The Rest is History Custer v Crazy Horse: The Winning of the West (Part 2) After the Civil War drew to a close, Custer was sent to Texas, which had never actually been conquered by the North and where there was fear of the Mexican War. This wasn’t what Custer wanted. He wanted either to be in New York and be a tycoon, or failing that, to go to Mexico to fight Maximilian but his next deployment was to Kansas instead with the 7th Company. There he got involved with the political campaign of the new anti-Reconstruction American president, Andrew Johnson which put him offside with other Republicans. The troops in Kansas were largely untrained, rough and very multicultural. He made an enemy of Frederick Benteen, who I gather is going to pop up in this story again. There was a looming conflict with the Cheyenne (Plains Indians) who had come down from the south and feared the coming of the railway. Custer, William Tecumseh Sherman and Scott Hancock were sent to crack down on them. There were some familiar names among the soldiers including Henry Morton Stanley (who later met Livingstone), and Wild Bill Hickock. Much violence on both sides ensued, especially committed by the Dog Soldiers, a group associated with but not part of the Cheyenne. The Cheyenne agreed to go onto reservations, but the Dog Soldiers continued fighting. Winter had come, when hostilities generally ceased, but Custer led a raid on a village at night, crushing the men and taking the women and children as hostages. The 1869 campaign finished when the Dog Soldiers were defeated. President Grant, thinking that the wars were over handed the reservations over to the missionaries, in what looks like a similar Protection policy to that tried in Australia too.
The Shadows of Utopia Cambodia After Angkor (Part 1) This episode covers the time roughly 1431 to 1800 CE. The date 1431 is perhaps not an accurate starting point, as the Angkor kingdom transformed rather than collapsed. The royal family shifted to Phnom Penh, where the confluence of the Mekong and Ton Le Sap gave access to trade, and changed the emphasis from rice-growing to trade. In around 1371 there was the rise of the Thai kingdoms (Siam), originally from China. The Thai and Kymer kingdoms blended together culturally, with movement of people, ideas and rulers – although that didn’t stop the frequent wars between them. During the 16th century Cambodians had their first contact with the outside, with the visits of Portuguese traders. In the Siamese-Cambodian war in 1591-4 the Cambodians sought help from Spanish and Portuguese mercenaries, which led to the introduction of western military techniques and technology. Longvek, which had been the capital of the Kingdom of Cambodia from 1529 to 1594 was overrun and 90,000 Kymer soldiers were captured. Meanwhile, to the east Vietnam was becoming more powerful from the middle 1600s, after shaking off the power of China. The Vietnamese kingdom started moving south, defeating the Islamic Champa in 1471, a conflict that sputtered on for decades, leading to the eventual flight of the Cham to Cambodia in 1692. The Vietnamese expanded into Cambodia, taking over the Mekong Delta which cut off sea access. Cambodia was caught between two powerful competing powers: Siam and Vietnam. The status of the Royal Family had declined, the provinces remained barter economies, with subsistence farming and no road network. There was growing resentment towards Vietnam, encapsulated by the rather lurid and gory folk tale ‘The Master’s Tea’ where 3 Cambodian men are buried, with only their heads showing above the dirt, and the Vietnamese lights a kettle on the tripod of their heads and forbids them to move lest they spill the master’s tea. By 1810 both Siam and Vietnam were similar in size, and both saw Cambodia as a weak and dependent child.By 1840 Cambodia ceased to exist when it was administered by Vietnam.
Emperors of Rome Episode CCXXV – The Exile of Cicero (The Catiline Conspiracy VI) Now that Catiline was dead, Cicero promoted himself as being the ‘Warrior of the Senate’ and the saviour of the Empire. But he’d made lots of enemies, and they weren’t about to forget the execution of senators that he had ordered, and so the Senate refused to allow him to make a farewell speech when his consulship came to an end. Instead of going off to be a governor somewhere, which is what usually happened after being consul, he bought a big house on the Palantine Hill- it must have been big because it had previously belonged to Crassus. He tried to get historians to write up the story of his consulship as history, but they all refused; then he tried to get it written up as an epic by poets, but they refused. In the end, he had to do it himself. Catiline might be gone, but the populares continued, and now Clodius Pulcher took up their cause. Clodius was Tribune of the Plebs, and close to Julius Caesar. In 58 BCE Cicero was summoned to face trial in the Senate and, realizing that neither Caesar nor Pompey were about to come to his aid, he fled. He wasn’t actually exiled at this point- that came later. Clodius confiscated his house, demolished it, and gave the land for a temple. In the end, the exile only lasted 15 months when a new Tribune came to power, and Pompey finally supported him. In 57BCE Cicero returned to Italy, not ever really acknowledging that the Republic would need to change.
History Extra An Audacious Escape from Slavery. This episode features Ilyon Woo, the author of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom which tells the story of Ellen and William Craft, a married couple who escaped enslavement in 1848. They both held rather anomalous positions as slaves, as William was an independent craftsman who could earn his own money, and Ellen had good seamstress skills. Ellen disguised herself as an ill male slaveholder and her husband acted as her (his?) manservant. Even once they reached the northern states, they could still be recaptured and sent back to enslavement. After a journey of over 1000 km, they became speakers in the abolition cause, and moved to the UK where they were feted in anti-slavery circles.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 