August 12, 2001

American First Nicaragua President

Americans fought a revolution to win freedom from a British monarch and have exerted heroic efforts ever since to extend democracy throughout the world - most particularly to our southern neighbors.

Unfortunately, "canal politics" kept the outcome in doubt despite heroic efforts of a grey-eyed American named William G. Walker.  

The British moved to expand their foothold in Latin America after nations there broke away from Spain in 1855 and formed the United Provinces of Central America.

Nicaraguans carried on a half-hearted civil war over the question of independence, or an alliance with England.

A democratic Liberal Party favoring independence had its headquarters in the city of Leon. The conservative Party seeking union with England had its center of support in the city of Granada.

Into this volatile situation, strode an unlikely hero to bring the contest to a head and change the course of Nicaragua's history.

Walker, a native of Tennessee, was only 5-feet 4-inches tall and weighed 120 pounds soaking wet. His biographer, Thomas Rigas, describers him as a "valiant, well-educated and talented intellectual, who before his 25th birthday had been a physician, lawyer and crusading newspaper editor - a quiet and courteous gentleman."

The most notable aspect of his appearance was his penetrating light-grey eyes. He could not have known how important this characteristic was to his ambition - to found a democratic empire, including all of Central 'America, Mexico and Cuba.

American Colony

It is not known what inspired Walker's plan of a democratic empire, or how he and the Liberal Party of Nicaragua came in contact.

He previously had led 40 adventurers into Lower California and proclaimed himself president of that peninsula. Mexico chased Walker back to San Diego.

The Nicaragua Liberal Party invited Walker to colonize that country with Americans and thereby bring about order and prosperity.

Walker arrived on the shores of Nicaragua with 58 armed American volunteers ready to battle the Spanish, the British and the local Conservatives. His followers became citizens of the country by a simple declaration of intent and were promised grants of land when their newly adopted cause won victory.

Walker's grey eyes convinced the natives he was a man of destiny. The Mosquito Indians had a legend that a grey-eyed stranger would come to rescue them from their Spanish oppressors.

Destiny was a real factor of politics those days. All of Spanish America was in turmoil, believing it was destiny that local peoples should be independent. America was expanding, believing it was their "Manifest Destiny" to occupy most, if not all, of North America.

Thus, Walker was welcomed by the Liberals, targeted by the Conservatives, adulated by the Mosquitos Indians and cheered by Americans.

He was an idealistic, religious Freemason who fervently believed in democracy for indigenous people long chained by monarchs.

"The zealous Walker believed that if he had sufficient support, he would be able to federate the republics of the isthmus and bring them under the civilizing influence of established democratic institutions," says Rigas.

Seized Control

Walker carried out a series of daring raids against the Conservatives. Within a year, he had seized control of Nicaragua and made himself "president."

However, he made a strategic mistake by confiscating the steamboats of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. The transportation baron had a lucrative monopoly carrying supplies and would-be miners to the California gold fields via the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua.

Vanderbilt launched a propaganda campaign against Walker. Until then, Walker had been a popular figure back home. Now folks began to wonder whether he was a liberator or a dictator

Walker made a series of other mistakes; He confiscated many estates to raise money, made English a legal language with Spanish, and changed land ownership laws with the frank purpose of placing "a large portion of the land in the hands of the white race."

His most drastic measure was re-legalization of slavery. With this, Costa Rica launched an attack against Walker and the Liberals. Eventually Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala joined the effort to defeat Walker.

Allied conservative sources, with moral support and Vanderbilt money, drove Walker and his fellow Americans out of the country in 1857.

Walker brooded in New Orleans for three years, then returned to lead a Liberal assault against Honduran troops.

The attempt was futile. Walker surrendered to a British naval officer who turned him over to the Hondurans. He was executed by firing squad on Sept. 12, 1860.

Walker's downfall helped unite the political factions. They set up a compromise capital at Managua. Still, fighting continued off and on for the rest of the century.

First Canal Plan

The Spanish American War in 1898 demonstrated the great need of a canal across the Central American isthmus whereby U.S. warships could speedily defend both U.S. coasts.

A sea-level route through Nicaragua was favored, but sporadic fighting made the project uncertain. Consequently the United States in 1912 sent a legation guard of 100 Marines into the country to stabilize the government. In effect, Nicaragua became a protectorate of the U.S.

Eruption of a volcano near Managua changed the course of history. The Nicaragua government issued a postage stamp of the smoking volcano. Opponents flooded the United States with souvenir stamps.

U.S. canal sentiment switched to the Panama route started by France but abandoned. Continuing unrest in Nicaragua kept the token force of Marines there until 1925.

Within months after departure of the Marines, Nicaraguans began fighting each other again. The Marines returned a year later. This time, several thousand strong. They withdrew a second time in 1933.

The rest is history of a more recent bent.

Once more, revolution broke out. Peace, of a sort, came only after a military strong man, General Anastasio Somoza, clamped down with a dictatorship. He was deposed and exiled in 1979 by a Marxist, Sandinista revolution.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan secretly sent arms into Nicaragua. For this, the Democratic Congress imposed an embargo against the country.

The Sandinista downfall came in a 1990 national election when Violeta Barrios defeated communist dictator Daniel Ortega.

President George Bush, the elder, then lifted the embargo against Nicaragua and asked Congress for $300,000 in emergency aid for that country floundering to throw off the shackles of communism.

Nicaragua was peaceful once more, with out grey-eyed liberators from America.

Author: Lindsey Williams

cutline, 3 col. - illustration, priest and kneeling man.

[ William Walker, American president of Nicaragua, prepares for his execution in 1860 by a Honduran firing squad. ]

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