Filibusterer William Walker, at the recommendation
of his associate, professional confidence man Parker H. French, determined to
turn on his supporters and go for the “bigger con” by enticing millionaire
shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt into supporting an American presence in
Nicaragua.
Walker was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in
1824. He graduated from the University
of Tennessee at fourteen, spent his teenage years traveling in Europe and studying
medicine, and completed his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania
at nineteen. He turned to law,
practicing in Louisiana for a time before moving on to journalism and heading
to California. There, he began his dream
of “filibustering”, creating new colonies for the United States out of the
Latin American countries, as had been seen with Texas a generation before. Walker’s first attempt was the Republic of
Sonora, conquered from the western part of Mexico in 1853, but he was soon chased
out by the Mexican Army. Back in
California, he was arrested for breaking the Neutrality Act of 1794 (designed
to halt privateering against France) but was acquitted and hailed as a
conquering hero.
Meanwhile, war had broken out in Nicaragua. The ruling Legitimists held conservatively to
power even though the more democratic Liberals had made great leaps in
popularity. The Liberal president, Francisco
Castellón, invited Walker to march on the Legitimists with their capital at
Granada. Walker was careful not to break
laws this time, signing a contract as a “colonist” and not acting through
American power, which he confirmed through notification to the Federal attorney’s
office in San Francisco. Walker and a
band of fifty-eight calling themselves the “American Phalanx” sailed from San
Francisco through stormy weather, landing at Realejo, Nicaragua, where he was
reinforced by hundreds more volunteers, many local and others foreigners who
wished for adventure.
To fund the expedition, Walker had been given
$20,000 by Charles Morgan and Cornelius Garrison of the Accessory Transit
Company, which they had bought out from under legendary businessman Cornelius
Vanderbilt while he vacationed in Europe with his family. Vanderbilt’s company had made tremendous
amounts of money by controlling the key trade route to California during the
Gold Rush by winning an overland contract with the Nicaraguan government. In exchange for this money, Walker would find
a technicality to tear up the old contract and deliver a new contract to a new
company owned by Morgan and Garrison.
When Vanderbilt had heard of Morgan and Garrison’s manipulations of
stock and company rule, he sent them a telegram in 1853 reading, “Gentlemen:
You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll
ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt.”
Vanderbilt had crushed enemies before and was
currently running the Collins Line shipping business into bankruptcy despite
government subsidies. Walker had been
put into contact with Garrison through close friend Edmund Randolph, but French
suggested he side with the businessman with deeper pockets. Upon seizing the Legitimist capital on
October 13, Walker sent a telegram to Vanderbilt volunteering a charter for a
Nicaraguan Canal, a project Vanderbilt had dreamed of for years since George
Law had already achieved a stagecoach route across Panama. Vanderbilt, who had been planning to demolish
American government support for Walker through his influence, instead showed
his support to President Franklin Pierce.
Walker, meanwhile, had made significant enemies in
Central America. His diplomatic gestures
to the surrounding countries had been successfully construed as preludes to further
conquest. President Juan Rafael
Mora of Costa Rica declared war upon Walker and called up allies among Honduras,
El Salvador, Guatemala, and disenfranchised conservative Nicaraguans. Walker dispatched a preemptive invasion of
Costa Rica, but was rebuffed and faced counter-invasion. The Allied Armies of Central America marched
on Nicaragua, looking to end Vanderbilt’s hopes of a canal. The businessman refused to be defeated and
funded mercenaries while Walker invited reinforcements from across the American
South. Despite a cholera outbreak,
Walker’s soldiers managed to hold Granada under siege until it was relieved and
the 4,000-strong Allied army broken.
The war gave excellent pretense for further
expansion, allowing Walker to march legally on each Costa Rica, then El
Salvador, and finally Honduras. British
Honduras (present-day Belize) was Walker’s next thought of conquest, but
Vanderbilt refused to fund such an expedition as it would spark war with
Britain, who was already suspicious of such American activities in Central America
after the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty forbade expansion there. Instead, Walker returned to his presidency in
Granada and spearheaded Vanderbilt’s Canal, making extensive use of prisoner
labor. Walker died in 1874 after chronic
bouts with malaria.
Upon
the failure of the South to secede in the American Civil War, many wealthy
Southerners fled to Walker’s Great Granada, although Vanderbilt had encouraged
Walker to maintain abolition when he suggested repealing it in 1856 and
neutrality in the war, which proved the most money-making beyond the Union
blockade. Vanderbilt became fixated with
his canal, and routine visits to the harsh climate in the construction zone led
to his death in 1867, one year before his wife.
In the latter nineteenth century, renewed imperialism would make Granada
American territory, along with Cuba, San Juan, and numerous Pacific islands. Armed revolutions plagued the region and
drained American military resources until decolonization followed World War II.
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In reality, Walker maintained his agreements with Morgan
and Garrison. They funded his
expedition, and he refused a Nicaraguan canal.
Vanderbilt funded the Allied Armies of Central America and pressured the
US Government into denouncing Walker, who could only find supporters among the
South after reinstituting slavery. Walker’s
army was defeated in 1857, and he returned to the US. He came once again to Central America upon
the invitation to establish independence for the Bay Islands from Honduras, but
was apprehended and killed by firing squad September 12, 1860. The reinstated Nicaraguan government again
turned down Vanderbilt’s idea of a canal, and he turned to building a railroad
empire instead.
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