. 3:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And when the mob arrived, he promptly fired it over their heads. 3:07 [SPEAKER_00]: The shock and awe of that gesture brought him years of relative peace, and was the perfect prelude to his coronation. 3:16 [SPEAKER_00]: It was a fantastic display of Machismo, and established his status as the island's alpha male, the BM, OBI, Big Man, on Beaver Island. 3:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Locals would continue their threats, but String was now the unchallenged leader of this remote territory. 3:35 [SPEAKER_00]: And to be clear, String claimed kingship only of his personal kingdom, a fellow Mormons. 3:41 [SPEAKER_00]: He was too smart to claim a fixed geographical territory, and what would have been an effective secession from the American Union. 3:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, his subjects would be dual citizens of the kingdom of String and of the state of Michigan. 3:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Had he declared a territorial kingdom, the USS Michigan, the oldest iron gunboat in the world, would have shown up the following morning with more cannons than one, and in the violent impatience of that era would have swiftly pounded the island into submission. 4:20 [SPEAKER_00]: The string was savvy, and so far from becoming an enemy of the United States government, 4:28 [SPEAKER_00]: while a king of Beaver Island. 4:31 [SPEAKER_00]: When word of this American king reached the American president, Millard Filmer, film more launched an investigation into strain on grounds of treason in counterfitting. 4:44 [SPEAKER_00]: But when strain was brought to Detroit for prosecution, the actual outcome was something no one predicted, widespread popular exposure, the public loved him. 4:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Within a year he was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives and completely flipped his public image. 5:04 [SPEAKER_00]: A major Detroit newspaper, the Detroit advertiser, summarized this about face in the popular narrative on February 10, 1853. 5:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever may be said, or thought of this peculiar sect of which he is the local head, I take pleasure in stating that throughout this session he has conducted himself with the decree of decorum and propriety, which have been equaled by his industry, good temper, a parent regard for the true interests of the people, and of the obligations of his official oath, in quote. 5:53 [SPEAKER_00]: While in office, string contributed to the organization of the upper lower peninsula, and was one of the few people at that time looking out for the interests of Native Americans. 6:05 [SPEAKER_00]: It was common practice to exploit alcoholism among Native peoples and to sell them diluted contaminated liquor. 6:12 [SPEAKER_00]: His had devastating effects on Native communities and string fought this practice both in his writings and from his legislative seat. 6:22 [SPEAKER_00]: As you might guess, this stance only added to a growing list of personal enemies, but most of string enemies came from something a little more dubious, a legume. 6:35 [SPEAKER_00]: After opposing the institution for most of his life, he eventually tired of the company of his one-wife Mary, and added four more, including three teenagers, two of whom 6:48 [SPEAKER_00]: But one does not simply walk into church one day, with an additional wife in tow. 6:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Beginning this intrepid lifestyle requires a fair amount of intrigue and conspiracy. 7:01 [SPEAKER_00]: So his first next wife, the first of his polygamy, was his traveling secretary, Charlie J. Douglas, who was not a fact a man named Charlie, but a 19-year-old woman disguised as a man named Elvira, Eliza Field. 7:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And for the most part, the polygamous lifestyle was a winning proposition. 7:23 [SPEAKER_00]: The wives got along and ate together, and, at least on most nights, had their own bedrooms in the same house. 7:31 [SPEAKER_00]: But as everyone knows, the indispensable trump card of any polygamous is a personal revelation from God. 7:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Once you've recorded this revelation, all you'd need for spiritual cart blanche is an above-average command of religious jargon and a compelling speaking voice, along with apparently a decent sexual appetite, all of which string had. 7:57 [SPEAKER_00]: String's revelation was called the Book of the Law of the Lord, and this text still read and is revered today by surviving members of the Stringite, sect of the latter-day St. movement. 8:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there are still Stringites, and they believe in their ritual power of animal sacrifice and baptism of the dead among other things. 8:21 [SPEAKER_00]: It was some of these theological views, along with his polygamy, that made his presence so unwelcome among the locals, but what enraged them most of all was his tendency to assert authority over those who were not members of his kingdom. 8:38 [SPEAKER_00]: He would at times treat Beaver Island as a territorial dominion, in spite of his insistence, it was only the temporary setting for the eternal kingdom of his revelation. 8:50 [SPEAKER_00]: All of which brings us to the docks of St. James Harbour on the quiet afternoon of June 1, 1856, a Sunday. 8:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Two cowards among the many enemies of the Mormon King waited with pistols as he passed their place of concealment. 9:09 [SPEAKER_00]: String had for many years been warned of would-be assassins, but refused to employ bodyguards, and he lived to regret his stubbornness. 9:19 [SPEAKER_00]: for 23 days, which is how long he laid paralyzed with a bullet in his spine. 9:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The other two bullets had him in the head, one grazing him and the other lodging in his face. 9:32 [SPEAKER_00]: In the worst of it is, they shot him in the back. 9:36 [SPEAKER_00]: and as if to put an exclamation point on their case for being the biggest dirt bags in the state of Michigan. 9:43 [SPEAKER_00]: These two assassins, Alexander went worth and Thomas Bedford, proceeded to pistol whip, his bloodied and paralyzed man, who for all his eccentricities had been no threat and had done them no harm. 9:59 [SPEAKER_00]: What followed has been called by one Michigan historian, the most disgraceful day in Michigan history, 10:07 [SPEAKER_00]: All twenty-six hundred morement on Beaver Island were driven from their homes like cattle, enforceably boarded onto steam ships, before being dumped and ceremoniously, undocked all over the coastline of Lake Michigan. 10:22 [SPEAKER_00]: This entire kingdom became impoverished and homeless in one day. 10:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Their land was stolen, they were beaten, and their property was reduced to whatever they could carry with them. 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The city of St. James became deserted, and tenonless, and today has little evidence of once being the seat of an American kingdom. 10:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Strings body lies in a neglected grave, emberling ten cemetery, emberling ten-west consen. 10:56 [SPEAKER_00]: The rate of murder for European kings that we mentioned at the beginning of this episode, 11:02 [SPEAKER_00]: amounted to 10 murders for every 1,000 years. 11:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The North American rate, thanks to the cruel machinations of Bedford, Wentworth, and their co-conspirators, is 1 murder every 6 years. 11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: That's how long Kingdoms strained blasted before the greed of his political enemies, and the resentment of the locals brought him down. 11:26 [SPEAKER_00]: There are scattered memorials on the island still today that we call the Rain of String for visitors to this remote Lake Michigan Outpost and the story of his kingdom and his sudden demise remains a singular drama in all the dramas of our national history. 11:44 [SPEAKER_00]: More singular but somehow less salacious than the place we're headed to next, High Island. 11:52 [SPEAKER_00]: A smaller island in the Beaver Island, Arkipelago, four miles to the southwest. 11:58 [SPEAKER_00]: High island is a fraction of the size of Beaver, but still has more than its fair share of intrigue and tragedy. 12:06 [SPEAKER_00]: As for other islands in this series,
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