How Was an American Mercenary Briefly President of Nicaragua?

fifty kilos or so. He didn't look the part of a brash adventurer or military man, but the Tennessee native with the piercing gray eyes was arguably the most successful of the nineteenth century American filibusters, who were men who fought from manifest destiny, the belief that it was the right of the United States to stretch west to the Pacific and south into Central America. In the eighteen fifties, Walker invaded Mexico twice with a private army and briefly

installed himself as president of Nicaragua. His exploits were followed breathlessly by American newspapers, which either hailed Walker as a hero or condemned him as a pirate. Long before the word filibuster came to mean a long winded Senate speech to block the passage of a bill, it was a colorful term for rogues and mercenaries who tried to raid

foreign territory and claim it for their own. The word filibuster probably derives from the Dutch word freibert, a meaning freebooter, which the Spanish morphed into philibustero to refer to pirates in the Caribbean. In the first half of the eighteen hundreds, dozens of American filibusters launched failed expeditions into Mexico and Cuba. This was before the U s Civil War, when the Missouri Compromise barred the addition of new states, allowing enslavement

above the Mason Dixon line. While some filibusters only sought fortune and fame, others hoped to claim southern territories that could then be annexed by the US as slaveholding states. Before the article this episode is based on How Stuffworks, spoke with journalist Scott Martel, author of the book William Walker's War, How One Man's Private American Army Tried to Conquer Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras. He explained that Walker fell

somewhere in the middle. Originally he got into filibustering for the personal glory, but ultimately quote he wanted to create a Central American Caribbean empire. That would still have slavery. Walker came from a wealthy and politically connected family in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated from college at fourteen, studied to become doctor by seventeen, then travelled Europe for two years before settling

in New Orleans to practice law. After the untimely death of his fiancee, A, Walker became an editor at the New Orleans Daily Crescent, where Whitman was briefly a colleague. By this time, philibustering was all over the headlines. In eighteen forty eight, the Venezuelan born philibuster Narcisso Lopez attempted to invade Cuba with a private army of American recruits and financial backing from Southern plantation owners. Since Lopez was in violation of the Neutrality Act of eighteen eighteen, the

US government sent warships to scuttle the raid. In an editorial, Walker took the filibuster's side. He wrote, there is no law of nations recognized in this country, at least, nor of morals, which deprives a man of the right of expatriating himself if he pleases to take his share in a foreign quarrel which appeals to his love of liberty or detestation of tyranny, or even to his mere sordid

estimate of glory and gain. By eighteen fifty three, Walker was living in gold Rush era San Francisco, a magnet for young adventurers looking to strike it rich in the West, and he was seriously entertaining his own career as a filibuster. Walker and other would be invaders set their sights on the northern Mexican state of Sonora, right across the southern US border. Martel said there was a common belief at the time that the Mexican government wasn't in control of

the border territory on their side. From the filibuster's perspective, it was land for the taking. If they could impose a government, then it would be theirs to defend a Walker tried diplomacy, first, sailing to the Baja Peninsula to request permission for the establishment of a private mining colony in Sonora, but someone tipped off the Mexican authorities that Walker had grander plans for an American empire in Mexico,

and he was kicked out. Martel said he would return to Sonora not as a putative settler, but as a conqueror. Back in San Francisco, Walker and his associates openly recruited men to the cause an equipped a ship called the

Arrow with weapons and provisions for a proper invasion. The US authorities caught wind of Walker's plan and seized the Arrow, but in a midnight raid, Walker's men were able to steal back some of their supplies and set sail for Mexico on another vest, the Caroline, With a ragtag brigade of just forty five men, Walker landed in the port city of La pazz and quickly seized the governor's office, where they lowered the Mexican flag and raised one of

Walker's own design for his new country. Walker announced, the Republic of Lower California is hereby declared free, sovereign, and independent, and all allegiance to the Republic of Mexico is forever renounced. He also gave himself the title of President. Hundreds of reinforcements sailed down from San Francisco, eager to join Walker's fledgling empire and to stake a claim to lucrative mining rights. But once the men arrived, they found an ill equipped

army without a solid game plan. Local ranchers took up arms against Walker's underfed troops, who began deserting in droves despite Walker's violent punishments. By the spring of eighteen fifty four, even Walker realized that the invade had failed, so he men his exhausted men marched north and surrendered to the US authorities at the border. Walker was charged with violating the Neutrality Act, but was merely acquitted. Martel says that the US government saw Walker as a pest and nothing more.

He would soon prove them wrong. In the late eighteen fifties, Nicaragua was locked in a civil war between two opposing political parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals. The Liberals had the support of a former American newspaperman named Byron Cole, who pitched the idea of hiring the now famous Walker

to capture the Conservative stronghold of Grenada. Nervous of being tried a second time for breaking the Neutrality Act, a Walker said that he would only come if he and his men were invited as colonists and given land grants. The Liberals agreed, and Walker sailed down with a mercenary band of fighters, mostly veterans of the Mexican American War. After heavy fighting, they took the city, and Walker managed

to get himself appointed as the head of the Nicaraguan military. Then, when Nicaragua's puppet president fled after an invasion by neighboring Costa Rica, Walker declared himself president. In eighteen fifty six, even United States President Franklin Pierce officially recognized him as the country's new leader. As President, Walker made English the national language and legalized slavery. He might have had a long and successful career as a Central American imperialist if

he hadn't angered another American that claimed Nicaragua. Before the Panama Canal connected the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt established a profitable shortcut transporting cargo and passengers across Nicaragua by river and land. Walker seized Vanderbilt steamships as property of Nicaragua, which didn't sit well with the New York millionaire. Martel explained, Vanderbilt sent word to the Costa Rican military, I'll pay for your troops

if you'll help me get rid of Walker. Surrounded by Costa Rican troops and Vanderbilt's mercenaries. Walker negotiated a surrender in eighteen fifty seven and sailed back to New York, where he was tried and acquitted again for violating the Neutrality Act. He wasted no time planning to take back Nicaragua, but his first two comeback attempts were dead in the water, literally in one, Walker's ship struck a coral reef off Belize and had to be towed back to Mobile, Alabama

by the British Navy. Another ended with Walker arrested by the US Navy when he tried to land in Costa Rica. A Walker was undeterred, though, and thanks to his fame in the newspapers, he had no trouble recruiting ninety one men for another try. The plan was to land in the Honduran port of Trahuia and marched south into Nicaragua, but they met fierce resistance from the Honduran military, which was aided by a British naval blockade that kept out

American reinforcements. With dozens of men wounded or dying from tropical diseases and ammunition in short supply, a Walker was convinced to surrender to the British commodore Norvel Salmon, who assured Walker that he'd be spared the wrath of the Honduran military. But that's not what happened. Martell put it this way. The captain of the ship screwed him over. In a matter of days, Walker was standing before a

Honduran firing squad. He was only thirty six years old when he was executed in September eighteen sixty, and Filibustering more or less died with him. Just months later, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, and the nation was soon embroiled in its own bloody civil war. Today's episode was based on the article William Walker, the American mercenary who named himself President of Nicaragua on

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