A friend of mine is the descendent of one of the men who was eaten. One thing missing from this video is their whole reason for choosing to walk overland from Sarah Island - they were trying to get to Hobart and actually believed the town was literally a couple of hills away. In reality, the distance is 163 km (101 miles).
My neighbour is a descendant of the cannibal Alexander Pearce, we have him round for BBQs and parties often. Of course it’s a running joke about “what’s on the barbie today?” … Lovely lovely guy and his last name is still Pearce 😂😂😂
Lol, 😂. I consider myself fairly educated and a lifelong learner being constantly curious but coming from an Australian I did not know Taz land was worse. Signed and sealed agreed then.
Youve made me curious if Tasmania and Australia are close enough in history that yall consider it as one? Or is it a situation like Newfoundland in Canada where the people in Tasmania consider themselves different to the rest of their countrymen
@@Epidombe Mainlanders like to joke about Tasmanians being inbred, but as someone from central Australia, most Australians feel like they come from a different country sometimes. I live 8 hours drive from one capital city, and it's a couple of days trips across deserts to get to either of the others. There are even different Australian accents, coming from different regions. Northern Aussies have a long drawl, somewhat like southern American accents, and the south Easterners tend to have a faster 'city-paced' speech pattern. I've been told the central accent is closest to the original British English accent, due to us being fairly isolated, but I'm not a linguist, so not sure how accurate that is. Tasmania is beautiful, as most of Australia is, but the landscape is pretty harsh and unforgiving. Most people don't really consider it a holiday destination either, unless you really have a reason to go there such as visiting family or friends. There's even sailor lore about staying out of Bass Strait during December and January, so of course, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race takes place in late December to early January, going through the Strait. My cousin actually won his division on his third race. So yes, Tassie is generally spoken of like a separate country, much in the same way as we talk about New Zealand being 'our' small Eastern Islands. It's an affectionate joke, because we know those crazy inbred Tasmanians are Aussies too.
@@Epidombe nah, I wouldn’t say we have that same type of divide like the one in Canada you mentioned. It’s just a different state that comes with mild differences.
Thank you for the episode!! Really well narrated and compiled. Proud Taswegian here: The terrain and vegetation *thickness* of that part of the West Coast has to be seen to be believed. You *cant* walk through it - its a total screen from the ground to the canopy. Then add sheer cliffs, chasms, gorges, escarpments and valleys. I was surprised to learn Pearce made it as far as Jericho.
It is a beautiful and savage part of the isle. We drove from Hobart to Strachan and saw Sarah island - the world heritage area on the way was gorgeous but you wouldn’t want to be lost in there….
I live on Tasmania - and the bush they walked through is savage beyond belief (see SBS’s version of Alone to get an idea). Pierce wasn’t the only escapee from Sarah Is who was accused of cannibalism, there were a small handful who were rumoured to have, eaten their fellow escapees. Pierce was simply the most famous, him being caught with the thigh meat in a sack on a beach near the modern day village of Strahan. Great vid!!
I saw a doc on UK TV ages ago and names escape me but didn't the thigh meat guy also have cheese in the sack too, meaning he started eating his friend before the food ran out?
Considering that breakdancing is as popular here as vegimite is in America I reckon she done her best and now it's taken off there's 3 people doing it it's not a sport it was just a demonstration at the Olympics and they had already declared that it wasn't going to be at the next Olympics and most Aussies couldn't give a fuck about breakdancing it's gay as fuck😊@@mishaa7263
I grew up in Tassie and its definitely got a dark vibe. It's very cold a lot of the time, rains, and it has a grim history of prisons, cannibalism, killing all the indigenous people, killing all the Tasmanian Tigers, more recently the Port Arthur massacre (worst mass shooting in Australian history). At the same time, its wilderness is incredibly unique and beautiful.
Awfully aggressive considering you're directing that comment at an individual who had no connection to those massacres or acts other than the location of their birth.@@rydz656
A couple of things: 1. Transportation was a horrific, inhuman punishment in and of itself. People were shackled in the ship's hold under conditions similar to that of the Transatlantic slave trade. The First Fleet of 1788 was at sail for 252 days. Conditions were even worse on the Second Fleet of 1790, even though the journey was shorter for most. The most infamous of the Second Fleet ships, the Neptune, was at sail 159 days. *Overall, the Second Fleet had a convict mortality rate of 40%.* Those still alive were in such poor condition on arrival, it was said in one contemporary account that the convicts were picked up and _thrown_ ashore, "like sacks of flour". 2. About Tasmania's convicts being the "worst of the worst"... _that depends a lot on what your idea of a dangerous person is._ Neither Britain, nor Australia's anglophile establishment, would go out of their way to tell you that a significant cohort of Tasmanian convicts were _political prisoners._ But that is the truth. A lot of the people sent to Port Arthur were Irish rebels and English Chartists. Some Americans ended up there, as well. William Gates was born in New York in 1816, but took part in the Canadian rebellion against British rule in 1837-38. He was transported to Van Diemen's Land along with some 200 other Americans, British-Canadians and French-Canadians in the years 1838-40. Gates was pardoned in 1845, but it wasn't until 1848 that he was able to return to the United States.
I looked up their crimes on the convict archive and was shocked and deeply saddened at what I'd learned, as the majority of them were convicted to hard labour for stealing food and clothes. There were even charges of people convicted for stealing a hanky or a toolbox. One of my ancestors was a 16 year old Irish girl from Belfast who was transported in 1850 for stealing clothes. Imagine a girl that young without parents doing 7 years of hard labour. It was a miracle she'd survived at all. 😢
That's a coincidence, @@where_is_my_slippers... one my seven-times-great grandmothers was _also_ a girl who stole clothes, and sent out on the Lady Juliana in 1790! Mary Wade was eleven years old when she was pent. The judge at her trial had the audacity to suggest that her crime was "fully equivalent to Highway Robbery", and had sentenced her to hang. But the sentence was commuted in 1789 to "transportation for life" as part of celebrations of a remission in King George III's insanity.
Your mortality rate for the second fleet is a little off. Unless you include those who died on land after disembarkation. Which might be valid if it weren't Australia with all its inherent dangers.
@@brucelownhole: Of 928 male convicts on Neptune, Scarborough and Surprize, 26 per cent _died on the voyage_ and nearly 40 per cent were dead _within six months of their arrival_ in the colony. I think it's reasonable to assume people who are so weak that they have to be picked up and _thrown ashore_ were damaged by the experience. But it is definitely the case that people died immediately upon being brought ashore, this is what contemporary accounts attest. Refeeding syndrome wasn't described by medical science until after WWII. Australia has its share of natural dangers, but the hazards are often exaggerated. The overwhelming majority of the deaths in the Sydney Cove colony 1788-1792 were due to three waves of epidemic disease, which most likely arrived with the convicts, rather than being acquired in Australia. It is also noted in contemporary records that the indigenous people of the area (Gadigal) died in large numbers, with symptoms that sound very much like measles.
I think being sent to Australia in the 1700s would be punishment enough. At least the prison walls protect you from the snakes, crocs, sharks, and yes... jellyfish.
I went to austrailia in 2017 with my family. When we got to immigration in Perth Airport the agent asked my mother's boyfriend if he had a criminal record, to which he responded "no, I didn't realise that was still a requirement". The agent didn't find it nearly as funny as we did.
Super common at the time since electricity didn’t exist to help monitor, and when night fell all you had were lanterns, candles and a prayer that all the cells were locked. Even now those remote ones persist. Russia has prisons in the tundra where you’ll freeze long before you find civilization. Syria has (had?) Tadmor Military Prison, built at the time 200 miles from Damascus, separated just by desert. The worst one to me is Alcatraz because it was almost like a dare to see if the prisoners would try and die. I mean, imagine a hundred years ago, you see mainland just 1.5 miles away. You’re a great swimmer. You escape and jump in. Then you go into shock and die from the freezing water, because the prison was one of the first to give hot showers. It seemed like a luxury but it was to prevent people from building up a cold tolerance. There’s also open air prisons, like one in the Philippines just 9 miles from the capital. Twice the size of Paris, it’s contained with just a fence and 3 armed guards. I figured it was 9 miles of like… dangerous wilderness but nope. People stay because most aren’t max prisoners so they can work, gaining the prison money that in turn helps prisoner living conditions. Plus the guards apparently treat them far more humanely. It’s really interesting to see how prisons had to be built back in the days before electronic door locks, cameras and lights.
Urm.. I'm from the UK. People were sent to Australia for stealing bread as a first offence. They flogged a 5 yr old for stealing a lump of coal. They have records of it.
Yes . Grotesque . Horrific . . How the boob who made this managed to miss that when the information is more than readily available I simply cannot imagine .
It's actually pretty clear that transportation was used against Irish Catholics for first offences. It was a colonial strategy to pacify Ireland. It's extremely well documented so old mate probably wasn't in and out of trouble his whole life and got transportation the first time he was pinched.
Cromwell ordered all Irish Catholics to reside west of the Shannon river, under threat of massacre. The war and migration caused massive population disorganisation and breaking up of families, clans, inheritance and land ownership series: "The Irish were told ‘To Hell or to Connaught!’ It was the greatest act of ethnic cleansing in the British Isles since the Norman Conquest. By the end of 1656 four fifths of the Irish land was in Protestant hands. When Catholics fought back, in guerrilla groups numbering some 30,000 Cromwell's generals forcibly evicted civilians who were thought to be helping the resisters and systematically burned the area's crops and killed all livestock. Famine followed, exacerbated by bubonic plague. Three years on, a fifth of the population had died." (Vallely, Paul, “The Big Question: Was Cromwell a revolutionary hero or a genocidal war criminal?”) Wolfe Tone (Irish hero) organised seven unsuccessful Revolutionary French invasions of Ireland and Britain around the 1890s. If they didn't half-hang them then rip out their hearts, then burn their intestines, then decapitate them, the British tended to send 'revolutionaries' to Australia, and treated as revolutionaries anyone trying to organise among the lower classes. There were many many attempts at revolt in Britain and Ireland, but most people are unaware of them since history is written by the victors. (See a detailed history of revolts in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England and French Canada in Sheila Newman, Land-tenure and the Revolution in Democracy and Birth-Control in France (2023). The Irish were particularly persecuted. treated as a defective ethnic group.
A member of my family line was transported in 1835 for seven years for stealing a live tame duck. Some years before, he had spent time in prison for a vicious attack on another man. His convict records show that he was quite a trouble-maker even while he was in Tasmania. Those convict records can tell you all sorts of things that no other records could possibly do - the height of individuals, their eye colour, and so on.
@@alecianewman4226 Attitudes were much different back then and the court records describe the duck as live and tame. In other words, it was someone's property and part of their livelihood, thus a serious crime, especially when you consider people were transported to the penal colonies for even stealing loaves of bread.
I remember watching a documentary where two spanish prisions were mentioned. One was in Granada during the middle ages (i think) and the other one was more modern. In the first one, prisioners were thrown into a big vertical entrance cave without almost any sunlight, only some food was dropped once every few days. And nobody who entered there ever escaped. The other one was related to mercury mining. A tunnel was made from the prision to the mine, in order for the prisioners to not see the sun on their way to the mine. They didnt see sunlight ever again after they entered the prision. And people went crazy because of mercury getting to their brains. Maybe you can do a video about them
@Jadix the dark knight isn't real...its just a person's imagination...the Spanish prisons are real however. So it would be the other way around...the dark knight stole that info from history. BTW I really hate all these comics come dumb movies...but that's just my opinion
@@stuartfishman719the dark knight isn’t real? i’m pretty sure you can see chicago in most of those scenes, which is a real city, so i’m not sure why you’re so confident
@rollinburket confident? About what? You can't seriously be telling me you think the dark knight is real! Batman is a stupid cartoon character, like all those dumb comic "superhero" wankers. Dude, a reality check...cartoons aren't real.
As an Aussie, I can honestly tell you this is the first time I have heard the term “Tasmanian Outback”. Us Aussies know the Tasmanian outback as the “Tassie Wilderness”. The real Aussie outback is found on the mainland, not on Tassie. Moving forward, thank you for posting this video. I have learnt a little more about my Island home.
I thought the same when I heard that too, I'm an Aussie as well. Have you heard the song about this story called A tale they won't believe by Aussie band Weddings, Parties Anything?
Hey, thanks for doing a video based on my suggestion! I wasn't sure there was enough information to do a full length video, but I'm glad you were about to find out more about it!
I live in Tasmania and can imagine how hard it would have been back in those times. The west coast of Tasmania is very rough and rugged and, in those days, the only way to get there was by ship. The bush can be impenetrable at times with horizontal scrub being the curse of early explorers. Tasmania doesn't really have that much in the way of fauna that it all that dangerous. There are 3 types of snakes that are venomous but they will leave you alone if you leave them alone and that's about it. Unless you had the knowledge of the Aboriginals, finding food would be very difficult for a European. The movie Van Diemen's Land is based on this story.
Alex lived a miserable existence whether he was in or out of society. His exile from society was foreseeable, as was his impulses to escape and defy, but I don't think anyone imagined he would be a cannibal. It's sad that these two escapes were his only legacy, if not for him, nobody would have a clue what happened to the other prisoners who escaped.
@@cypherglitch The film is: Van Diemens Land (2009), and the original documentary film is: The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce (2008). Both won several awards. Personally, the 2008 one is the better of the two but both are well worth seeking out. The 2009 film has scenes spoken in Irish Gaelic, so look for copies with hardcoded subtitles.
It could be used (and was!) for something as petty as complaining to the Castle in Dublin when some planter stole your plot of land. They were doing this as far back as the time of James I.
Oooooh you should talk about the Separate Prison in Port Arthur. Instead of physical punishment, prisoners were instead put through psychological torture of near constant isolation. They had to stay in cells for 23 hours a day, and when they were let out they had to wear a hood to hide their face and weren't allowed to communicate with anyone. They were given a number upon incarceration and no longer called by their name. They even put mats on the floor to muffle footsteps. Apparently a lot of prisoners went mad. Absolutely terrifying!
And the special chapel, that had seperate little standing spots, where they couldn’t see the person standing less that a foot away each side, in front, or behind. All they could see what the Chaplain… It broke many, many men. The Asylum was right next door….
There were at least 4 horrible fates in here, this came as an all-in-one ;) Great story telling as always and also loved the illustrations, some of them were in a style I see for the first time in your videos. Hope to see more in the future, loved them
YES!! I have been waiting all weekend for this! Edit: I think the cannibalism was just a means to survive the first time around. The second time I think may have been kind of the same situation but by that point Alex was okay with cannibalism because he had done it before and it was better than starving. It may have had some impact on him sociologically the first time also which drove him to doing it again so easily.
I agree. I think one of the worst parts of cannibalism is the line that has to crossed to get there. But once it's crossed, there is no going back. So the second time he had no line to cross to commit the act.
@@brianshissler3263 Also, since we know it was Alex telling the story every time, you see some distancing with how he blames Robert the most. Alex very well could have been the one who was obsessed with the killings after the first time. He could have become addicted to cannibalism due to the stress of having to survive, much like how he was addicted to committing crimes.
There’s actually a protein that humans produce that when eaten by another human makes them crazy and become more inclined to resort to more cannibalism. At least that’s what I’ve heard, not sure where, but it makes sense.
I'm from Michigan, USA. When visiting Tasmania all I could think about was how great the air quality was. The south end of South Bruny island was the best air I may have ever breathed. Beautiful place you call home.
My 5th Great Grandfather ended up in Tasmania. He was in his late 50s when he arrived. His children had previously immigrated to Australia to work on sheep farms as there was no work to be had at home. He had stayed in the UK with his wife. After she died he wanted to be with his children so had the brilliant idea to commit a crime to get sent over for free. He ended up in Tasmania, spent 8 years indentured and then he had to get his way up to New South Wales where his children were. He didn't realise how large Australia was. If you are ever down at Strahan you can do a tour of Sarah Island and the old penal settlement.
I mean, it’s not like Alex wasn’t given several chances. It sounds like he had numerous opportunities to spend his sentence being productive in some manner and keep his nose clean. I was actually surprised at how lenient the British prison system seemed to be, only really punishing you after you had royally fucked up. I mean, apart from the whole shipping to Australia process.
Exactly! The prison tortured & starved them. I don’t blame them for stealing food & escaping. They were probably losing their minds too. It’s terrible.
@@sa-amirel-hayeed699There are better ways of handling criminals besides torturing & starving them. Prison should be about rehabilitation, especially for nonviolent offenders & anyone who is released back into society. Instead, they’re criminalized & commit worse offenses upon release. Prison should not be a private for-profit business.
It's so awesome seeing one of my favourite youtube channels do a video on my home state 😊 Thank you for sharing the stories of some of these convicts, it's an untold part of history! Tasmania actually had an indigenous population that was wiped out... I'll say no more here and leave you to research yourselves, need to say Tasmania has lots of stories worth telling! Edit: If you visit Tasmania you can actually visit the main prison which is Port Arthur, it has been turned into a big tourist establishment that you can pay entry to visit. They run ghost tours, have a big Katamaran boat that ferries you around the bay the prison sits in, showing you various landmarks and an island that they would shackle prisoners to, you can do a tour of the island. Port Arthur is also the site of the biggest mass shooting in Australian history, 1996, 35 people killed and a huge conspiracy behind the shooting. Just a tiny bit of info on this little island state that is stuck 25+ years in the past! Second edit: the fact that any of them made it further than a few miles is incredible, the part of the state they trekked across is still uninhabitable and inaccessible. The bush here is angry, thick, it gets extremely cold. It's nothing like the mainland Australia you see in the movies.
One thing it doesn’t mention is just how head to toe covered in leeches they would have been in this part of Tassie. I grew up near here and visited the Sarah Island site in 2021. Pretty creepy vibes just walking around the island seeing the old building ruins. Some of the escape attempts are truely legendary. Trying to escape out into the ocean via boat you have to go through an inlet called ‘Hells Gates’ because of how incredibly dangerous and rough the sea is here.
Maybe do a story on Buckley- such an incredible feat of survival after escape that to this day it's a common phrase that someone has Buckley's chance, as a way of describing something that's all but impossible
I don’t know how exposed you are to survival stories involving cannibalism, but there’s pretty clear evidence that to some people it becomes addictive. Not physically, but psychologically. So I can believe that the first time was on the escape adventure and Robert convinced him it was necessary. From there, he probably got afflicted with some slight form of wendigo psychosis. Then, when left alone with the dead body of someone in the wilderness, it overcame him. It fits because there are several other examples who took every opportunity to eat people instead of other options in the wild but stopped once they rejoined civilization. Many of them described having cravings while also protesting that it was only for survival when there were clearly other food sources available. It’s also possible he might have gotten PTSD from the experiences of his escape attempt and going back into the bush shoved him right back into that mind set.
@@eadweard. Well, for one, it's pretty much what wendigo psychosis is. What we do have documented is mostly anecdotal, unfortunately, as most of the time the cannibal was the last survivor or everyone participated and the group was unwilling to openly discuss what all happened. The Colorado cannibal, the two guys from the Donner party, and Sean Bean and his clan all reached points where they would rather eat a human than any other meat. Thinking it over, addictive might be the wrong word but I'm not sure what word would be closer.
I think it's more that when the second time rolled around, he'd already done it once so the taboo had been broken and it just seemed like the obvious choice to him rather than starve or try to wait and look some more because having been there before, he already knew nothing was really there to eat.
Some of the men and women arrested in Britain and given the choice between life in Australia or death, chose death. That shows you just how horrifying being sent to Australia was as a punishment.
Not that it’s a competition between who had it worse. But imagine being a girl sentenced to transportation. Being raped, being pregnant, no help, maybe no midwife, trying to feed your children, all the while being told you’re wicked and going to hell because of your lasciviousness
@Scary Interesting, you should have a look at the Mütter Museum in Pennsylvania. It preserves the remains of people who had uniquely scary interesting things happen to them.
We know that humans can survive a lot longer than they did without food, the fact he started eating someone after 3 days is very telling, that it was something more deep seated.
I live in Tasmania (Tassie) and it’s the most gorgeous place. I’ve lived elsewhere before but I’ve always come back home. So cool being an avid viewer of this channel and watching this video about my island home ❤
Gday fellow Tasmanian! Yes, there is something about our island home that draws us back. I’ve lived all around the mainland, been overseas, and always just knew I’d come home. We are cut from a different cloth here. The pride we feel when we see a video on our island is shared by most Tasmanians. And we all get our hackles up when the mainlanders have a crack at our home out of ignorance. It seems to be bred into us. I love being Tasmanian, so proud of our beautiful home!
Great work mate! It’s an interesting story about our dark past. Proud to be an Aussie, and both of my ancestors were in chains when they 1st came to Australia for their one way holiday. Cheers from 🇦🇺 ❤😊
@@QueenZ444not really? If they were sent in chains how were they colonizers? That’s like calling the Irish republicans who got sent there for fighting against the British colonizers?
G'day, just as an aussie myself I've always found it weird that the soil in Tasmania is so nutrient rich that the average height of convicts increased by half a foot within a couple of generations of being there. Like if you had the choice to live out your days in a miserable, war torn, overfarmed prison island or come to Australia where sure there's danger but the tucker is alright, which would be the better option? 🤔
Loads of Irish republicans got sent over there so I presume they hated the isolation of it. Think about it, you’re sent to the other side of the world.
3:19 just a heads up Scary Interesting, as a 33yo Aussie male, Macquarie is pronounced Mac-Quarry like a quarry of stone, not mackery. Although it's said with no emphasis on the Mac, so it sounds like Muh-Quarry to native Aussies
Idea for a video! The 2021 Texas freeze. I moved to Texas a few weeks after the storm had come thru and struggled to comprehend that people died from the cold in this day and age. Over 200 deaths attributed to the storm I believe.
South Texas almost never freezes. When it does get cold, its almost always from high pressure systems coming from the North. Gets cold, but very little moisture to freeze. I've only seen icing and snow 4 times in 38 years down here. It was different that year. More importantly, Texas' electrical grid is separate from the rest of the country- specifically to avoid federal regulation. Not surprisingly, very few of the power plants and infrastructure were protected against freezing conditions. Those plants and lines failed and heating was cut off from thousands of homes. Even more depressingly, a number of the deaths are attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning from people running gas generators inside their homes. I go camping in the Colorado mountains every year. A few years ago there was a freak early freeze down to the high teens with 2 feet of snow dropping overnight after the previous day's high of 70F. That was cold, but it was nothing like 2021. I've never felt anything like that before or since. When an arctic storm gets thrown into near tropical swamps, its some serious business.
Because people in this region aren't prepared for cold of that magnitude or length. That means our buildings, utilities, etc aren't set up to withstand extended freezing temps or temperature dropping so low in a short amount of time. Everything along the gulf coast is prepared for extreme heat, flooding, long rains, humidity- things of that nature. When it comes to a choice between the two, we do what fits our climate 99.99% of the time, not spend a bunch extra or make things more complicated on the off chance that that odd circumstance may occur. This is the same reason why when it's freezing for awhile, we sometimes cancel school. Our school uses can't travel roads that may have ice patches, we have portable classrooms and some older buses that don't have adequate heating and many of us don't own winter coats and accessories meant for being out in the cold for awhile, like sending your child to wait for the bus in the morning, etc. But that's why we build those days into our school Cale because we often have adverse weather, it's just usually flooding or heavy rain that won't stop.
@@injusticeanywherethreatens4810 it was Elon Musk that summoned the storm he uses his spaceX rockets to put chemicals into the atmosphere that caused the storm.
Well researched. I've only seen Pearce's final confession and his Convict Record, held in the Tasmanian Library system, doesn't really say much. Having read a lot of early 19th Century Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) documentation, including hand written journals, I have been saddened at how minor an offense could get one exiled from British society, and also encouraged at how, in the best scenario, being sent away from the Old Country was actually a positive step for a number of people - a new start. Cheers!
Oh my god someone is talking about Aus?! Very excited Aussie here!! But I knew before clicking, this is about Sarah Island, that place is THE WORST. I've been there, and it's as isolated a place as you can imagine. It's freezing, and the winds come straight from the Antarctic, and then they made it worse by the horrible living conditions and torture they were subjected to by the brutal punishments the British inflicted on them. Australia is a beautiful country, I love my home very much! but she's unforgiving that's for sure.
I am working at a ski resort in UT and we just got 3’ of snow overnight! I have had an insane day and needed this 24 minute break to reset today! Thank you for the much needed distraction ❤🙏❤
Australia in the early days was a difficult struggle for settlers and convicts. There were no roads, water was often scarce and to this day, the weather is often droughts or floods. Bush fires were common and snakes are very venomous.
My convict ancestor spent 15hr days at Macquarie Harbour cutting timber in chains, they only had tents as shelter and rarely had proper food! That timber was Australia's first export industry!
I love your channel! You have a wonderful narrative voice that is very pleasant to listen to, awesome job on your latest video! Thank you so much for all that you do; you are appreciated! Love from the USA ❤❤❤
I think this might be your best one yet. It's a cool story, there is an element of history but also of mystery and we're left wondering who the real Alex was.
Used to give ghost tours at a tourist site in Launceston that were themed around Sarah Island and some of its stories. Truly chilling stuff. Also as a Tasmanian and huge fan of the channel, I'm chuffed to see one of the greatest anime crossovers of all time. Always get a warm feeling when out little Island state and it's rich history get a look in from people around the globe (we get left off most world maps)
I can’t with these constant ads anymore man, I just can’t. I’ve watched every one of your videos at this point and I mainly watch while trying to fall asleep and this channel has so many interrupting ads that I have to constantly fully wake up after nearly falling asleep and wait for the skip button. I’ve not met another channel that has so many interruptions as this one. Could you not just do a longer ad at the beginning and end? I get you financially rely on youtube’s monetization but is it worth pushing away long-time and repeat viewers? I shouldn’t have to pay for RUclips premium just to watch your videos at night, plus anyone within their right mind would never pay for RUclips premium
I would love more stories like this. Australians and that part of the world have the most unique wildlife and origins. Great presentation. Personally, I think version #4 was most accurate. He confessed to priest and seemed to want to turn his life around and fulfill his sentence to move on. Version #4 was like purging of his sins.
G'day Mate, I am a descendant of an Irishman who was charged as an "Irish Rebel" who received a free trip to Australia & a 7 year sentence, He arrived in Australia on the 09/09/1823 & served out his time on several properties in & around Sydney. After serving his sentence he went into farming & then shipping until his death in 1866, I suppose he was a founding member of the IRA because his brother was also captured & deported to Australia around the same time, LOL.
I've visited Tasmania many times ...even today it's like a mini Siberia ...freezing cold, covered in forest (especially the NW) .... Went there for work in summer .... Was +30c one week then -10 the next ...bushfires turned into snowfall in the middle of our summer. Its truly a wild place. Also an extra tidbit .... There was recently an incident there where a bunch of kids were blown away by gale force winds in a bouncy castle and fell to their deaths :(
Fyi there's no outback in Tasmania. Outback refers to the more desert like areas further north. Not to say that Tasmanian bush would be a walk in the park for someone lost, it's just not called outback
I love how this video started out with its title most brutal prison in Australian history then turns into the interesting story about Alexander Pearce. But nice content keep it up!
@@lisaperry5999 In the Australian outback the most dangerous thing to come across is other people. You can go for days without seeing anyone else despite being on the only road through the area. Police and help from others is hours if not days away. People do and get away with a lot in the country.
I’m one of the 4-in-5 Aussies who is NOT descended from convicts. Every single one of my ancestors came here as free settlers, between 1835 and 1870. I’m almost disappointed !!!! 🤣💖
For anyone who finds this at all interesting, seek out and read 'The Fatal Shore' by Robert Hughes. It's a riveting and exceptionally well written history of Australia's orgins as a penal colony. It's full of many absolutely brutal testimonials of both the punishments of the penal system, as well as the often fuitle attempts to simply survive in such an unforgiving and vast wilderness. It's probably one of the best historical books, at least that ive read,and its a gas to read, the type of book you don't want to finish.
I'd also recommend 'For The Term Of His Natural Life'. The main character does actually get sent to Sarah Island and escapes and the author borrowed some of the events of this video for that part of the story. Sarah Island is just one part of the character's journey but it's so interesting.
Just watching your video Sean and wanted to say how interesting this is to listen to. Been really ill in bed for three days, then you post this, brilliant. 💜 💜
I love those costum animation you guys do for some parrts to explain things better, i love seeing the videos instead of listening , so stuff like that are great
Was he troubled or just pragmatic? I’m Tasmanian, my ancestors were in these prisons. I know the descendent of Alex and he is a lovely person. It has been 6 generations though.
Thank you for covering an aspect of my island state. You should look into the story of Trugannini and Tasmanian Aboriginals as a balance to this story. I appreciate you telling the story of the convicts but Tasmanian History (especially Fanny Cochrane who recorded the only language record we have) should be looked at. It is absolutely a much more compelling tale than Alexander Pearce.
Convicts were sent to America too. They were only sent to Australia because of the loss of the American colonies. They didn't want to send them to Canada for fear of exacerbating political problems with the French population there.
I've been to Sarah Island. You can visit the ruins on a guided tour as part of a day cruise in the area. It really is a good spot for a prison, as the water is cold and even if you make it to land it's rugged, uninhabited wilderness in every direction. Even today you'd need to be an experienced hiker with the right gear to make it out the way they went.
Where's the best place to build a prison? Look for one of the most inhospitable places in the country, then make sure the penitentiary is extremely brutal to inhabit. (Re: Alcatraz). That's called a deterrent. Superb topic and video that makes one want to walk the straight and narrow.
@@consciousobserver629 I agree. There are flaws in the system. My heart goes out to people who do not have a lot of money and find themselves in criminal court. The deck is stacked against them.
@@juliajs1752 I agree with you that prison should be the last option. But deterrents never working? For most they do, I believe. Look at bank robberies. You rarely here about them currently because with today's technology it is almost impossible to rob a bank and not get caught, sooner or later. Plus, banks don't keep much cash in their institutions anymore, so the risk/reward isn't worth it.
I visited the ruins of Sarah Island last year. All very civilised, on a Franklin - Gordon river cruise with buffet breakfast with booze. A very interesting trip. The geography and vegetation are stunning.
I do not believe a true psychopath would feel the same guilt about cannibalism as another person would. Even if they understood it to be wrong under normal circumstances, in extremis they would consider the continuation of their life more important that anyone elses. I think we can assume, from this persons past history, that he had psychopathic traits.
You do understand that they did not know each other and you can eat for a couple of days in a row and not eat a meal for about a week before starvation symptoms kick in . In the Wild West people ate everything just to survive its human nature . To survive and sacrifice
A friend of mine is the descendent of one of the men who was eaten. One thing missing from this video is their whole reason for choosing to walk overland from Sarah Island - they were trying to get to Hobart and actually believed the town was literally a couple of hills away. In reality, the distance is 163 km (101 miles).
My neighbour is a descendant of the cannibal Alexander Pearce, we have him round for BBQs and parties often. Of course it’s a running joke about “what’s on the barbie today?” … Lovely lovely guy and his last name is still Pearce 😂😂😂
I never knew Australia had THAT kind of history.@@Catiecatiecatiecaful
it's a former penal colony. what did you expect?@@TimSlee1
163km is still not very far in Australia 😂
It’s doable, I’ve been to Sarah island and have been interested in how they did it for a long time. Id like to recreate the experience 💀
Me as an Australian, “oh they’re hyping up the dangerousness of Australia”
Trapped in Tasmania
“… oh, fair enough, mate”
Lol, 😂. I consider myself fairly educated and a lifelong learner being constantly curious but coming from an Australian I did not know Taz land was worse. Signed and sealed agreed then.
Youve made me curious if Tasmania and Australia are close enough in history that yall consider it as one? Or is it a situation like Newfoundland in Canada where the people in Tasmania consider themselves different to the rest of their countrymen
@@Epidombe Mainlanders like to joke about Tasmanians being inbred, but as someone from central Australia, most Australians feel like they come from a different country sometimes. I live 8 hours drive from one capital city, and it's a couple of days trips across deserts to get to either of the others. There are even different Australian accents, coming from different regions. Northern Aussies have a long drawl, somewhat like southern American accents, and the south Easterners tend to have a faster 'city-paced' speech pattern. I've been told the central accent is closest to the original British English accent, due to us being fairly isolated, but I'm not a linguist, so not sure how accurate that is.
Tasmania is beautiful, as most of Australia is, but the landscape is pretty harsh and unforgiving. Most people don't really consider it a holiday destination either, unless you really have a reason to go there such as visiting family or friends. There's even sailor lore about staying out of Bass Strait during December and January, so of course, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race takes place in late December to early January, going through the Strait. My cousin actually won his division on his third race.
So yes, Tassie is generally spoken of like a separate country, much in the same way as we talk about New Zealand being 'our' small Eastern Islands. It's an affectionate joke, because we know those crazy inbred Tasmanians are Aussies too.
@@Epidombe nah, I wouldn’t say we have that same type of divide like the one in Canada you mentioned. It’s just a different state that comes with mild differences.
@@MsJazbren got it! Thanks for the details! Always interested in learning new things
Thank you for the episode!! Really well narrated and compiled. Proud Taswegian here: The terrain and vegetation *thickness* of that part of the West Coast has to be seen to be believed. You *cant* walk through it - its a total screen from the ground to the canopy. Then add sheer cliffs, chasms, gorges, escarpments and valleys. I was surprised to learn Pearce made it as far as Jericho.
Apart from mispronouncing several place names
He made it to Jericho !! wow, all the way to the Middle East ! Incredible !
It is a beautiful and savage part of the isle. We drove from Hobart to Strachan and saw Sarah island - the world heritage area on the way was gorgeous but you wouldn’t want to be lost in there….
@@brendanquinn6894 Just wait until you figure out that there's a place in Tasmania called the "walls of Jerusalem"...
Interesting fact...the first police force in Australia was made up of the best behaved criminals.
Not so behaved in the US
@@thriftyoutdoorsman7860 cry
And kidnapped females forced into prostitution by the ship load...!!!!
you christian fascists will cry @@KeganGardner
@@KeganGardner so fucking lame dude
I live on Tasmania - and the bush they walked through is savage beyond belief (see SBS’s version of Alone to get an idea). Pierce wasn’t the only escapee from Sarah Is who was accused of cannibalism, there were a small handful who were rumoured to have, eaten their fellow escapees. Pierce was simply the most famous, him being caught with the thigh meat in a sack on a beach near the modern day village of Strahan. Great vid!!
Yes, I watched that Alone series. They had some pretty experienced outdoors people and none of them would have lasted long term.
Normal Alone Esp 3 day 50. Tasmania Esp 12 day 5. That was rough.
I saw a doc on UK TV ages ago and names escape me but didn't the thigh meat guy also have cheese in the sack too, meaning he started eating his friend before the food ran out?
Siberians escape from gulags, called taking an extra prisoner for food! Taking a sandwich!😅
Scary Interesting: "Getting sent to Australia was a small step down from getting the death penalty."
Me, an Australian: "Accurate."
Uhh ya. After seeing the barren wildlands there and seeing how incompetent your politicians are...
Uhh I am in total agreement!
Sorry :*/
Me as an Australian.
Love it
Love me country.
❤
how do you feel about Raygun? 😭😭
Fuck off home then! I wasn’t born in Australia but I love this country, I am Australian
Considering that breakdancing is as popular here as vegimite is in America I reckon she done her best and now it's taken off there's 3 people doing it it's not a sport it was just a demonstration at the Olympics and they had already declared that it wasn't going to be at the next Olympics and most Aussies couldn't give a fuck about breakdancing it's gay as fuck😊@@mishaa7263
I grew up in Tassie and its definitely got a dark vibe. It's very cold a lot of the time, rains, and it has a grim history of prisons, cannibalism, killing all the indigenous people, killing all the Tasmanian Tigers, more recently the Port Arthur massacre (worst mass shooting in Australian history). At the same time, its wilderness is incredibly unique and beautiful.
Don't forget about those locals you killed off. Last I heard is they don't even wanna go back to the island after what your people did.
@@rydz656 They literally put killing the indigenous peoples in their comment.
Awfully aggressive considering you're directing that comment at an individual who had no connection to those massacres or acts other than the location of their birth.@@rydz656
leftist @@rydz656
@@James-kv6kb as someone with first hand experience, they definitely are
A couple of things:
1. Transportation was a horrific, inhuman punishment in and of itself. People were shackled in the ship's hold under conditions similar to that of the Transatlantic slave trade. The First Fleet of 1788 was at sail for 252 days. Conditions were even worse on the Second Fleet of 1790, even though the journey was shorter for most. The most infamous of the Second Fleet ships, the Neptune, was at sail 159 days. *Overall, the Second Fleet had a convict mortality rate of 40%.* Those still alive were in such poor condition on arrival, it was said in one contemporary account that the convicts were picked up and _thrown_ ashore, "like sacks of flour".
2. About Tasmania's convicts being the "worst of the worst"... _that depends a lot on what your idea of a dangerous person is._ Neither Britain, nor Australia's anglophile establishment, would go out of their way to tell you that a significant cohort of Tasmanian convicts were _political prisoners._ But that is the truth. A lot of the people sent to Port Arthur were Irish rebels and English Chartists. Some Americans ended up there, as well. William Gates was born in New York in 1816, but took part in the Canadian rebellion against British rule in 1837-38. He was transported to Van Diemen's Land along with some 200 other Americans, British-Canadians and French-Canadians in the years 1838-40. Gates was pardoned in 1845, but it wasn't until 1848 that he was able to return to the United States.
I looked up their crimes on the convict archive and was shocked and deeply saddened at what I'd learned, as the majority of them were convicted to hard labour for stealing food and clothes. There were even charges of people convicted for stealing a hanky or a toolbox. One of my ancestors was a 16 year old Irish girl from Belfast who was transported in 1850 for stealing clothes. Imagine a girl that young without parents doing 7 years of hard labour. It was a miracle she'd survived at all. 😢
That's a coincidence, @@where_is_my_slippers... one my seven-times-great grandmothers was _also_ a girl who stole clothes, and sent out on the Lady Juliana in 1790! Mary Wade was eleven years old when she was pent. The judge at her trial had the audacity to suggest that her crime was "fully equivalent to Highway Robbery", and had sentenced her to hang. But the sentence was commuted in 1789 to "transportation for life" as part of celebrations of a remission in King George III's insanity.
Your mortality rate for the second fleet is a little off.
Unless you include those who died on land after disembarkation. Which might be valid if it weren't Australia with all its inherent dangers.
@@brucelownhole: Of 928 male convicts on Neptune, Scarborough and Surprize, 26 per cent _died on the voyage_ and nearly 40 per cent were dead _within six months of their arrival_ in the colony. I think it's reasonable to assume people who are so weak that they have to be picked up and _thrown ashore_ were damaged by the experience. But it is definitely the case that people died immediately upon being brought ashore, this is what contemporary accounts attest. Refeeding syndrome wasn't described by medical science until after WWII.
Australia has its share of natural dangers, but the hazards are often exaggerated. The overwhelming majority of the deaths in the Sydney Cove colony 1788-1792 were due to three waves of epidemic disease, which most likely arrived with the convicts, rather than being acquired in Australia. It is also noted in contemporary records that the indigenous people of the area (Gadigal) died in large numbers, with symptoms that sound very much like measles.
Ah, yes, the English establishment, a shining example of humanity...
I think being sent to Australia in the 1700s would be punishment enough. At least the prison walls protect you from the snakes, crocs, sharks, and yes... jellyfish.
You might change your mind after watching
They don’t protect you from some man love
@@ScaryInteresting you were correct. A snake got one though.
@@ScaryInterestingI’m hearing noises from the inside of my walls
@@CodyB27 It's snakes working their way through to get you anyway.
I went to austrailia in 2017 with my family. When we got to immigration in Perth Airport the agent asked my mother's boyfriend if he had a criminal record, to which he responded "no, I didn't realise that was still a requirement". The agent didn't find it nearly as funny as we did.
They probably hear that everyday so it's not funny
That’s hilarious.
Gold!!!🤣🤣
No, it's still funny.
Loooooool
Imagine an escapee being happy he escaped a brutal prison just to end up in the Australian wilderness
That's the point - there is no actual escape from such places without outside help.
@@ceu160193 You can, but that needs skills nearly no one has, basically only the natives had them at the time.
Super common at the time since electricity didn’t exist to help monitor, and when night fell all you had were lanterns, candles and a prayer that all the cells were locked. Even now those remote ones persist. Russia has prisons in the tundra where you’ll freeze long before you find civilization. Syria has (had?) Tadmor Military Prison, built at the time 200 miles from Damascus, separated just by desert.
The worst one to me is Alcatraz because it was almost like a dare to see if the prisoners would try and die. I mean, imagine a hundred years ago, you see mainland just 1.5 miles away. You’re a great swimmer. You escape and jump in. Then you go into shock and die from the freezing water, because the prison was one of the first to give hot showers. It seemed like a luxury but it was to prevent people from building up a cold tolerance.
There’s also open air prisons, like one in the Philippines just 9 miles from the capital. Twice the size of Paris, it’s contained with just a fence and 3 armed guards. I figured it was 9 miles of like… dangerous wilderness but nope. People stay because most aren’t max prisoners so they can work, gaining the prison money that in turn helps prisoner living conditions. Plus the guards apparently treat them far more humanely.
It’s really interesting to see how prisons had to be built back in the days before electronic door locks, cameras and lights.
@Cris-em9tn it's still insane to me a handful of people escape Alcatraz.
@@bickyboo7789 They built improvised raft, knowing that swimming is not an option.
Urm.. I'm from the UK. People were sent to Australia for stealing bread as a first offence. They flogged a 5 yr old for stealing a lump of coal.
They have records of it.
Yes, the worst of the worse were kept in the UK, most that came to Australia were what we would call today as petty criminals.
@streddaz 👍
Yes . Grotesque . Horrific . . How the boob who made this managed to miss that when the information is more than readily available I simply cannot imagine .
@@streddaz - Many wouldn't be defined as criminals at all , now .
A lump, no less...I remember reading that once. They took almost any option to get 'low-born sorts' out of their hair.
It's actually pretty clear that transportation was used against Irish Catholics for first offences. It was a colonial strategy to pacify Ireland. It's extremely well documented so old mate probably wasn't in and out of trouble his whole life and got transportation the first time he was pinched.
His recorded behaviour onwards would indicate otherwise.....
In the Late 18TH Century a Person could be Executed for 220 Offences most of these Offences are Property related.
@@whiterabit09 Recidivism is a helluva thing.
That’s an awful thing to have happen then. Yeesh
Cromwell ordered all Irish Catholics to reside west of the Shannon river, under threat of massacre. The war and migration caused massive population disorganisation and breaking up of families, clans, inheritance and land ownership series:
"The Irish were told ‘To Hell or to Connaught!’ It was the greatest act of ethnic cleansing in the British Isles since the Norman Conquest. By the end of 1656 four fifths of the Irish land was in Protestant hands. When Catholics fought back,
in guerrilla groups numbering some 30,000 Cromwell's generals forcibly evicted civilians who were thought to be helping the resisters and systematically burned the area's crops and killed all livestock. Famine followed, exacerbated by
bubonic plague. Three years on, a fifth of the population had died." (Vallely, Paul, “The Big Question: Was Cromwell a revolutionary hero or a genocidal war criminal?”)
Wolfe Tone (Irish hero) organised seven unsuccessful Revolutionary French invasions of Ireland and Britain around the 1890s. If they didn't half-hang them then rip out their hearts, then burn their intestines, then decapitate them, the British tended to send 'revolutionaries' to Australia, and treated as revolutionaries anyone trying to organise among the lower classes. There were many many attempts at revolt in Britain and Ireland, but most people are unaware of them since history is written by the victors. (See a detailed history of revolts in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England and French Canada in Sheila Newman, Land-tenure and the Revolution in Democracy and Birth-Control in France (2023). The Irish were particularly persecuted. treated as a defective ethnic group.
A member of my family line was transported in 1835 for seven years for stealing a live tame duck. Some years before, he had spent time in prison for a vicious attack on another man. His convict records show that he was quite a trouble-maker even while he was in Tasmania. Those convict records can tell you all sorts of things that no other records could possibly do - the height of individuals, their eye colour, and so on.
Take as opposed to a wild, beastly duck?
@@alecianewman4226 Attitudes were much different back then and the court records describe the duck as live and tame. In other words, it was someone's property and part of their livelihood, thus a serious crime, especially when you consider people were transported to the penal colonies for even stealing loaves of bread.
I remember watching a documentary where two spanish prisions were mentioned. One was in Granada during the middle ages (i think) and the other one was more modern. In the first one, prisioners were thrown into a big vertical entrance cave without almost any sunlight, only some food was dropped once every few days. And nobody who entered there ever escaped. The other one was related to mercury mining. A tunnel was made from the prision to the mine, in order for the prisioners to not see the sun on their way to the mine. They didnt see sunlight ever again after they entered the prision. And people went crazy because of mercury getting to their brains. Maybe you can do a video about them
The mercury mine tunnel is probably where the term "Never to see the light of day again" came from.
Isn't that the intro to The Dark Knight?
@Jadix the dark knight isn't real...its just a person's imagination...the Spanish prisons are real however. So it would be the other way around...the dark knight stole that info from history. BTW I really hate all these comics come dumb movies...but that's just my opinion
@@stuartfishman719the dark knight isn’t real? i’m pretty sure you can see chicago in most of those scenes, which is a real city, so i’m not sure why you’re so confident
@rollinburket confident? About what? You can't seriously be telling me you think the dark knight is real! Batman is a stupid cartoon character, like all those dumb comic "superhero" wankers. Dude, a reality check...cartoons aren't real.
As an Aussie, I can honestly tell you this is the first time I have heard the term “Tasmanian Outback”. Us Aussies know the Tasmanian outback as the “Tassie Wilderness”.
The real Aussie outback is found on the mainland, not on Tassie.
Moving forward, thank you for posting this video. I have learnt a little more about my Island home.
I thought the same when I heard that too, I'm an Aussie as well. Have you heard the song about this story called A tale they won't believe by Aussie band Weddings, Parties Anything?
Same thing lol
The great Tasmanian Outback 🥴 made me cringe!
Also not the "uninhabited" outback
Hey, thanks for doing a video based on my suggestion! I wasn't sure there was enough information to do a full length video, but I'm glad you were about to find out more about it!
I live in Tasmania and can imagine how hard it would have been back in those times. The west coast of Tasmania is very rough and rugged and, in those days, the only way to get there was by ship. The bush can be impenetrable at times with horizontal scrub being the curse of early explorers. Tasmania doesn't really have that much in the way of fauna that it all that dangerous. There are 3 types of snakes that are venomous but they will leave you alone if you leave them alone and that's about it. Unless you had the knowledge of the Aboriginals, finding food would be very difficult for a European.
The movie Van Diemen's Land is based on this story.
I am danish and our Queen is from Tasmania which makes it danish clay and mine. Praise me.
Any ideas where can I find that movie? I’m in the US and can’t find a way to stream it
@@frejalassen1549you have got it mistaken, Denmark is now an Australian territory and the first shipment of convicts will arrive in the coming weeks
@@bubbafromCT hope u find it it's a good movie,its a dark slow burn but the cinematography is stunning
Only been to Tassie once and I remember lots of caves and it's cold as hell! I'm from Melbourne
Alex lived a miserable existence whether he was in or out of society. His exile from society was foreseeable, as was his impulses to escape and defy, but I don't think anyone imagined he would be a cannibal. It's sad that these two escapes were his only legacy, if not for him, nobody would have a clue what happened to the other prisoners who escaped.
He told the truth though. He said he ate his friends and no one believed him. They thought he was covering for run aways
there is a movie about that subject, based on a escaped convicts diary... I think.
@@cypherglitch The film is: Van Diemens Land (2009), and the original documentary film is: The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce (2008). Both won several awards. Personally, the 2008 one is the better of the two but both are well worth seeking out. The 2009 film has scenes spoken in Irish Gaelic, so look for copies with hardcoded subtitles.
As a former Victorian police officer and historian I would like to point out transportation was MOSTLY used for petty crimes.
👍
Agreed! My ancestors were sent here for essentially B&E, but that wasn't the norm.
It could be used (and was!) for something as petty as complaining to the Castle in Dublin when some planter stole your plot of land. They were doing this as far back as the time of James I.
@@Polit_Burro theft as a servant, a girl 17, stole a handkerchief and wound up in Victoria Australia
As a Brit, I read this as you were a police officer from the Victorian era (1800's) 😂 Was about to question it when common sense prevailed
Oooooh you should talk about the Separate Prison in Port Arthur.
Instead of physical punishment, prisoners were instead put through psychological torture of near constant isolation.
They had to stay in cells for 23 hours a day, and when they were let out they had to wear a hood to hide their face and weren't allowed to communicate with anyone. They were given a number upon incarceration and no longer called by their name. They even put mats on the floor to muffle footsteps.
Apparently a lot of prisoners went mad. Absolutely terrifying!
And the special chapel, that had seperate little standing spots, where they couldn’t see the person standing less that a foot away each side, in front, or behind. All they could see what the Chaplain… It broke many, many men. The Asylum was right next door….
That's a prison similar to Russian one
ADX Australia
That place has the most disgusting vibe I’ve ever experienced
There were at least 4 horrible fates in here, this came as an all-in-one ;) Great story telling as always and also loved the illustrations, some of them were in a style I see for the first time in your videos. Hope to see more in the future, loved them
YES!! I have been waiting all weekend for this!
Edit: I think the cannibalism was just a means to survive the first time around. The second time I think may have been kind of the same situation but by that point Alex was okay with cannibalism because he had done it before and it was better than starving. It may have had some impact on him sociologically the first time also which drove him to doing it again so easily.
I agree. I think one of the worst parts of cannibalism is the line that has to crossed to get there. But once it's crossed, there is no going back. So the second time he had no line to cross to commit the act.
@@brianshissler3263maybe the worst part of cannibalism was the friends he made along the way
@@stevenbenson9976friends which he later ate 💀
@@brianshissler3263 Also, since we know it was Alex telling the story every time, you see some distancing with how he blames Robert the most. Alex very well could have been the one who was obsessed with the killings after the first time. He could have become addicted to cannibalism due to the stress of having to survive, much like how he was addicted to committing crimes.
There’s actually a protein that humans produce that when eaten by another human makes them crazy and become more inclined to resort to more cannibalism. At least that’s what I’ve heard, not sure where, but it makes sense.
I was born in Stanley Tasmania, my memories are mostly of the freezing cold winds , it has the cleanest air in the world 😃
My family are pioneering families “Blake” and “Anderson” are from Stanley,forrest and circular head.
I'm from Michigan, USA. When visiting Tasmania all I could think about was how great the air quality was. The south end of South Bruny island was the best air I may have ever breathed. Beautiful place you call home.
And me i thought it was hot there
@@TheBogdanator what made you think it was hot there ?
@@janbasterfield8200 Because it's right next to Australia??
My 5th Great Grandfather ended up in Tasmania. He was in his late 50s when he arrived. His children had previously immigrated to Australia to work on sheep farms as there was no work to be had at home. He had stayed in the UK with his wife. After she died he wanted to be with his children so had the brilliant idea to commit a crime to get sent over for free. He ended up in Tasmania, spent 8 years indentured and then he had to get his way up to New South Wales where his children were. He didn't realise how large Australia was.
If you are ever down at Strahan you can do a tour of Sarah Island and the old penal settlement.
Man you’ve been reading me the best bedtime stories for over a year now
So cosy
The perfect example of how violence breeds violence. Cruelty towards people in prison doesn't work and just makes things worse. It isn't worth it.
Half measures never work, gotta go all the way all the time
I mean, it’s not like Alex wasn’t given several chances. It sounds like he had numerous opportunities to spend his sentence being productive in some manner and keep his nose clean. I was actually surprised at how lenient the British prison system seemed to be, only really punishing you after you had royally fucked up. I mean, apart from the whole shipping to Australia process.
Exactly! The prison tortured & starved them. I don’t blame them for stealing food & escaping. They were probably losing their minds too. It’s terrible.
@@sa-amirel-hayeed699There are better ways of handling criminals besides torturing & starving them. Prison should be about rehabilitation, especially for nonviolent offenders & anyone who is released back into society. Instead, they’re criminalized & commit worse offenses upon release. Prison should not be a private for-profit business.
Or MAYBE criminals will always be criminals
I love your content great storytelling!!
It's so awesome seeing one of my favourite youtube channels do a video on my home state 😊
Thank you for sharing the stories of some of these convicts, it's an untold part of history!
Tasmania actually had an indigenous population that was wiped out... I'll say no more here and leave you to research yourselves, need to say Tasmania has lots of stories worth telling!
Edit: If you visit Tasmania you can actually visit the main prison which is Port Arthur, it has been turned into a big tourist establishment that you can pay entry to visit. They run ghost tours, have a big Katamaran boat that ferries you around the bay the prison sits in, showing you various landmarks and an island that they would shackle prisoners to, you can do a tour of the island.
Port Arthur is also the site of the biggest mass shooting in Australian history, 1996, 35 people killed and a huge conspiracy behind the shooting.
Just a tiny bit of info on this little island state that is stuck 25+ years in the past!
Second edit: the fact that any of them made it further than a few miles is incredible, the part of the state they trekked across is still uninhabitable and inaccessible. The bush here is angry, thick, it gets extremely cold. It's nothing like the mainland Australia you see in the movies.
You can visit Sarah Island too. You take a cruise from Strahan. Gorgeous place with fascinating history.
One thing it doesn’t mention is just how head to toe covered in leeches they would have been in this part of Tassie.
I grew up near here and visited the Sarah Island site in 2021. Pretty creepy vibes just walking around the island seeing the old building ruins. Some of the escape attempts are truely legendary. Trying to escape out into the ocean via boat you have to go through an inlet called ‘Hells Gates’ because of how incredibly dangerous and rough the sea is here.
Maybe do a story on Buckley- such an incredible feat of survival after escape that to this day it's a common phrase that someone has Buckley's chance, as a way of describing something that's all but impossible
I don’t know how exposed you are to survival stories involving cannibalism, but there’s pretty clear evidence that to some people it becomes addictive. Not physically, but psychologically.
So I can believe that the first time was on the escape adventure and Robert convinced him it was necessary. From there, he probably got afflicted with some slight form of wendigo psychosis. Then, when left alone with the dead body of someone in the wilderness, it overcame him.
It fits because there are several other examples who took every opportunity to eat people instead of other options in the wild but stopped once they rejoined civilization. Many of them described having cravings while also protesting that it was only for survival when there were clearly other food sources available.
It’s also possible he might have gotten PTSD from the experiences of his escape attempt and going back into the bush shoved him right back into that mind set.
What evidence is there that it's addictive?
@@eadweard. Well, for one, it's pretty much what wendigo psychosis is.
What we do have documented is mostly anecdotal, unfortunately, as most of the time the cannibal was the last survivor or everyone participated and the group was unwilling to openly discuss what all happened. The Colorado cannibal, the two guys from the Donner party, and Sean Bean and his clan all reached points where they would rather eat a human than any other meat.
Thinking it over, addictive might be the wrong word but I'm not sure what word would be closer.
The movie ”Van Demons Land” is based on this story and in the movie it suggests that the prisoners did become addicted to human meat.
I think it's more that when the second time rolled around, he'd already done it once so the taboo had been broken and it just seemed like the obvious choice to him rather than starve or try to wait and look some more because having been there before, he already knew nothing was really there to eat.
The natives practiced cannibalism as a basis of revenge on other tribes - the same as New Guinea tribes - it was a common survival habit too!
Some of the men and women arrested in Britain and given the choice between life in Australia or death, chose death.
That shows you just how horrifying being sent to Australia was as a punishment.
It was like being sent to Mars. You knew you would never ever ever see your loved ones again.
Not that it’s a competition between who had it worse. But imagine being a girl sentenced to transportation. Being raped, being pregnant, no help, maybe no midwife, trying to feed your children, all the while being told you’re wicked and going to hell because of your lasciviousness
Why would they choose death unless they were depressed and had no hope
I'm scared of tiny non venomous north American spiders, golly gee I wonder why.
@Scary Interesting, you should have a look at the Mütter Museum in Pennsylvania. It preserves the remains of people who had uniquely scary interesting things happen to them.
The complete collection of horrible fates 💀☠️
We know that humans can survive a lot longer than they did without food, the fact he started eating someone after 3 days is very telling, that it was something more deep seated.
well, seems like these criminals were not the sharpest people ever, far from it
@@mabeSc I don't think being unintelligent makes you eat people faster.
@@Alex-cw3rz i link not knowing the basics on survival and the group being more worried about being caught (and violence) as unintelligent
@@Alex-cw3rz 🤣
Thats crazy there wasn't anything to eat out there
I live in Tasmania (Tassie) and it’s the most gorgeous place. I’ve lived elsewhere before but I’ve always come back home. So cool being an avid viewer of this channel and watching this video about my island home ❤
Gday fellow Tasmanian! Yes, there is something about our island home that draws us back. I’ve lived all around the mainland, been overseas, and always just knew I’d come home. We are cut from a different cloth here. The pride we feel when we see a video on our island is shared by most Tasmanians. And we all get our hackles up when the mainlanders have a crack at our home out of ignorance. It seems to be bred into us.
I love being Tasmanian, so proud of our beautiful home!
Great work mate!
It’s an interesting story about our dark past.
Proud to be an Aussie, and both of my ancestors were in chains when they 1st came to Australia for their one way holiday.
Cheers from 🇦🇺 ❤😊
You are colonizers. The land belongs to the indigenous people of Australia.
@@QueenZ444not really? If they were sent in chains how were they colonizers? That’s like calling the Irish republicans who got sent there for fighting against the British colonizers?
G'day, just as an aussie myself I've always found it weird that the soil in Tasmania is so nutrient rich that the average height of convicts increased by half a foot within a couple of generations of being there. Like if you had the choice to live out your days in a miserable, war torn, overfarmed prison island or come to Australia where sure there's danger but the tucker is alright, which would be the better option? 🤔
I’m confused. Are you using Tasmania and Australia interchangeably? If Tasmanian soil is so rich in nutrients is that the horrible island?
Loads of Irish republicans got sent over there so I presume they hated the isolation of it. Think about it, you’re sent to the other side of the world.
@@alanofarrell7658with no beer
3:19 just a heads up Scary Interesting, as a 33yo Aussie male, Macquarie is pronounced Mac-Quarry like a quarry of stone, not mackery. Although it's said with no emphasis on the Mac, so it sounds like Muh-Quarry to native Aussies
My new favorite channel! More super sus disappearances, please! No one tells those stories as well as you!
Idea for a video! The 2021 Texas freeze. I moved to Texas a few weeks after the storm had come thru and struggled to comprehend that people died from the cold in this day and age. Over 200 deaths attributed to the storm I believe.
Yup!
That's what modern crapitalism will do to ya!
South Texas almost never freezes. When it does get cold, its almost always from high pressure systems coming from the North. Gets cold, but very little moisture to freeze. I've only seen icing and snow 4 times in 38 years down here. It was different that year. More importantly, Texas' electrical grid is separate from the rest of the country- specifically to avoid federal regulation. Not surprisingly, very few of the power plants and infrastructure were protected against freezing conditions. Those plants and lines failed and heating was cut off from thousands of homes. Even more depressingly, a number of the deaths are attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning from people running gas generators inside their homes.
I go camping in the Colorado mountains every year. A few years ago there was a freak early freeze down to the high teens with 2 feet of snow dropping overnight after the previous day's high of 70F. That was cold, but it was nothing like 2021. I've never felt anything like that before or since. When an arctic storm gets thrown into near tropical swamps, its some serious business.
Because people in this region aren't prepared for cold of that magnitude or length. That means our buildings, utilities, etc aren't set up to withstand extended freezing temps or temperature dropping so low in a short amount of time. Everything along the gulf coast is prepared for extreme heat, flooding, long rains, humidity- things of that nature. When it comes to a choice between the two, we do what fits our climate 99.99% of the time, not spend a bunch extra or make things more complicated on the off chance that that odd circumstance may occur. This is the same reason why when it's freezing for awhile, we sometimes cancel school. Our school uses can't travel roads that may have ice patches, we have portable classrooms and some older buses that don't have adequate heating and many of us don't own winter coats and accessories meant for being out in the cold for awhile, like sending your child to wait for the bus in the morning, etc. But that's why we build those days into our school Cale because we often have adverse weather, it's just usually flooding or heavy rain that won't stop.
That storm got my car totaled from a hit-and-run rear ender while I was seeking shelter.
@@injusticeanywherethreatens4810 it was Elon Musk that summoned the storm he uses his spaceX rockets to put chemicals into the atmosphere that caused the storm.
I would love for this channel to cover some of the feral people stories/ conspiracies about our national parks and such! Your narration is amazing!!
YES!!!
Well researched. I've only seen Pearce's final confession and his Convict Record, held in the Tasmanian Library system, doesn't really say much. Having read a lot of early 19th Century Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) documentation, including hand written journals, I have been saddened at how minor an offense could get one exiled from British society, and also encouraged at how, in the best scenario, being sent away from the Old Country was actually a positive step for a number of people - a new start. Cheers!
Oh my god someone is talking about Aus?! Very excited Aussie here!!
But I knew before clicking, this is about Sarah Island, that place is THE WORST. I've been there, and it's as isolated a place as you can imagine. It's freezing, and the winds come straight from the Antarctic, and then they made it worse by the horrible living conditions and torture they were subjected to by the brutal punishments the British inflicted on them.
Australia is a beautiful country, I love my home very much! but she's unforgiving that's for sure.
My father took my son there on a cruise, it is still eirie even though it's abandoned, Hell's Gate looks like the point of no return! 😱
I am working at a ski resort in UT and we just got 3’ of snow overnight! I have had an insane day and needed this 24 minute break to reset today! Thank you for the much needed distraction ❤🙏❤
Iowa here, we got 12" on Tuesday and 14" on Friday, it's currently -10 and sunny lol
Crazy to think both how far we have come in 200 years and yet how much things stay the same.
I thought you were going to say , "Got 3' of snow overnight and cannibalized a guest. Lol.
Ive been to sarah island on a historical tour. The stories we heard were crazy
Love the channel man well done keep up with the great work bro Cheers
Cheers!
Major withdrawals right now, very grateful for these videos
Been there. Idk what yr detoxing from, but if its opiates suboxone helped me. I have almost 11 years off of opiates.
Loving your channel Sean, I always give a 👍🏻 now before the video even starts because I just KNOW it’s going to be good!…..thank you…… ❤❤❤❤
I also give a thumbs up before watching
Me too.
I love your historical cases..amongst other things I love about your channel ❤😊 the intro tune being what I love most lol
💙❤💜
I'm Australian and I've subbed just recently, so it's cool to learn some dark history about our people 🇦🇺
@23:30...me, watching this in Scranton PA...that's only 2 hours away 😮
From where?
I was in Hershey PA recently and i was thinking the same thing
Im in tobyhanna pa right now... got me thinking
Right. I'm in williamsport. Mad close
Love your videos. Keep em coming!
I’m a Tasmania native….some of these comments are so funny 😂😂. Love the channel
Australia in the early days was a difficult struggle for settlers and convicts. There were no roads, water was often scarce and to this day, the weather is often droughts or floods. Bush fires were common and snakes are very venomous.
Thanks
My convict ancestor spent 15hr days at Macquarie Harbour cutting timber in chains, they only had tents as shelter and rarely had proper food! That timber was Australia's first export industry!
This is the best channel on RUclips 😊❤🎉
he's got heaps of things wrong. you must not be Australian
7:11 how do you embezzle two turkeys and a duck? How does poultry even have the disposable income to get scammed out of? 🤔😅
He bought things and put them on their bills
*rimshot
@@JoeMama-fl9fb bdm tsh 🥁 😅
Very gripping story. I'd love to hear your narration on the DB Cooper hijacking/escape in the early 1970's.
I love your channel! You have a wonderful narrative voice that is very pleasant to listen to, awesome job on your latest video! Thank you so much for all that you do; you are appreciated! Love from the USA ❤❤❤
I think this might be your best one yet. It's a cool story, there is an element of history but also of mystery and we're left wondering who the real Alex was.
Hi there 👋🏽🤗 and thanks for making my morning 🌄.
Hey, great content 👌.
I would suggest you check
1833 Port Arthur in Tasmania. It has a history of brutal punishments.
Cheers
Your videos are awesomely interesting, keep it up
Used to give ghost tours at a tourist site in Launceston that were themed around Sarah Island and some of its stories. Truly chilling stuff.
Also as a Tasmanian and huge fan of the channel, I'm chuffed to see one of the greatest anime crossovers of all time. Always get a warm feeling when out little Island state and it's rich history get a look in from people around the globe (we get left off most world maps)
I can’t with these constant ads anymore man, I just can’t. I’ve watched every one of your videos at this point and I mainly watch while trying to fall asleep and this channel has so many interrupting ads that I have to constantly fully wake up after nearly falling asleep and wait for the skip button. I’ve not met another channel that has so many interruptions as this one. Could you not just do a longer ad at the beginning and end? I get you financially rely on youtube’s monetization but is it worth pushing away long-time and repeat viewers?
I shouldn’t have to pay for RUclips premium just to watch your videos at night, plus anyone within their right mind would never pay for RUclips premium
I would love more stories like this. Australians and that part of the world have the most unique wildlife and origins. Great presentation. Personally, I think version #4 was most accurate. He confessed to priest and seemed to want to turn his life around and fulfill his sentence to move on. Version #4 was like purging of his sins.
G'day Mate, I am a descendant of an Irishman who was charged as an "Irish Rebel" who received a free trip to Australia & a 7 year sentence, He arrived in Australia on the
09/09/1823 & served out his time on several properties in & around Sydney. After serving his sentence he went into farming & then shipping until his death in 1866, I suppose he
was a founding member of the IRA because his brother was also captured & deported to Australia around the same time, LOL.
The IRA didn't exist in those days.
Your voice is my favorite for these types of stories
I've visited Tasmania many times ...even today it's like a mini Siberia ...freezing cold, covered in forest (especially the NW) .... Went there for work in summer .... Was +30c one week then -10 the next ...bushfires turned into snowfall in the middle of our summer. Its truly a wild place.
Also an extra tidbit .... There was recently an incident there where a bunch of kids were blown away by gale force winds in a bouncy castle and fell to their deaths :(
Wow, that's such an interesting and macabre story... Living in Australia now and shocked by the facts...
Fyi there's no outback in Tasmania. Outback refers to the more desert like areas further north. Not to say that Tasmanian bush would be a walk in the park for someone lost, it's just not called outback
It's called the Wilderness or Wild West! 😄
I love how this video started out with its title most brutal prison in Australian history then turns into the interesting story about Alexander Pearce. But nice content keep it up!
The Tasmanian wilderness to this day is barely explored. People disappear there without a trace.
What theories are given to disappearance?
Yowies
Yowies
@@lisaperry5999 In the Australian outback the most dangerous thing to come across is other people. You can go for days without seeing anyone else despite being on the only road through the area. Police and help from others is hours if not days away. People do and get away with a lot in the country.
@@saintevo6953
Ty for answering I live in the states midwest. Country.
Most interesting. I watched this after watching the film Van Diemens Land. Subscribed.
Tasmanian outback? As an Australian we do not call it this... it is, the wilderness... the outback is the mainland my dude.
Tasmania has a population of a few million people.... and only four last names.
Lol only four last names! Ha!
@whiterabit09 It's OK though. They don't know how to count so they think there's lots.
Nobody cares
Nobody cares About your input@@josephhill3716
Great episode 👍
WORST CRIMINALS ??? My great grandmother x5 was 13 and stole a candle stick holder it wasnt able to the crime they wanted slave labor
Where I grew up is about 50m from where Alex lived in Ireland, this story is a local legend and there was a film made about it
I’m one of the 4-in-5 Aussies who is NOT descended from convicts. Every single one of my ancestors came here as free settlers, between 1835 and 1870. I’m almost disappointed !!!! 🤣💖
I’m from Adelaide and I always joke to my Victorian friends that there were no convicts in SA
But that’s probably good proof that Tasmanians can swim
For anyone who finds this at all interesting, seek out and read 'The Fatal Shore' by Robert Hughes. It's a riveting and exceptionally well written history of Australia's orgins as a penal colony. It's full of many absolutely brutal testimonials of both the punishments of the penal system, as well as the often fuitle attempts to simply survive in such an unforgiving and vast wilderness. It's probably one of the best historical books, at least that ive read,and its a gas to read, the type of book you don't want to finish.
Sounds fascinating! Thank you for the recommendation!!
I'd also recommend 'For The Term Of His Natural Life'. The main character does actually get sent to Sarah Island and escapes and the author borrowed some of the events of this video for that part of the story. Sarah Island is just one part of the character's journey but it's so interesting.
Great writer and art critic. Unfortunately had a bad car accident that nearly killed him.
@@ellaeadig263actually?
Just watching your video Sean and wanted to say how interesting this is to listen to.
Been really ill in bed for three days, then you post this, brilliant. 💜 💜
I wish you a speedy recovery!❤️🩹
Love these documentaries and mysteries 👌
I say anyone who managed to escape these types of prisons deserved to be pardoned.
Yeah, and you could make a reality tv show of their escapes from this prison island, and we could all sit back and watch The Condemned.
I love those costum animation you guys do for some parrts to explain things better, i love seeing the videos instead of listening , so stuff like that are great
Alex was definitely a deeply troubled person. Good video, thanks for sharing.
Was he troubled or just pragmatic? I’m Tasmanian, my ancestors were in these prisons. I know the descendent of Alex and he is a lovely person. It has been 6 generations though.
@@Catiecatiecatiecaful Dang wow
There is a movie about this story called Van Diemen’s Land. It mixes all four confessions together & has some stunning screenplay.
Thank you for covering an aspect of my island state. You should look into the story of Trugannini and Tasmanian Aboriginals as a balance to this story. I appreciate you telling the story of the convicts but Tasmanian History (especially Fanny Cochrane who recorded the only language record we have) should be looked at.
It is absolutely a much more compelling tale than Alexander Pearce.
@Catiecatiecatiecaful. You know you are watching a channel called scary interesting not the history channel.🤣
maybe you could do that story?
@@KadeniteI could set up Scary Interesting to interview and talk with Tasmanian First Nation activists that I know. That could be a great story.
Love your voice love your content. Thank you keep up the good work.❤
Convicts were sent to America too. They were only sent to Australia because of the loss of the American colonies.
They didn't want to send them to Canada for fear of exacerbating political problems with the French population there.
I've been to Sarah Island. You can visit the ruins on a guided tour as part of a day cruise in the area. It really is a good spot for a prison, as the water is cold and even if you make it to land it's rugged, uninhabited wilderness in every direction. Even today you'd need to be an experienced hiker with the right gear to make it out the way they went.
Sad I didn't know about this channel sooner, happy that I can binge watch though🙃
Loved this tale. Really interesting.
Where's the best place to build a prison? Look for one of the most inhospitable places in the country, then make sure the penitentiary is extremely brutal to inhabit. (Re: Alcatraz). That's called a deterrent. Superb topic and video that makes one want to walk the straight and narrow.
Deterrents never work, no matter if it's prison or cutting off hands. Prison should be the absolute last option, not the starter punishment.
Unfortunate though for people imprisoned for being too poor to pay off debts.
@@juliajs1752 More like they always work. Fear is universal language understood even by most unhinged people.
@@consciousobserver629 I agree. There are flaws in the system. My heart goes out to people who do not have a lot of money and find themselves in criminal court. The deck is stacked against them.
@@juliajs1752 I agree with you that prison should be the last option. But deterrents never working? For most they do, I believe. Look at bank robberies. You rarely here about them currently because with today's technology it is almost impossible to rob a bank and not get caught, sooner or later. Plus, banks don't keep much cash in their institutions anymore, so the risk/reward isn't worth it.
I visited the ruins of Sarah Island last year. All very civilised, on a Franklin - Gordon river cruise with buffet breakfast with booze. A very interesting trip. The geography and vegetation are stunning.
I’m guessing you’ve watched the movie The Nightingale. If not, I recommend it for a glimpse of conditions in Tasmania back then.
The book and miniseries 'The Potato Factory' are also good ones.
This video is very well done. Bravo, Sir.
I do not believe a true psychopath would feel the same guilt about cannibalism as another person would. Even if they understood it to be wrong under normal circumstances, in extremis they would consider the continuation of their life more important that anyone elses.
I think we can assume, from this persons past history, that he had psychopathic traits.
You do understand that they did not know each other and you can eat for a couple of days in a row and not eat a meal for about a week before starvation symptoms kick in . In the Wild West people ate everything just to survive its human nature . To survive and sacrifice
Call me weird but I literally put a video on, and end up falling asleep to the narration. Something about it is strangely relaxing
Regardless of their status, those men sent to Australia were ones of the toughest men on earth.
The women who survived were even tougher