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0:32

This

0:57

is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

1:15

Throughout

1:21

its reign, the British Empire stole a lot

1:23

of stuff. Which means a show like Stuff

1:25

the British Stole has an almost unlimited

1:28

number of stories they can tell. But

1:30

a lot of the artifacts on display behind

1:33

glass have the same story. People

1:35

with guns came on ships and took

1:37

things that didn't belong to them. And you can

1:39

only tell that story so many times.

1:43

Mark Finnell and his team at the ABC-CBC

1:45

podcast Stuff the British Stole,

1:47

now in its third season, are geniuses

1:50

at taking the amazing premise of their show

1:52

and evolving it to tell more riveting

1:55

stories of empire-building and thievery

1:57

that continue to surprise and

1:59

and infuriate and delight, forwarding

2:02

the conversation they started in 2020 in cool new

2:04

ways. The

2:07

episode we're going to play for you is about a tree

2:09

of all things, and it just knocked my socks

2:11

off. So we're going to play that one for you and then

2:14

play a conversation I had last week with

2:16

writer, presenter, and creator Mark Fennell

2:18

about the series and its ongoing

2:21

mission. Here's Stuff

2:23

the British Stole.

2:28

What does it taste like? It's pretty gross.

2:31

It doesn't have a bad taste, it's just really, really bitter. Like you

2:33

can try some if you want. 9am

2:36

on a Friday feels like a weird time to be at a bar. Feels

2:40

like I've made bad life choices. Don't get

2:42

me wrong though, it is a lovely bar. So

2:45

it's a cocktail bar, very old world

2:47

sort of feel. And Charlie,

2:49

who you're listening to here, he's a lovely bartender.

2:52

My name's Charles Kasbin and I am

2:54

a

2:55

bartender. You look like

2:57

you really have to think about it for a second. What am I? Yeah,

3:01

I'm a bartender. I work at

3:03

Moyers' Juniper Lounge. We've been open six

3:06

years and we're an old world cocktail bar with

3:08

a focus on gin classics. What

3:11

isn't as

3:11

lovely is the fistful of wood

3:14

in my hands. It looks like shredded

3:16

up cinnamon bar, sort of dry

3:19

and brown with a bit of a ready tinge. I'm

3:22

going to give it a go.

3:24

Alright, here we go. Do

3:33

you know what it tastes like? Tastes

3:36

like bark. Is

3:39

the gin that's coming through you? Yeah, it's got

3:41

an awful... Yeah, and then

3:43

once you finish it'll be... I feel

3:46

bad. Oh yeah, good. It's a bin.

3:52

This bark has changed the course of

3:54

history. There's actually worse than

3:56

I was expecting. I should probably

3:58

mention that the mysterious ring... wood that I

4:00

just shoved down my gullet, you're

4:02

not meant to eat it that way. Instead, you're

4:05

meant to turn it into a liquid. You

4:08

actually got me at a time un-bottling our

4:10

tonic syrup. When

4:14

you do, it becomes something that you may

4:16

have heard of. Tonic

4:18

always kind of seems to people to be a lot more complicated

4:20

because they don't intuitively understand what it is, like

4:22

what the flavours are. It's like, ooh, tonic. It

4:25

sounds fancy. Yeah, and it's so specific.

4:28

It's like gin and tonic. It sounds

4:31

like it's supposed to be a medicine, but I'm getting drunk

4:33

with it. Like all

4:35

my favourites. It doesn't

4:38

really add up these days to a

4:40

lot of people. But the truth is, it's basically

4:42

sugar syrup with conanbark, which

4:45

has various different pronunciations depending

4:47

on which

4:48

branch of Latin

4:49

language you might subscribe to. All

4:51

of them. I subscribe to all

4:53

of them. Yeah, the pronunciation is a bit of a thing.

4:55

So it can be conanbark, conchana bark, conchana

4:57

bark. The C, H and the C,

5:00

depending on which country you're in and which bowel

5:02

it follows, all sort of change.

5:04

I tend to call it conchana bark.

5:06

And that's what we shall go with for now. A

5:09

bark of a tree native to Peru.

5:12

Peru is

5:14

not found anywhere else on

5:17

Earth.

5:17

It's something that I think most

5:19

Peruvians have never seen and will never

5:21

see.

5:21

So how

5:24

does this bark from Peru

5:26

end up in your gin and tonic? This

5:28

is incredible story of botanical

5:31

adventure of exploration.

5:34

Well it happens with a dash of malaria. White

5:36

people will die. They hoped

5:39

to present it as a humanitarian effort.

5:42

A swig of competing empires. That's

5:44

what I think the theft

5:46

is. The Dutch and the English discovered that they

5:48

could just steal it. A daring

5:49

heist. The British justified

5:52

these expeditions in the name of science.

5:54

Force their soldiers to drink it

5:56

and continue their conquering lives.

5:58

And just a hint. something much

6:00

worse. As many people saw it, an

6:03

act of colonial piracy.

6:06

My name is Mark Vanell and

6:09

this is Stuff the British.

6:11

Sintionna

6:21

is a tree

6:24

that only few Peruvians,

6:26

including myself, know

6:28

how it looks like or where it grows.

6:31

It is an unknown tree. To

6:34

find it in its natural ecosystem,

6:36

we have to travel long distance.

6:38

If you look at the Peruvian flag,

6:40

it has this hidden detail that at least

6:43

according to these two Peruvians, well

6:45

according to them most other Peruvians don't

6:48

know this surreptitious gem of history

6:50

is on their flag.

6:52

And like Malu and I, we discovered

6:54

things about this national emblem

6:57

that we hadn't even thought about.

6:59

They hadn't until both of these two

7:01

started working together on a collaboration

7:04

called the Fever Tree Project.

7:06

Hi, my name is Irenarce,

7:09

I'm a researcher. My

7:11

name is Malu Cabellos, I

7:13

am a Peruvian visual artist.

7:15

You see on that flag,

7:18

sandwiched between thick red and white bands

7:20

is a shield. On the top right hand

7:22

corner of that shield appears to be a

7:25

generic tree logo. You see

7:28

it's not a generic tree, it's a very special,

7:31

very hard to find tree.

7:33

It grows in a specific

7:35

area, cloud forest in

7:38

an area between the

7:40

Andes and the Amazon.

7:44

Yes, between the Amazon and the Andes

7:46

Mountains high above sea level among the clouds,

7:49

that is where that infamous Cinchona tree

7:51

with its delicious bark and wild

7:53

history, this is where it grows. It's

7:56

very difficult to get

7:58

to see it as Cinchona tree.

7:59

you need to travel extensively

8:02

for many hours. It's like high

8:04

mountains, very steep, you know,

8:07

through dirt rolls.

8:09

This area is largely

8:11

cut off from the rest of Peruvian life. The

8:13

indigenous people here, they speak their own dialects,

8:16

they have their own ways of doing this. And

8:18

yet the tree from here

8:21

is somehow considered nationally important enough

8:23

to go on the flag.

8:24

What is strange about this tree

8:27

is we see it at school,

8:29

you know, the text books and so forth, but

8:32

like it's almost mythological.

8:35

Something that I think most Peruvians

8:37

have never seen and will never see. It's

8:39

an imaginary. And we didn't

8:42

know about the history of

8:44

this tree.

8:44

And that history stretches

8:47

through the centuries and right around the globe.

8:50

But according to these two, and many, many

8:52

other Peruvians, this is the story

8:54

of crime.

8:56

Yeah, both of us would consider it

8:58

theft because

9:00

they were taking illegally. Well,

9:03

no, not illegally, unethically. They

9:06

took it. It was

9:08

theft. British got

9:11

away with many things they couldn't have done

9:13

today. So how exactly

9:16

do you steal a plant? And why

9:18

would you steal a plant?

9:19

I'll tell you this for nothing.

9:21

It actually has nothing to do with gin and tonics.

9:24

This is about a brutal disease and soldiers

9:26

at war in a stunning garden

9:29

almost 10,000 miles away. When

9:35

you're bitten by an anopheles

9:37

mosquito, you will start to shiver.

9:39

You'll have high temperatures. You'll have hallucinations.

9:43

These parasites will live in your body. You

9:45

will be left with sometimes

9:47

a permanent infection for years

9:50

after

9:50

you first get bitten. I'm

9:54

Kavita Philip, and I am

9:57

at UBC, the University

9:59

of British Columbia.

9:59

in Vancouver.

10:01

So generations of European colonists

10:04

and soldiers as they ventured out around

10:06

the world into Asia and India and beyond,

10:09

one of the biggest fears was a disease,

10:12

malaria. You

10:13

could not travel in the tropical

10:16

regions if you were the British military, if you were anybody

10:19

really, without succumbing to malaria.

10:21

When military folks, mostly working

10:24

class British people who were conscripted

10:26

into the military or told to work for empire,

10:29

they came up against

10:31

this almost invisible enemy. And

10:35

Kavita has seen the impacts of malaria up

10:37

close.

10:39

You said your dad had had it five times.

10:41

What was that like to witness him going

10:43

through that?

10:44

It's a strange disease

10:46

because people can't really talk

10:49

much. They're sort of, they're shivering, they're

10:52

under blankets, but it would severely

10:54

compromise your ability to function. And

10:56

certainly for the British empire, a

10:59

non-functioning military was out of the question.

11:02

And that was a very real threat facing

11:04

the global British empire, which remember at

11:07

its peak, dominated a quarter

11:09

of the world's population and land. The

11:11

mosquito almost brings

11:13

the British empire

11:14

to its knees.

11:16

The British could not travel to the tropics

11:19

without dying in the millions.

11:21

And it's a particularly big problem for them

11:23

in India.

11:24

When Queen Victoria becomes Empress

11:27

of India, as they say, they need to

11:29

put down the Revolt in India, the 1857

11:32

First War of Independence that nationalists

11:34

call it.

11:38

It had a few different names, but it was a

11:40

huge, violent uprising in India.

11:43

And for the British, it was a key turning

11:45

point.

11:46

The Revolt showed the British

11:48

that they needed more troops. If

11:50

they were going to send more troops to the tropics,

11:53

they needed something, some prophylactic,

11:56

some preventative to stop the troops

11:58

from dying of malaria. Malaria

12:00

was terrifying to them. I mean, you

12:02

would sort of get hallucinations.

12:06

The fever could return several times.

12:08

And so malaria wasn't just a one-off

12:10

thing. Troops could literally

12:13

spend their lives suffering from

12:15

it. So quinine was absolutely

12:18

key to the British in order

12:20

to have troops on the ground, not just

12:22

in India, but in Africa in

12:24

different

12:25

parts of the tropics.

12:26

Yes, quinine. Quinine

12:29

is a medicine that is derived from

12:31

a certain bark that I tried earlier with

12:33

the bartender Charlie. Which

12:36

was traditionally found to have properties that

12:38

would help

12:39

treat malaria.

12:40

And the native Peruvians were

12:42

using this for centuries. And

12:45

accordingly, was only really available

12:47

in some hard-to-reach corners of a handful

12:49

of South American countries. So

12:51

Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador know

12:54

this bark, which is the bark

12:56

of the Tunchona tree, is incredibly

12:58

valuable. And so they

13:00

want to protect their comparative advantage

13:03

in quinine, in the bark, in the alkaloid

13:06

that comes from the tree. And

13:08

at the same time, they know by the

13:11

1830s, 40s and 50s that the British and

13:13

Dutch really want this. Yes, the

13:15

Dutch and the British, these global

13:18

empires determined to protect their soldiers

13:20

from this invisible enemy of malaria.

13:23

They want that bark. And Peru,

13:25

Bolivia and Ecuador? They can

13:27

see those empires are coming for them.

13:30

Where the British Empire, they have an

13:32

ace in the hole and that is Kew

13:34

Gardens.

13:38

Today, Kew Gardens nestled

13:41

along the Thames on the east of London. It

13:43

is one of the UK's most loved tourist

13:46

attractions. So Kew looks like

13:48

a gorgeous garden and it is,

13:50

it's cultivated, the gardeners are kind

13:52

of showing off what they can do. There

13:54

are perfectly manicured lawns everywhere

13:56

you look and vibrant pops of

13:58

colour with plants. four corners

14:01

of the globe. You see, none

14:03

of that happened by accident. You

14:06

walk around Kew Gardens today, you'll see

14:09

several glass and

14:12

metal sort of pavilions. And

14:16

they're sort of like massive greenhouses.

14:19

And they represent continents. So for

14:21

example, the palm house represents

14:24

tropical plants. You know, you'll also see

14:26

a temperate house. But in each

14:28

of these sort of pavilions, the palm house,

14:30

the temperate house, we see plants

14:33

that were native to or thrive

14:35

in certain continents, if you will, that

14:37

the British saw as strategic to

14:40

their future. And this

14:42

was going to propel the British Empire

14:46

into heights of scientific

14:48

control that we're still studying

14:50

today.

14:52

And the British government weaponized Kew

14:54

Gardens in this fight.

14:56

So Kew Gardens helped to collect

14:58

plants from the far reaches, not

15:01

only of the British Empire, but of other

15:04

zones, climates and nations.

15:06

So Bolivia, Peru

15:09

and Ecuador were recently

15:11

independent. They won their independence from

15:13

the Spanish in the 1820s. However,

15:17

the British wanted quinine,

15:19

but seeds are the key to imperial

15:22

gardening.

15:23

And to get those seeds is a

15:26

wild story

15:27

of a race between spies

15:29

and pirates.

15:32

My name is Mark Honegsbaum. I'm a medical

15:34

historian and I'm a lecturer at City

15:36

University of London. So how

15:38

is it that you came to writing

15:40

about quinine, quinine?

15:42

There is a debate over how to pronounce it. I've realized as I've

15:45

been making this in the first place. Where did that

15:47

all kind of start for you? Well,

15:50

it's actually quite an extraordinary story. So

15:52

for the first 20, 25 years

15:54

of my career, I

15:56

was a journalist. I found myself in Zurich.

15:59

I was doing an event. investigation on a robbery

16:01

and after I had done an interview with

16:04

the Zurich police and various shady lawyer

16:06

types I Went

16:08

to look I Went

16:11

to look for a restaurant where I could eat

16:13

and write up my notes

16:15

So Mark goes and finds himself a pizza place

16:18

Within about five minutes of sitting down It

16:21

got quite busy and they said excuse me said do you mind

16:23

if you if would you be happy to share this table?

16:26

So I said fine. Why not and the person

16:28

who sat down Didn't know him from

16:30

Adam. So just to make conversation. I

16:32

said hi and what do you do? And

16:35

he said well, I'm a Swiss Botanist

16:38

and I said well that's interesting. I thought what question I can

16:40

ask him So I said what is

16:42

the most interesting plant in the history

16:44

of botany? and That's

16:47

when he launched in to the what

16:49

I now know to be the extraordinary story

16:52

of the Cincona

16:54

plant I By

16:59

the 1860s Britain

17:01

has an expanding empire in India

17:04

the French are in North Africa And

17:07

you know the Dutch are in South

17:10

East Indonesia Java And

17:12

they all realized that they need to obtain

17:14

supplies of quinine It was the first

17:17

specific drug for any

17:19

disease

17:21

It's hard to quantify but the estimates

17:23

of the impact of malaria a horrific

17:27

2 million people annually were dying

17:29

of malaria in India 25

17:31

million were being sickened annually

17:34

With multiple superpowers desperate for

17:37

quinine the resources growing already

17:39

naturally in South America. We're

17:41

under enormous amounts of pressure The

17:44

Forest where the trees grew were rapidly

17:47

being cut down in strip trees and

17:49

the stands were dying. They weren't being replenished

17:52

This caused legitimate concern

17:54

that the world might run out and

17:57

therefore efforts were made

17:59

to send botanical collectors

18:02

to South America with the aim

18:04

of raising plantations in

18:07

the colonial possessions of

18:10

European countries. So in Britain, the plan

18:12

was to plant in what's known as Sri

18:14

Lanka. The Dutch plan was

18:16

Java. So what happened was

18:19

there was a race essentially.

18:20

Most of these explorations ran

18:23

into difficulties quite quickly because there

18:26

are civil wars raging throughout.

18:28

So borders are closed or there

18:30

are militias fighting each other. So

18:33

it's very difficult to even cross the

18:35

border, let alone venture deep into these forests.

18:38

The republics are aware that there are

18:40

Europeans trying to steal their produce.

18:43

Following the story is literally like

18:45

following a spy story.

18:47

Peruvian government passed a law making it illegal for anyone

18:50

to take seedlings or seeds out of the country.

18:52

They are evading the Bolivian,

18:54

Peruvian, Ecuadorian governments that are

18:56

going deep into the mountains with

18:59

indigenous guides.

19:01

So the Dutch are on the blocks, the French are people.

19:03

But it's really the British, of course,

19:06

who do it best.

19:08

Yes, the British had a very enthusiastic

19:10

volunteer to lead this mission.

19:13

Called Sir Clemens Markham. Sir

19:16

Clemens Markham is best known as the father

19:18

of polar exploration because he sponsored

19:21

expedition to the Antarctic. But he was also

19:23

a historian of South America.

19:26

So he knew South America very well,

19:28

at least on paper. He visited a few times.

19:31

And that was his pitch for why he should be in charge.

19:34

I, because I've traveled in South America and

19:36

I know a lot about the Inca and the

19:39

history of this area. Even though I'm not a botanist

19:41

and I have no knowledge at all of botany, basically

19:44

Clemens Markham was desperate to get from

19:46

out behind a desk in Westminster.

19:48

He was probably bored up his head. And

19:50

he wanted the glory. He became president of the Royal Geographic.

19:54

A graphical society. You know,

19:57

looks good in a fedora. Yeah,

19:59

you know.

19:59

He looks good posing

20:02

on a precipice looking out across

20:04

the Amazon.

20:06

And he's a master of rhetoric.

20:09

He talks about how all of this exploring,

20:12

it's not for our benefit. We plant

20:14

collectors. We do it not

20:17

even just for our country or for love

20:19

of empire, but we do it for the people.

20:21

So he decided

20:23

to lead an expedition in person

20:25

to Peru.

20:26

So the British have got their team

20:28

for who's going to go in to South America

20:30

and collect these seeds. And of course, at

20:32

the same time, we know the French and the Dutch are

20:35

hot on the heels. But here's a twist.

20:40

The most important person of all though

20:42

in this story, as it turned out, was

20:44

someone who was not an employee

20:47

of the British government, wasn't even

20:50

on their radar. He was a British

20:52

born trader. His name was Charles

20:55

Ledger. He

20:57

had gone to South America to seek his

20:59

fortune. So he had his eye on getting Cincona

21:02

bark and seeds and setting himself up as a trader

21:04

in Bolivia. So the British

21:07

alone have multiple different expeditions

21:09

going, some more official than others.

21:12

In Bolivia, in Peru, in

21:14

Ecuador, and also there's another expedition to Colombia.

21:17

Markham, he goes into the proof

21:20

in Amazon. He comes out with

21:22

seas of particular variety. And in the

21:24

proof in, once the authorities heard

21:26

about it, they sent people to sort

21:28

of put arsenic in the earth

21:30

where the plants were, or

21:33

they drilled holes in these portable

21:35

greenhouses so that air

21:37

would get in and they get contaminated with fungus

21:39

and other stuff and then attempt to sabotage the

21:41

whole expedition. So he

21:43

negotiated all that. He wants to send

21:45

it directly to India because

21:48

that's where it's going to end up and that's where

21:50

the environmental conditions are perfect

21:52

for grazing this tree. And

21:55

then they send it back to London

21:57

to Kew Gardens first of all. And

22:00

then they send it from England

22:03

to India via Egypt

22:05

and the Suez Canal. Unfortunately,

22:10

in crossing the Suez Canal in

22:13

the heat of summer, all

22:16

the plants get fried. No

22:19

viable plants

22:22

reach India. Which,

22:25

for Markham, sucks.

22:27

But at least one of the other official

22:29

expeditions also succeeded.

22:31

But when it came to planting those trees, they realised

22:33

they had a certain variety that

22:35

did have quinine in it.

22:37

But not in very high amounts.

22:39

Some bark is very

22:41

high in the alkaloid you need to produce

22:43

quinine, and some bark is very

22:45

low.

22:46

The levels of quinine were so low that

22:49

it wasn't really viable commercially.

22:53

But then you get

22:54

our mate Ledger.

22:57

We have to return now to Charles Ledger. So

22:59

Charles Ledger... He's a lot more common.

23:01

He was born in the East End. Doesn't

23:03

have the high contacts with the British government that Markham

23:06

does. He writes to people in London and asks them,

23:08

you know, I've heard that, you know, the British are after this.

23:10

Can you tell them that I'm here? I

23:12

mean, the advantage Ledger had was

23:14

that he'd spent many years in Bolivia, right,

23:17

as a tradesman. He'd seen all the

23:19

different varieties of the cincona tree. More

23:22

importantly, he had befriended

23:24

a horticulturalist called

23:27

Manuel Incra Mamaní.

23:29

Mamaní was indigenous to the area.

23:31

All his life he'd spent going into

23:34

the forest. Mamaní knew where

23:36

the trees grew. Ledger says,

23:38

can you get me these seeds, offers

23:40

him some money. The money isn't nearly enough to recommend

23:43

him for the danger or cost. Nevertheless,

23:46

Mamaní seems to share in the

23:49

belief of Markham and other people that

23:51

this is important

23:53

for the world and that there's a real risk that

23:56

this tree might be lost. He seems to share

23:58

in that enthusiasm.

23:59

for that it's important to get the Stroud

24:02

of South America and make it available to everyone.

24:05

So he takes great risks himself,

24:07

he travels to the region, Memani

24:09

eventually finds the

24:12

elusive, legendary red-barked

24:15

tree of Bolivia. But it's in

24:17

a really inaccessible part of Bolivia and Amazon.

24:20

He first arrived there in 1862. But

24:24

it's the wrong time of year, it's the winter,

24:27

so he has to wait another season.

24:30

And then he has to wait a second season. He

24:32

has to wait three years and until 1865,

24:35

until the trees flower and

24:38

produce seeds, and he can

24:40

take cutting. He

24:42

then walks 1,600 kilometers

24:45

back from the Amazon across

24:49

the Andes to where Ledger

24:52

is waiting for him. He does that on foot.

24:56

And then the irony of irony is

24:58

that Ledger tries to find a channel to

25:00

let the British know that he's got what they'd

25:03

be looking for. They'd be sending

25:05

collects all over the Andes. He's now got

25:07

the most valuable seeds. But nobody knows his

25:09

name in England.

25:11

And Ledger gives them to his brother.

25:14

His brother in London is shopping these

25:16

seeds around, the seeds and

25:18

the saplings that come from the indigenous

25:21

people of the Andes.

25:23

And he sends his brother to Kew

25:25

Gardens with a packet of the seeds, and

25:28

he gets turned away. They say, we've already got seeds,

25:30

we don't need your seeds.

25:31

We've got our own explorers,

25:34

and so we're not buying any seeds that are

25:36

knocking around the London market. The English

25:39

rejected it or something. Anyway, the English

25:41

passed up some sweet deal.

25:42

And long story short, Ledger

25:45

ends up having to sell those seeds

25:48

cheaply

25:49

to the Dutch, Britain's rivals. And

25:52

the Dutch, the Dutch

25:54

then plant those seeds

25:58

in Java.

25:59

end up producing

26:02

the most commercially world

26:08

war one is supplying

26:11

all the world's needs for quitting. For

26:16

Malu and Irena who you met earlier

26:18

the Peruvians,

26:20

yeah there's not a lot of sympathy to

26:22

the British here.

26:23

At the end like the Dutch had

26:25

the monopoly of the

26:27

Sinchona trades. They controlled 90%

26:30

of all like production and exports

26:33

and the British were like a minority.

26:35

The British got away

26:37

with many things they couldn't have done today.

26:40

The

26:42

Dutch would eventually name their

26:45

inherited species Sinchona legeriana

26:48

after Charles Ledger but Maimani

26:51

his faithful guide who did so

26:53

much would get no such recognition.

26:57

He wouldn't get a plant named after him like Ledger

26:59

nor would he be knighted like Markham

27:01

later was for his contributions to the Emperor.

27:04

Instead Maimani was severely

27:07

beaten by Bolivian police and

27:09

died of his injuries years later

27:12

during another seed collecting trip orchestrated

27:15

by Ledger. And

27:19

its stories like this so often

27:22

get lost in the long view of

27:24

history. It's definitely

27:27

a theft there's no doubt it

27:28

was theft and the tree

27:31

was lucrative but it is also true

27:33

that this was a humanitarian

27:36

endeavor. You could argue that it was

27:39

self-serving but I do believe

27:41

that many of the plant collectors were

27:44

motivated by their

27:46

concern. There was a very real risk

27:49

the most valuable strains of the tree could

27:51

be harvested to extinction and that therefore

27:54

humankind and I stress humankind

27:58

would lose. You

28:00

know would be a bereft would be

28:02

denied this Botanical

28:05

substance to you know this this

28:07

stop suffering and it stopped death But

28:09

of course it was done in such a way that no benefits

28:12

accrued to those whose property was being

28:14

stolen The

28:16

irony is that initial fear that

28:18

the tree might be harvested

28:21

to extinction Thanks to what we understand

28:23

from modern genetics

28:25

Turns out that fear was

28:28

well-founded So

28:32

The first time I saw a cinchana tree in the

28:34

wild it was a in

28:37

a trip We had to climb a very steep

28:39

mountain and when I was reaching the peak of

28:41

the mountain ridge I heard

28:43

my colleague and he was shouting

28:46

hey Natalie. This is your cinchana come come

28:48

and see Wow, and then next

28:50

thing I know I was just completely

28:53

mesmerized And I was contemplating

28:55

this tree for quite some time

28:57

which might be five minutes or one hour I

29:00

was very overwhelmed

29:05

So hi, I'm Natalie.

29:08

I just econ a less

29:09

I am original from the Peruvian

29:12

Amazon I am geneticist

29:16

and part of Natalie Kanyales's research

29:19

is the theory that potentially Thanks

29:21

to all of the over harvesting

29:23

the very DNA of

29:25

the existing cinchona trees

29:27

has changed

29:29

200 years ago the super high

29:31

content a trees were

29:34

Over harvested it could mean that the

29:37

trees started producing

29:40

less and less queen in We

29:42

will survive in the wild more than

29:44

the ones that don't because the ones

29:46

that have hired will get over harvested And

29:49

it's quite possible that

29:51

Alkaloid levels of the

29:53

current trees are lower

29:55

than we could find 200 years

29:58

ago in natural forests

29:59

It doesn't make me feel too good about

30:02

it. It makes me

30:04

a bit...

30:06

A bit angry maybe. I

30:08

think it's important to remind ourselves

30:10

what this dream meant 200 years ago, what

30:14

this meaning now and

30:16

the rich history it has.

30:21

I suppose for most people the meaning of it now

30:23

is,

30:24

well it's going back to that drink.

30:27

It's gin and tonic.

30:30

The Peruvians tried to guard it, the English tried to

30:32

steal it, the Dutch finally did and the

30:35

English ended up basically making a

30:37

syrup with it mixed with the

30:39

rations for their soldiers. So the soldiers used to all get

30:41

a daily ration of gin and that kept

30:43

them happy and docile.

30:47

And you know, obviously if you mutiny

30:49

the gin runs out so you don't. And

30:53

so it became commonplace for the English

30:56

in subcontinental Asia to

30:58

have gin with this

31:00

tonic syrup which just

31:02

became gin and tonic. And so the word tonic now

31:04

is mostly associated with the tonic

31:06

beverage. But really tonic

31:08

just referred to the fact that it was

31:11

some sort of medicinal treatment.

31:16

Would you see somebody pour

31:18

a gin and tonic? When you walk past

31:20

a bottle of tonic in a grocery store, what

31:22

goes through your mind?

31:24

Great question.

31:26

Yeah,

31:28

tonic to me is a result

31:30

of the global smuggling

31:33

empire while many Indians

31:36

will sort of drink it as an almost

31:38

nationalist drink to me represents

31:41

an imperial crossroads.

31:44

If not for Quineen, we might

31:46

have had a different kind

31:48

of tropical world.

31:59

Stuff The British Stole is produced by Eunice Kim,

32:02

Leah Simone Bowen and Zoe Ferguson.

32:05

It was written, edited and created by

32:07

me, I'm Mark Finnell. The sound

32:09

design and engineering is by Martin Peralta.

32:12

The executive producers are Cecil Fernandez

32:15

and Chris Oak for CBC Podcasts

32:17

and Amruthas Slee for ABCRN. Very

32:21

special thank you to Ira Samavega, Maxim

32:23

Holland, Matthias Wolfson and Daniel

32:25

Pereira. Stuff The British Stole is

32:28

a production of ABCRN

32:29

in partnership with CBC Podcasts.

32:38

After the break, my conversation with Mark Finnell.

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So Mark, tell these fine people who you are. Hello,

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my name is Mark Finnell.

37:34

is

38:00

still in action or still motoring

38:02

along, then it probably still works. Yeah,

38:05

yeah, yeah. We have that same issue when we say

38:07

we are a show about design and then we talk about government

38:11

systems or something like that and they'll go, is this

38:13

really design? And

38:15

it's like, well, to us it is. So

38:19

let's talk a little bit about this story, the fever

38:21

tree and how it's a little bit outside

38:24

of the norm. It's not really a stolen object.

38:26

It's a plant, although it kind of manages to be a stolen

38:28

object anyway. I mean, the reason why

38:30

I was so fascinated by this episode in particular

38:33

is there's no reason why this tree

38:36

has to be stolen. It could be found

38:38

and cultivated without any indigenous

38:40

people actually losing anything, but

38:43

the British still managed to steal it and

38:45

destroy and diminish what was left behind.

38:48

And that is an amazing fact

38:50

pattern. In some ways it's also about

38:53

the clash of, this is going to be the most

38:55

podcasting ever said, it's about the clash

38:57

of capitalism with traditional

38:59

knowledge as well, where it's like once

39:01

capitalism decides that something's a worthwhile

39:04

resource. I'm anthropomorphizing

39:07

capitalism now, so we're deep in the weeds here.

39:09

Like once capitalism decides that something's a worthwhile

39:12

resource, it's almost like the traditional

39:15

method of how something is grown and

39:17

respected. They

39:19

are incompatible. I don't think one necessarily

39:22

kills the other, but they are incompatible.

39:24

And because an industry will

39:26

want to take it and make it en masse and that will

39:29

drastically reshape how it's seen in its original

39:31

form. It's possibly more

39:33

that with the story of rubber, because the story

39:36

of rubber in places

39:38

like Brazil, like there was a whole industry of

39:40

rubber and these rubber barons who weren't like

39:43

great people, but that industry is completely

39:45

upended when rubber plantations start getting

39:47

grown and taken

39:48

by the British. Some

39:51

say smuggled, some say traded out, and then

39:53

they set up these plantations around the world and suddenly a whole

39:55

industry in South America is changed

39:58

forever. In

40:00

some ways, it's more great because it

40:02

is still available to people in the South

40:05

American countries where it's present, but it

40:07

also enables

40:10

large-scale colonization and

40:12

invasion of other parts of the world. The

40:14

British simply couldn't have achieved, and

40:17

they're not alone in this, the Dutch as well, they

40:19

could not have achieved what they achieved in Southeast Asia

40:21

and South Asia

40:24

without these resources. Yeah, and

40:27

in this episode, it sort of starts

40:29

with

40:29

a gin and tonic. Yeah.

40:32

I just smiled when you said that.

40:35

It's like 8.45 in the morning for me right now.

40:38

I have a problem, Roman. And

40:41

so, and a lot of the stories start with you interacting with the

40:43

person. It often starts small

40:46

and expands wide. And

40:49

what is that process for you, like having

40:51

something sort of you can touch or you can hold or

40:54

a person you can talk to in an Uber or something

40:56

that sort of grounds these

40:58

big stories about capitalism

41:00

and empires and colonialism. What

41:04

is that mission about?

41:06

I guess at the end of the day, the show,

41:09

if it's all sort of highfalutin

41:11

empires and large

41:14

movements throughout history, that's

41:18

great. And that can be like sweeping and

41:20

beautiful and can

41:22

really make you feel like you're watching a landscape

41:25

picture. And I think those moments are

41:27

important in the show. But

41:29

at some point, either at the beginning

41:32

or at the end, at some point, you need

41:34

to connect with something very every day, because

41:36

that's the point of the show. The point of the show is that the

41:39

legacy of the British Empire never actually

41:41

ended. I mean, the fact

41:44

of the matter is,

41:45

if you listening to this now can understand

41:47

the language that you and I are speaking

41:49

right now, congratulations, you have

41:51

been touched by the British Empire in some way, shape or form.

41:55

Right. We talk about the size

41:57

of the British Empire.

41:59

a quarter of the world's population, a quarter of the world's

42:02

land, roughly. I mean, its cultural

42:04

impact is so much bigger than

42:06

that, right? It reshapes, you know,

42:09

huge parts of the world through hard and soft

42:11

power. And that's a really impossible

42:14

thing for people to wrap their heads around.

42:16

It's actually too big for a human brain to encapsulate.

42:19

So if you have something small like

42:22

a conversation in an Uber or, you know,

42:24

the clink of a gin and tonic, there's always

42:27

a moment where you're reminded that this, the legacy didn't

42:29

end and it lives and breathes in your

42:31

life today, unless

42:33

you don't like gin, you're more of a vodka person,

42:35

in which case, we'll get there, don't you worry? Like

42:39

I think, I think it's just about kind of connecting it to reality

42:41

more than anything. Yeah. Yeah.

42:44

So what are some of the other stories this season that you're most excited about? Like, is there anything

42:46

to entice our listeners? This

42:49

season is probably the most wild

42:52

combination of objects. Many

42:54

years ago, somebody slipped into my DMs on Twitter

42:56

and said that there was a, the mummified head

42:58

of an Egyptian in a high school in country Australia.

43:01

And I thought they were joking. It turns out they were not.

43:03

It is there. He's actually one there. The

43:06

number zero, it turns out, may have been

43:08

stolen. Apparently, it

43:10

comes from, from South Asia, but the manuscript

43:12

that proves it comes with South Asia is in Britain.

43:15

There's an absolutely devastating

43:18

story about a prince who's

43:20

from Ethiopia who ended up being one of

43:22

Queen Victoria's favorites, pseudo adopted

43:25

children. And his story is tragic.

43:28

And the, the other one that

43:30

I've wanted to do for years is the story of Pocahontas.

43:34

My daughter and I sat down and watched the Disney

43:36

movie and I had this brief moment of like, huh,

43:39

this is aged very weirdly. And

43:41

it was the sort of story that could only really be done in audio

43:43

because everyone has an image in their mind

43:45

of Pocahontas because of the Disney movie. And

43:47

I want to kind of see if you started there,

43:50

where could you go with that story? If you told the reality

43:52

of what actually happened to her and there's a whole range of

43:54

voices across the US and Canada

43:57

that, that fade into that. That's amazing.

43:59

Well, thank you. You gain so much for talking with

44:01

me and for sharing your show with me

44:03

and for continuing to do it. I just love it and

44:05

I love how it's evolved and it's a joy to

44:07

listen to. So thanks so much. The pleasure is always

44:10

mine. Thank

44:12

you so much. Stuff

44:15

the Bridge Stole is in its third season. You can

44:17

find it wherever you get your podcasts. You probably

44:19

also find the TV show wherever

44:22

you watch TV. The

44:24

Conversation with Mark was produced

44:26

by Sarah Bake and Lainey Hall. Our

44:29

executive producer is Cathy Tu. Kurt Kholstedt

44:31

is our digital director. The rest of the team includes

44:33

Chris Barube, Emmett Fitzgerald, Martin

44:35

Gonzalez, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Lay,

44:38

Jason de Leon, Loshma Dawn, Jacob

44:41

Multinato Medina, Kelly Prime, Swan

44:43

Real, Joe Rosenberg and

44:45

me, Roman Mars. The 99%

44:47

Invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence.

44:50

We are part of the Stitcher and SiriusXM podcast

44:53

family now headquartered six blocks

44:55

north in the Pandora building in

44:57

beautiful. Deep Town, Oakland,

45:00

California. You can find us on all

45:02

the social media sites if you want to but

45:04

at this point I think it's become clear that social media

45:07

was a big mistake. You can find links

45:09

to other Stitcher shows I love as well

45:11

as every past episode of 99PI at

45:14

99PI.