How Was an American Mercenary Briefly President of Nicaragua?

Before the U.S. Civil War, American mercenaries called 'filibusters' attempted to claim territory in Mexico and Central America for themselves. Learn about the well-deserved fate of one William Walker in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/william-walker.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren
Vogelbaum here. William Walker stood a little over five feet
tall and weighed just about one hundred and twenty pounds
that's about one and a half meters and just over
fifty kilos or so. He didn't look the part of
a brash adventurer or military man about. The Tennessee native

(00:26):
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

(00:48):
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. Along 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

(01:10):
foreign territory and claim it for their own. The word
filibuster probably derives from the Dutch word freiburter, a meaning freebooter,
which the Spanish morphed into filibustero 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.

(01:32):
This was before the US 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

(01:53):
the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works,
spoke with journalist Scott Martel, author of the book William
Walker's Wars, 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

(02:16):
a Central American Caribbean empire. That would still have slavery.
A 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 traveled Europe for two
years before settling in New Orleans to practice law. After

(02:37):
the untimely death of his fiancee, a Walker became an
editor at the New Orleans Daily Crescent, where Walt Whitman
was briefly a colleague. By this time, filibustering was all
over the headlines. In eighteen forty eight, the Venezuelan born
filibuster Narcisso Lopez attempted to invade Cuba with a private
army of American recruits and financial backing from Southern plantation owners.

(03:00):
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

(03:23):
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 Eire, San Francisco,
a magnet for young adventurers looking to strike it rich

(03:43):
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,
a 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.

(04:06):
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

(04:28):
American empire in Mexico, and he was kicked out. Marquel
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 and equipped
a ship called the Arrow with weapons and provisions for
a proper invasion. The US authorities caught wind of Walker's

(04:51):
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 from Mexico on another vessel, the Caroline,
with a ragtag brigade of just forty five men. Walker
landed in the port city of Lapaz and quickly seized
the governor's office, where they lowered the Mexican flag and

(05:12):
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

(05:35):
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

(05:56):
of eighteen fifty four, even Walker realized the invade had failed,
so he meant 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. Martell
says that the US government saw Walker as a pest

(06:16):
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

(06:37):
now famous Walker to capture the Conservative stronghold of Granada.
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

(06:59):
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

(07:21):
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 acclaimed
Nicaragua before the Panama Canal connected the Caribbean Sea and

(07:44):
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 a New York millionaire, A. Mortell explained,
Vanderbilt sent word to the Costa Rican military, I'll pay

(08:07):
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

(08:32):
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

(08:53):
no trouble recruiting ninety one men for another try. The
plan was to land in the Honduran port of True
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

(09:15):
short supply, a Walker was convinced to surrender to the
British commodore Norvelle 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

(09:39):
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

(10:02):
on the article William Walker, the American mercenary who named
himself President of Nicaragua on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by
Dave Rouse. Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
houstuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. A
four more podcast that's from my Heart Radio. Visit the
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