The Asterisk Guide to Pop Culture

4 Historical Bitches Who Better Have My Money

Rihanna is giving us all a lesson in financial responsibility this summer. She's put it in no uncertain terms: bitch better have her money. (Or else she'll drag you around in a trunk and torture/party with you.) And Rihanna's inspiring others. So far, Kelly Clarkson, Korn, and Miss Piggy have stepped forward to claim their money from various bitches.

It's nothing new; bitches have been having our money for centuries. Or at least, they better have been having our money for centuries. And we have some bad news for Rihanna: this doesn't usually end well. When a bitch has your money, you can expect bankruptcy, lawsuits, or even straight-up murder.Daniel Boone Doesn't Have Your Money Because He Hates Civilization

Daniel Boone was a rugged pioneer, explorer, and trapper known for blazing a trail to the American West. But he really wasn't good with money. In 1780, he headed to Virginia with about $45,000 to buy land permits for himself and his friends. He fell asleep at an inn, and woke up to find all the money missing. It sounds like the beginning of a cool frontier heist movie, but Boone went home disgraced and, in his own words, "destitute." Several of his (former) friends sued him.

After that, he stopped bothering with land permits altogether. Boone got into the habit of settling land, never officially claiming it, and then selling it. Sooner or later, the buyers would find out that someone else owned their land and sue him. So Boone had to sell all the land he actually did own to pay off his lawsuits.

After a few brief stints in the Virginia State Assembly, Boone decided he'd had it with civilized society and retreated back to his preferred forest-hermit lifestyle. He stayed afloat by selling bearskins and bear oil, and dodged his creditors. The county sheriff had orders to arrest him over a 300-pound debt at around the same time the Kentucky legislature was naming the neighboring county after him.

Boone moved to Missouri in 1799, because the population in Kentucky had grown to about 10 people per square mile, which he found "too crowded." He was able to more or less clear his debts by hunting beavers. No double entendres here: Boone bagged 200 beavers in a single hunt in 1802 . . . and that was after seriously injuring his hand in a beaver trap and having to hide in a cave for 20 days.

"Cassie L. Chadwick" Doesn't Have Your Money Because She's Scamming You

At the turn of the 20th century, Boston banker Herbert Newton was happy to loan almost $190,000 (at a delightfully high interest rate) to a woman named Cassie L. Chadwick. Chadwick was rumored to be Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter, and she had the (misspelled) promissory notes from him to prove it.

She borrowed massive sums of money, totalling around $633,000 ($16.5 million today). And she used it to buy . . . everything. A pipe organ, a "musical chair" that played a few notes when someone sat down, and a trunk full of pearls. Once, she bought eight pianos to give as gifts.

Newton grew suspicious of the woman they called "The Queen of Ohio." He wanted his $190k back, and he filed suit against Chadwick, who, by the way, was actually named Elizabeth Bigley-no relation to Andrew Carnegie whatsoever. And, surprise: she didn't have his money. She was arrested in New York in 1904 with $100,000 in cash strapped to her. Her scheme caused at least one bank to collapse, and she spent the rest of her life in jail.

Andrew Carnegie attended her trial, where he told everybody that this whole thing could've been prevented if someone had just bothered to call him.

Wild Bill Hickok Does Have Your Money But Would Prefer to Shoot You Instead

James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok is part of Old West lore thanks to a gambling debt. He owed his buddy, Davis Tutt, $35 (Or was it $25? They couldn't agree.) from a card game. That $10 difference was a big deal to Tutt, who found Wild Bill in a gambling hall in Springfield, Missouri in 1865 and snatched his pocketwatch as collateral.

Wild Bill was already known as Wild Bill then, but there were plenty of gunslingers with goofy nicknames drifting across the west. He wasn't particularly noteworthy-until July 21, 1865. Tutt and Hickok spent the whole day arguing about the debt and the watch. They even tried to hash it out over a glass of whiskey. It didn't work. Around 6 p.m., Tutt appeared in the Springfield town square, flaunting Hickok's precious watch. It was the last straw.

Hickok yelled "Don't you come across here with that watch!" but Tutt sauntered toward him anyway. As Tutt got closer, they both took out their pistols and fired-with Tutt's shot flying over Wild Bill's head, and Wild Bill hitting Tutt in the heart.

A jury later found Wild Bill innocent, concluding after only a few minutes of deliberation that it had been a fair fight. And that $10 dispute bought him a lifetime of publicity. Harper's New Monthly Magazine wrote an exaggerated profile of him, claiming that he'd killed 100 men and rode a magical horse. The article was a bestseller and Wild Bill became a frontier celebrity-the Rihanna of his time.

King Philip II of Spain Doesn't Have Your Money Because He Spent it All on Grain

Philip II shouldn't have had much trouble balancing Spain's budget in the 16th century. Gold was pouring in from territories in the New World. And yet, he somehow managed to bankrupt his country 3 times. How could a person handle money so poorly? Sheep, wars, and a lackadaisical attitude toward taxes.

Philip, whose name actually means "lover of horses" in Greek, had an obsession with sheep ranching. It was his big economic plan: no farming, lots and lots of sheep ranching. The problem with that plan was that it meant importing enormous amounts of grain to feed the sheep (and the people). Combine that with four failed efforts to invade England using the Spanish Armada, and one religious war against French Protestantism, and Philip II was bleeding bullion. Again, he had options-except he wasn't a big fan of taxing his friends. The church and nobility were exempt from taxation, which meant that about 97 percent of land in Spain was tax-free.

So despite the constant, Scrooge McDuck-like influx of gold, Spain owed huge sums to lenders in Germany, Italy, and Belgium, and even to their own bankers. By the end of Philip's reign, 40 percent of the state's revenue was going toward interest payments. Did Spain's creditors get their money? Probably not within their lifetimes. The bitches win again.

Consider this a warning to all bitches. You've gotten away with having our money for a long time. This behavior will no longer be tolerated by Rihanna or by anyone. It doesn't matter if you're a frontiersman, an outlaw, a scam artist, or a sheep-obsessed monarch. Pay us what you owe us, don't act like you forgot.

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