The Slave trade May 19, 1860: Message on the Capture of the Slaver Wildfire An address by   President James Buchanan         On the 26th day of April last Lieutenant Craven, of the United States steamer Mohawk , captured the slaver Wildfire on the coast of Cuba, with 507 African negroes on board. The prize was brought into Key West on the 31st April and the negroes were delivered into the custody of Fernando J. Moreno, marshal of the southern district of Florida.      The question which now demands immediate decision is, What disposition shall be made of these Africans? In the annual message to Congress of December 6, 1858, I expressed my opinion in regard to the construction of the act of the 3d March, 1819, "in addition to the acts prohibiting the slave trade," so far as the same is applicable to the present case. From this I make the following extract:      Under the second section of this act the Pres...

  Veterans' View of William Walker November 21, 1909 Washington DC Evening Star Washington has among its varied and picturesque veteran military population, two former members of “Filibuster” Walker’s armies, which first struggled and battled for an ideal and then a man's ambition in Nicaragua 54 years ago. Both men have passed the three score and 10 mark but, despite their age are as full of vigor and fire of adventure as though the half century since, their exploits among the Latin Americans was but a close neighbor in time. The first man, Colonel C. W. Doubleday, is retired officer of the United States Army, with a long and enviable career in the service of the nation, both during the Civil War and later in the Western campaigns among the American Indians. Colonel Doubleday was Walter's. personal aide and one of his chief advisers during nearly all the hard campaigns that peculiar genius guided in Nicaragua. The second member of Walters force is Captain E.F. Ruff...

  William Walker-Amazing President of Nicaragua Washington DC Evening Star  Sunday November 21, 1909 As queer a genius as America ever has produced was editor of the San Francisco Commercial in 1854, His name was William Walker, He was small and slender, beardless and light haired, a runt of a human among the tens of thousands of big framed, powerful adventurous spirits drawn to California from all parts of the world by the lure of gold, He was born in Nashville, Tennessee, was a graduate of the University of Nashville, and had practiced law and medicine before becoming a journalist. He was well versed in international law and had travelled widely. He spoke French, German, Italian and Spanish almost as fluently as he spoke English. He was only thirty years old, and considered himself a man of destiny. A year before, at the head of a party of 47 men, he had captured the Mexican town of La Paz and elected himself president of Lower California, and gravely parceled out the po...

  Filibuster--when it meant something different Filibustering did not always mean yak-yak-yak in a legislative body to delay passage of a particular law.                                          Col.  Crabb's route into Mexico in green      William Walker's Route into Mexico in red   In 1852, “filibustering” meant raising a mercenary army paid with the promise of booty and armed by Southern slave owners to take over Central American countries, reinstitute slavery, and then apply for US statehood. Napoleon’s invasion and subjugation of Spain in 1809 removed Old World authority over Spain’s colonies in the Americas, providing opportunity for rebellion and independence. Except for Puerto Rico, Florida, and Cuba, Spain’s New World colonies freed themselves under the leadership of Simon Bolivar. Most attempted to set themse...

  New York City Will Also Secede!      New York City banks and other businesses were so entwined with Southern cotton planters, Mayor Fernando Wood persuaded  the New York City Council to vote on seceding from the state of New York and the United States in December, 1860. NY City Mayor Fernando Wood circa 1855  Mayor Fernando Wood, January 6, 1861 A statement by the mayor published in New York newspapers "Much, no doubt, can be said in favor of the justice and policy of a separation. It may be said that Secession or revolution in any of the United States would be subversive of all Federal authority, and, so far as the central Government is concerned, the resolving of the community into its original elements - that, if part of the States form new combinations and Governments, other States may do the same. Then it may be said, why should not New York City, instead of supporting by her contributions in revenue two-thirds of the expenses of the United States, b...

  Mid 1800s Samoan warrior with his machete sword         Long before Graham Greene wrote his classic novel "The Ugly American," Americans were already doing an outstanding job of being ugly, condescending, and threatening destruction if their demands were not met.      From the early 1820s on through the rest of the 1800s, growing numbers of European missionaries and settlers in the South Pacific increasingly demanded protection from their respective navies.  This was very similar to the pattern of settlers in the American West asking the US Army for protection against Native Americans.       The United States was a participant in at least a half dozen punitive expeditions against various island tribes before the American Civil War not counting the ad hoc bullying  by an American naval officer recounted below.      Today, Apia and its harbor are part of the Samoa,  under Commonwealth protecti...