Nightmare Now

The Jameson Whiskey Cannibal Affair

Episode Summary

In this one we take a look at the time one of the heirs to the Jameson whiskey fortune allegedly bought a child for the express purpose of watching her be eaten? Is this rumor true? Lets get a fact check.

Episode Notes

Sources:

https://archive.is/kV4vT#selection-223.0-241.289

https://archive.org/details/storyofrearcolum00jameuoft/page/290/mode/2up

https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-jameson-cannibal

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/a-grisly-drop-of-history-1.755086

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jameson_Irish_Whiskey

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/james-jamesons-account-of-the-emin-pasha-relief-expedition

https://www.bizzarrobazar.com/en/2018/12/16/sei-fazzoletti-per-i-cannibali-il-terribile-jameson-affair/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emin_Pasha_Relief_Expedition

https://books.google.com/books?id=mCSQCjEuU94C&pg=PA356&lpg=PA356&dq=james+jameson+11+year+old+girl+cannibals&source=bl&ots=3BtOZKtC8X&sig=PZlcNbQ5TcxMsTQKifRWAJft72w&hl=en&ei=M5bOTuvFK6nm0QGmpvE7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result#v=onepage&q=james%20jameson%2011%20year%20old%20girl%20cannibals&f=false

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Congo

https://theconversation.com/retracing-belgiums-dark-past-in-the-congo-and-attempts-to-forge-deeper-ties-184903

Our tale begins in 1780 when a 40 year old fella by the name of john jameson founded an eponymous little distillery, making a blended irish whiskey still sold today. Interestingly he was a freemason. Not going down that path today, but it does seem to come up a lot
1. Should I have saved this for st patrick's day? Maybe.
2. Eventually it was taken over by john jameson jr
3. Then john jameson the third
4. Then it gets less fun and we move onto his son robert and so on and so forth, but this isn’t about whiskey really
The first john jameson’s grandson, of which he had many I’m sure, the dude had eight kids. A man by the name of James Jameson. James jameson’s middle name was slygo which is kind of silly in itself. I think that’s a town in ireland.
Anyway. James had a ton of money to burn, being an heir to the aforementioned whiskey fortune, and the heart of an adventurer.
1. He tagged along with various expeditions to south america, the pacific islands and africa, dude was living a cool ass life compared to other irishmen that sat around on the island.
2. He ended up giving a bunch of his big game trophies to the british museum, which is kinda fun given how much we talked about them last week
3. In January of 1887 he joined an expedition led by a henry morton stanley, a welsh american explorer. It was on this expedition that James would face terrible trials. He would have been canceled today for sure.
4. He had to apply against a few other hundred naturalists or africa enthusiasts for the spot on the expedition, tossing a 1000 pound tip in with his application certainly helped. That’s 168,000 pounds in today’s money or about 200,000 dollars. I imagine that helped.
5. This expedition, the emin pasha relief expedition, to provide supplies to a besieged diplomat in the congo,
  1. Ordered by leopold II who has a somewhat controversial history in the congo, most of my knowledge of the congo comes from 1 line of we didn’t start the fire, and the terrible slash awesome movie with the evil white gorillas and tim curry, and my wonderful episode on mokele embeme, but even a cursory inspection of that history shows it’s not great.
    1. Short version is 10 million people died trying to get rubber out of trees because leo decided the congo was his.
    2. This exploitation continued until the 19 50s and 60s when the belgians finally gave up the congo to rule their own stuff
    3. But they still wanted the resources, and so did the US, thought we’d get out of this one? Naw
    4. The CIA basically immediately assassinated the first prime minister of the new democratic republic of the congo
    5. Maybe we’ll get into it another time. Like I said, not great.
6. So james jameson tagged along on this trip and there’s a lot more to this expedition but the part we’re focused on was in may of 1888 in the small village of riba riba, had to double check it wasn’t that weird lewd metroidvania
7. In riba riba they were having a festival that was said to end in the consumption of human flesh
Jameson thought they were full of shit and was like can I see my good man?
1. One of the other people on the expedition, reportedly replied “give me a bit of cloth and we’ll see” big jafar vibes like last episode.
  1. Jameson calls his bluff and produces 6 handkerchiefs for the tribesman there. Funny that this dude has 6 to SPARE, he probably had a hundred coming out of every pocket
2. This is where it gets gruesome. The wheels of handkerchief cloth trade were already grinding
3. After this exchange, the dancing comes to a halt, and a young slave girl is brought forward, it is explained that she is a captive from another tribe.
  1. 6 napkins goes a long way in 1888
4. Now for the squeamish among you, you may want to skip ahead a minute or two. The girl is killed and eaten, if you’re wondering what you’re gonna miss, go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back.
  1. This is a direct quote from the 1890 newspaper the london times reporting on the incident
  2. “The girl was tied to a tree,” says Farran, “the natives sharpening their knives the while. One of them stabbed her twice in the belly.
  3. “She did not scream, but knew what would happen, looking to the right and left for help. When stabbed she fell dead. The natives cut pieces from her body.
  4. “Jameson in the meantime made rough sketches of the horrible scenes. Then we all returned to the child’s house. Jameson afterward went to his tent, where he finished his sketches in water colors.
  5. “There were six of them, all neatly done. The first sketch was of the girl as she was led to the tree. The second showed her stabbed, with the blood gushing from the wounds. The third showed her dissected. The fourth, fifth, and sixth showed men carrying off the various parts of the body
5. FUCK alright if you’re back from your time skip you didn’t miss anything but gruesome details.
And that’s when the gossip started, jameson was part of a well to do whiskey magnate family was ripe for being thrown into salacious expose news stories. Couple that with a morbid curiosity of the general public in britain with the “Dark continent” this one had papers flying off the shelves.
1. And the crux of the story? That pretty boy whiskey heir had bought a slave for a pittance just to watch her get eaten
2. That’s where all the fact checking comes in, everyone is like well did he buy a slave girl to watch her get eaten? And there’s some debate on the semantics of that. Which we’ll get to in a minute, BUT there’s no fucking debate about the girl gettin killed and eaten. WHICH SEEMS TO BE THE IMPORTANT PART HERE. That happened with just about 100 percent certainty. I feel like we’re arguing about the wrong thing with the umm ackshullys here
After the horrifying event, the group pressed on with their expedition
1. They split into two groups with jameson leading the rear group and another officer leading a forward group
2. The second officer was killed by natives, and the belgian authorities caught the guy that did it who was executed when jamesons group arrived in the town behind the first group
3. Very chaotic expedition
4. Moving on jameson’s section head for the bangala river station down the congo river,
  1. They traveled for about a week and a half, through sickly bogs, mires and along the river, through snakes, insect, and possibly giant ancient relic sauropods.
  2. Jameson fell ill on that last leg of the river, complications from malaria. That’ll do it back then.
  3. On august 17 they made it to bangala station after a series of jungle ordeals and after breathing a sigh of relief that he made it to the next town, James jameson promptly died from his illness. He was only 31
  4. He was buried in an unmarked grave deep in the jungle
  5. That’s a heroes sendoff for sure, wait till my group starts running tomb of annihilation
  6. The problem for jameson, that is, ethel jameson, his now widow, was that the dude, being dead
    1. Didn’t care
    2. Had no way to defend himself or his family from the slanderous press
Newspaper
1. Affadavaits
  1. So heres were things get muddy. The story got reported by the london times
    1. Assad farran affidavit that the story was true, jameson purchased the girl exclusively to watch her get crunched up
    2. He also gives a short description of an orgie that jameson was an interested observer in some accounts
    3. Last letter to his wife is just whatever farran says it’s a lie and don’t let it out
      1. Not great denial tbh
    4. Immediate retraction
      1. Emphatic
      2. Because farran had been fired so he’s like lets goo!
  2. WATERCOLORS!?
Legacy
1. James jameson lived a wild and crazy short life
2. Forever tarnished by this cannibalism scandal
3. Relegated to a macabre footnote in history
  1. Which is more than most people can say
4. THere’s recreations of the drawings which are fucked up I’ll link them with the notes this week
  1. Lost like 50 tabs for research on the mummy stuff so I’m going back through my history for those
5. What a fucked up story
6. Lessons? Don’t eat people, don’t call people’s bluff all the time, sometimes it isn’t a bluff
Outro
1. You guys are the best