December 1957 | Volume 9, Issue 1 The daring epic of the
filibusters reached a lurid climax when little William Walker
captured the sovereign state of Nicaragua There was, as well,
lor the truly reckless or the desperate, an even more alluring
outlet than settling new lands or prospecting for gold, and this
had the promise that the gold they were after had already been
mined. The men who followed this highly dangerous way were
called filibusters—a term used then in its most masculine sense,
meaning freebooters, and not, as now, windy and obstructive
politicians. These exuberant daredevils tried to seize by force
of arms various Latin American countries, usually with the
sincere belief that they were the instruments of the “Manifest
Destiny” of the United States to acquire and civili/e the
chaotic and wartorn republics to the south. The extremists of
this imperialistic faith fervently believed that the United
States, following its destiny, would eventually annex the entire
Western Hemisphere from the Arctic sn