Speaker 1: Internet. Shit. I'm Robert Evans again, still badly introducing my
Speaker 1: podcast Behind the Bastards about bad people, terrible ones. Miles
Speaker 1: still my guest. Yes, still ashamed to be here after
Speaker 1: that introduction? How are you doing? Oh? Not than that
Speaker 1: intro gave me life quite the opposite. Oh yeah that
Speaker 1: it didn't look like it. It looked like you died
Speaker 1: a little bit inside. Oh that's just because I got
Speaker 1: an email, say, oh saying I owe money for car
Speaker 1: insurance or something. Oh man, I have some good news
Speaker 1: about Geico, but I forget what it is. Can you
Speaker 1: save me fifteen percent or more? I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: well i'll test that theory. I'm going to go to
Speaker 1: the insurance provider and I'm going to enter code bastards
Speaker 1: and see what I get. Yeah. You just you find
Speaker 1: someone who sells insurance and you you paint or carve
Speaker 1: that into them, and you'll get a discount on your insurance.
Speaker 1: That's the way it works. Fantastic. Yeah, you know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit distracted right now. My friend Michael
Speaker 1: had a really rough night and I've just kind of
Speaker 1: been trying to text him through it. Ohe Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a nice guy. Every now and then
Speaker 1: he just kind of you know, we all make bad choices. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's trying to buy an election. I think there are
Speaker 1: just some women who maybe didn't like maybe a couple
Speaker 1: jokes I made. It was my favorite line. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the night after the the the debate. We'll try
Speaker 1: not to talk about it too much because we have
Speaker 1: an even more problematic man than Michael Bloomberg to discuss.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about old Willie Walker here. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Bill Walker, will Helm Walker. So when we left off
Speaker 1: with our story, William Walker had just captured a new
Speaker 1: country by stealing a town from Mexico and then murdering
Speaker 1: several of its people when they dared to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're maybe not okay with us, right, Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: got like, you gotta have an element Maybe respects the
Speaker 1: wrong word, but something for a guy who like captures
Speaker 1: a small town and is like, I got me a
Speaker 1: country now, I have I have respect in the way
Speaker 1: that I would have like respect, like if it were
Speaker 1: a script and it wasn't real and it was for
Speaker 1: the pure comedy, I would have respect for that character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is great for the plot. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: like a fun Will Ferrell movie. And in aspects of this,
Speaker 1: if you trim out the racism and slavery and murder,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, Will Ferrell would be the right guy to
Speaker 1: play this dude. Yeah yeah. Oh he's big, yeah, big guy.
Speaker 1: I could see like Sam Rockwell too. Oh, Sam Rockwell
Speaker 1: would be fun. He's like that might be better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Will Ferrell like there's a there's like a silent confidence
Speaker 1: to him. Sam Rockwell has the range to like tap
Speaker 1: into like a guy who is trying to prove his
Speaker 1: like hero Grandpa wrong. Yeah, He's got that like nervous
Speaker 1: like energy thing like that, like say yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. Sam rockwells well a lot of comedy.
Speaker 1: I'd like to open part two this episode with a
Speaker 1: paragraph from the book Filibusters and Financiers, which is again
Speaker 1: a nineteen sixteen book that is kind of like bemusicly
Speaker 1: positive towards William Walker and the ideas of manifest Destiny.
Speaker 1: It includes a paragraph describing the general character of the
Speaker 1: American man during this period of time, and I find
Speaker 1: this passage really insightful for trying to get into the
Speaker 1: head of like what a lot of people, like the
Speaker 1: people back at home who thought what Walker was doing
Speaker 1: in Mexico was awesome, Like, what's kind of going on
Speaker 1: in their brains? I think this is an interesting paragraph. Oy,
Speaker 1: So again, this is writing about the American man in general.
Speaker 1: In the eighteen fifties quote he was always sure that
Speaker 1: he was right. The belief of the Americans in their
Speaker 1: own excellence was one of the things which most impressed
Speaker 1: and puzzled the foreign visitor. Success in the struggle for
Speaker 1: existence in the New World had produced unbounded egotism self confidence.
Speaker 1: Every vigorous boy passes through such a stage as he
Speaker 1: approaches adolescence. To other members of his family and to
Speaker 1: his neighbors, he seems something of a bully. In this period,
Speaker 1: other nations entertained a similar opinion of young America. All
Speaker 1: the world regarded this country as a braggart and a bully,
Speaker 1: and the estimate was not entirely unjust. It is consoling, however,
Speaker 1: to record that our faults, numerous as they were, were
Speaker 1: symptoms of youth and superabundant health, rather than signs of
Speaker 1: senile degeneracy. So we were giant dicks during this period
Speaker 1: of time, but like we were young or whatever. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what happens. You get to get some genocidal colonizer
Speaker 1: thoughts and he ACKed him out. Okay, sorry, Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I love that paragraph. So depending on which source you read,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get different takes in terms of like what
Speaker 1: William's attitudes towards slavery during this period of time. Some
Speaker 1: sources paint him is kind of indifferent to it in
Speaker 1: his early life, like obviously his parents had slaves, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't a slaveholder. His magazine was kind of for
Speaker 1: the time and place kind of soft on abolition Like
Speaker 1: obviously they ran ads for slaves, but they weren't like
Speaker 1: like a lot of papers in that period of time
Speaker 1: would have been like abolitionist should be murdered for so,
Speaker 1: like they weren't on that into things, right, right, So
Speaker 1: I guess less Fox News, more CNN. Yeah, yeah, HE'SNBC
Speaker 1: whatever it is. Yeah, I take him away, really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll take your money and we'll half call it out,
Speaker 1: but we'll take your money. Yeah. I think we can
Speaker 1: all rest assured that both CNN and MSNBC in the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties would have been both sides saying the hell
Speaker 1: out of slavery. Oh, yes, yes, they're gonna be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's like, who is it? Was it?
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson is like, hey, you got a wolf by
Speaker 1: the years? You know what? Do you know? You're gonna
Speaker 1: let it go? I don't know, man, maybe maybe stop
Speaker 1: grabbing wolves? Yeah, Andrew, Andrew, why are we grabbing wolves?
Speaker 1: You sick? Fuck you grab a wolf by the years
Speaker 1: and nothing's gonna know what? Now, let it go. You
Speaker 1: deserve to be mulled to death. Yeah. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: like somebody fucking with a wolf and big like, there's
Speaker 1: no way to stop this wolf from being angry at me.
Speaker 1: Hold on, you're grabbing it by the fucking hu was that?
Speaker 1: Wasn't that Andrew Jackson who said that? I think? I
Speaker 1: think so subodous Jackson. Yeah, it definitely sounds Jackson eight. So,
Speaker 1: whatever the case, in terms of William's views on slavery,
Speaker 1: by the time he wound up in Sonora, he had
Speaker 1: transformed into a strict supporter of America's peculiar institution. A
Speaker 1: write up I found in the Pin Gazette notes he
Speaker 1: may have had a change of heart or may simply
Speaker 1: have recognized the usefulness of pro slavery sentiment and gaining
Speaker 1: support and recruits for his filibustering. The most ardent advocates
Speaker 1: of Manifest Destiny were Southerners, who viewed expansion and annexation
Speaker 1: as opportunities to establish new slave states, tipping the tenuous
Speaker 1: balance with the abolitionist North. Most of Walker's in the
Speaker 1: stees On the Mexican Adventure had been recruited from the
Speaker 1: slave states of Tennessee and Kentucky. Once in control, Walker
Speaker 1: borrowed the laws of Louisiana for his new republic, making
Speaker 1: slavery legal by default. So we're gonna talk about that
Speaker 1: a little bit more later. But yeah, well i'll astual
Speaker 1: right now. Scott Martel, Williams's best biographer and the author
Speaker 1: William Walker's Wars, It makes a point of noting that
Speaker 1: Walker could have just as easily stolen the laws and
Speaker 1: constitution of California because he'd worked as a lawyer in
Speaker 1: both states, so he knew the laws just as well. Right,
Speaker 1: But California didn't allow slavery, right, which suggests that Walker
Speaker 1: was explicitly motivated to make a new slave state in
Speaker 1: northern Mexico. And it's interesting because, like Walker himself never
Speaker 1: actually owned a slave, So maybe this was all about
Speaker 1: trying to recruit more Southerners to come to his banner,
Speaker 1: oh right, being like, hey, we're we're slave friendly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're slave friendly. We're going to make another Texas underneath Texas.
Speaker 1: It's going to be even Texas or oh wow, yeah
Speaker 1: you imagine, yes, yeah, I guess. I'm I'm having trouble
Speaker 1: even processing that concept, but I'm going to trust you
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah. So he was not ideologically committed to slavery,
Speaker 1: at least in his writing in prior, where he'd supported
Speaker 1: slavery and slave states under the ages of democracy, which
Speaker 1: you know, ignores the fact that the actual slave people
Speaker 1: couldn't vote. And this kind of pre to be like,
Speaker 1: this line of reasoning would prove to be regular behavior
Speaker 1: for Walker. He justified his invasion of Mexico on humanitarian grounds,
Speaker 1: citing the raids by indigenous people and the unfair taxes
Speaker 1: taken by Mexico, without actually ever talking to those people
Speaker 1: or furnishing any evidence that he wanted them to free
Speaker 1: him or him to free them. Yeah. In parsing out
Speaker 1: the actual motivations, of William Walker personally. Martell Citeses historian
Speaker 1: Frank Soul who wrote that Walker was quote a brave,
Speaker 1: highly educated, and able man. Whatever maybe thought of his
Speaker 1: discretion and true motives of conduct in the expedition, he
Speaker 1: seems to have taken a high moral and political position
Speaker 1: in the affair, though his professions were peculiar in their propriety,
Speaker 1: not readily admitted by downright sticklers for equity and natural law.
Speaker 1: A few of his coagitators were also men of a
Speaker 1: keen sense of honor, who forgot or he did not
Speaker 1: in the excitement of the adventure the opinions of mere
Speaker 1: honest men upon the subject. But the vast majority of
Speaker 1: Walker's followers can only be viewed as desperate actors in
Speaker 1: a true filibustering or robbing speculation. The good of the
Speaker 1: wretched and apache oppressed scenorians was not in their thoughts.
Speaker 1: If they succeeded, they might lay the sheer foundations of fortunes.
Speaker 1: If they failed, it was only time and perhaps life lost.
Speaker 1: In either event, there was grand excitement in the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah that could I thought you were reading a description
Speaker 1: like before the Second Iraq War or something. Holy Shau
Speaker 1: nother thing's ever changed. Yeah, it's like, yeah, look, here's
Speaker 1: here's the flow chart. Dude, does this country have something
Speaker 1: you want? Yes? Are they willing to let you take it? Yes?
Speaker 1: Or no? If it says no, okay, invade on the
Speaker 1: grounds of humanitarian crisis. And it's just that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you have a couple of guys in there who
Speaker 1: really do think they're they're doing the humanitarian thing, and
Speaker 1: you shove those dudes out front because it makes for
Speaker 1: a good look. But ninety percent of everybody's just like,
Speaker 1: I want to get what's fucking mind? And they got
Speaker 1: out of this way? What do I got to say?
Speaker 1: What do I got to say to get over there? Yeah? Yeah, fine, fine, fine,
Speaker 1: fine fine fine, yeah. Ye yeah, that that humanitarian for sure.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that Walker just stole all the laws and
Speaker 1: legal code of Louisiana because you might expect that, as
Speaker 1: a former newspaper editor and a call a man of
Speaker 1: letters and a lawyer, that like he would have written
Speaker 1: something in the founding document of his innor nation, like
Speaker 1: something at all, anything to like state out what its
Speaker 1: values or beliefs or goals were, right, like the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence or the Bill of rights, and it says
Speaker 1: a lot that Walker ignored doing any of that and
Speaker 1: just was like, ah, we'll just be like Louisiana. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess that's usually like a time for like an
Speaker 1: egomaniac to like really do a nice solo on yourself,
Speaker 1: being like, oh, yeah, here step one of my constitution
Speaker 1: of my new country I'm doing, where he's just kind
Speaker 1: of like, fuck it, I'm just gonna steal my I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do my homework. Yeah. Maybe so, I
Speaker 1: guess that's less about him really wanting to start his
Speaker 1: own country and more just the idea that he could. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it was more just like he wanted. I
Speaker 1: suspect his goal was to just try to conquer this
Speaker 1: chunk of Mexico and then give it to like have
Speaker 1: it be annexed by the United States and get fucking
Speaker 1: rich as shit and be the founding father of a
Speaker 1: new state. I really think that was kind of his
Speaker 1: end goal here. He's like a fucking Freemanni shit. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly like it. You can tell like there's a I
Speaker 1: think it's probably a good idea to look at kind
Speaker 1: of John Brown as an example of another kind of
Speaker 1: deluded guy who had like dreams of setting up his
Speaker 1: own state with a tiny number of men. And like
Speaker 1: the first thing Brown did before he even got militarily
Speaker 1: involved was right up like a constitution and a statement
Speaker 1: of values and all these things that like someone who
Speaker 1: actually believes something does with bark on a plan like this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Walker does not believe in shit other than getting rich
Speaker 1: and famous. I think that's where I land on this.
Speaker 1: So he really is the modern American. I think we're
Speaker 1: strying to see this. Like there's not even like the
Speaker 1: romance of it all like some of these other figures have.
Speaker 1: It's purely yeah, no, man, this is lucrative and it's
Speaker 1: like weird to say, but he doesn't even have the
Speaker 1: kind of ethical commitment to love slavery. Like he never
Speaker 1: owns a slave, He doesn't care that much. He's using
Speaker 1: that because he knows it'll get him recruits, but like
Speaker 1: he doesn't even he's not even committed to that right on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a just as it's weird, Like it would honestly
Speaker 1: be a little bit I would still I mean, differently
Speaker 1: gross if he was like a committed slaveholder, but instead
Speaker 1: he's just sort of like using this really gross thing
Speaker 1: other people are committed to to further his own post.
Speaker 1: It's so weird, just total master manipulator. Yeah. Anyway, back
Speaker 1: to the story. So where we are when we left off,
Speaker 1: is he they captured the town of Lapause shot, some
Speaker 1: people captured the new governor, who they found on a boat,
Speaker 1: and then sailed away from the city and towards Cabo
Speaker 1: San Lucas. Yeah. So they set up a camp outside
Speaker 1: of Cabo San Lucas and prepared to affect their invasion,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately for them, the locals had heard all about
Speaker 1: what they were doing in Lapause and had organized a
Speaker 1: militia to resist. Oh hell yeah. Yeah. Now, Walker had
Speaker 1: been expecting a few volunteers to arrive from San Francisco
Speaker 1: to like show up his numbers, but they didn't get
Speaker 1: there in time, and after a few days he decided
Speaker 1: he had to move his new nation capital for the
Speaker 1: third time in like two weeks. He hadn't even conquered
Speaker 1: so did he even step foot step foot or he
Speaker 1: just like he's gonna be He was like right this boat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were like camped outside and he was like, oh ship,
Speaker 1: there's like way more of them than us, and they're
Speaker 1: actually ready now, Like I can't just stumble into the
Speaker 1: mayor's office and Sam at church? Yeah, like wave a muscar?
Speaker 1: Who's in charge? Yeah? Nah me? Now so so then
Speaker 1: he had to pack his ship up yep and look
Speaker 1: for capital three point zero. Looks for capital three point oh.
Speaker 1: So you're in Baja, right, you're in Baja. You're looking
Speaker 1: for you want it to be on the coast, obviously,
Speaker 1: Like you're in Baja, you gotta be on the fucking coast.
Speaker 1: Cabo is not working out. Where do you? Where do you?
Speaker 1: Where do you go? I don't know? I mean, like,
Speaker 1: do you It sounds like if you're smart, you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, I've made Mexico way too hot for me. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: He's still He's still sticking with them. He's still he
Speaker 1: is committed to Mexico. This is a fucking idiot. And
Speaker 1: the reason this is hysterical close. The reason this is
Speaker 1: hysterical will make less sense to people who do they
Speaker 1: haven't lived in southern California. But he rolls to fucking
Speaker 1: in Sonata. Baby there he is hell yeah, baby Today
Speaker 1: known for its beautiful beaches, pleasant weather, and dirt sheep
Speaker 1: drug store tramadol in Sonata was at that point the
Speaker 1: furthest northern settlements on the BOP. And it's like, I
Speaker 1: love en Sonata. Oh yeah, I mean everyone knows you
Speaker 1: go there. You better learn the generic name for prescription drugs.
Speaker 1: And you're down there. Yeah, you're damn right. No. So,
Speaker 1: its proximity to San Diego would secure his flank and
Speaker 1: provide him with an easy route to accept new American volunteers.
Speaker 1: His forces landed in in Sonata on November thirtieth, eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, and seized the town without a fight because
Speaker 1: it was barely a town. Shortly there, yeah, there was, yeah,
Speaker 1: shortly thereafter, he posted a message in the center of
Speaker 1: town explaining his intentions to his new citizens. He sent
Speaker 1: a copy of this message to the San Diego Herald.
Speaker 1: And I have to note that this message to his
Speaker 1: new citizens and in Sonata was written in English. Of course,
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, of course, of course. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what here. This is what I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: and figure it out. Oh, I don't know what they
Speaker 1: speak in Sonata. What is it French? What is it?
Speaker 1: I don't know that one. Uh, he argued in his
Speaker 1: letter that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which had ended
Speaker 1: the Mexican American War, had established a state of affairs
Speaker 1: whereby Mexico could not adequately care for its western provinces,
Speaker 1: since they were like cut off from the rest of Mexico. Furthermore, quote,
Speaker 1: the moral and social ties which bound it to Mexico
Speaker 1: have been even weaker and more dissolute than the physical. Hence,
Speaker 1: to develop the resources of California and to affect a
Speaker 1: proper social organization therein, it was necessary to make it independent. Independent, hmmm, hmmm.
Speaker 1: Walker pointed out that Baja many natural resources which required
Speaker 1: good government by white people in order to truly exploit,
Speaker 1: and then Miles then he got then he got really racist.
Speaker 1: Then he yeah, no, no, he fucking dives into it now, oh, Quote,
Speaker 1: the territory on your Mexican rule would forever remain wild,
Speaker 1: half savage and uncultivated, covered with an indolent and half
Speaker 1: civilized people desirous of keeping all foreigners from entering the
Speaker 1: limits of the state. When the people of a territory
Speaker 1: fail almost entirely to develop the resources nature has placed
Speaker 1: at their command, the interests of civilization require others to
Speaker 1: go in and possess the land they cannot, nor should
Speaker 1: they be allowed to play the dog and the manger
Speaker 1: and keep others from possessing what they have failed to
Speaker 1: occupy and appropriate. Oh my god, m that is some
Speaker 1: colonizer mentality there. Fucking I don't know if I'm like hi,
Speaker 1: because I'm so fucking like it's so cringey to hear
Speaker 1: it like that, or I'm maybe I'm sack actually high,
Speaker 1: but I feel that cause of visceral sense. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: the real motivation behind all colonialism that some most colon
Speaker 1: I particularly like most people who who write positively about
Speaker 1: colonialism in like the twentieth century, covered up a bit more. Yeah, yeah, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: you guys are too dumb and arcane to fucking know
Speaker 1: what to do with this stuff. Therefore you need me
Speaker 1: to come in exploit it, give you nothing, and then
Speaker 1: when you ask for something, I'll, you know, I'll say
Speaker 1: you're a communist, and then I'll send it. Send some
Speaker 1: people to the School of Americas. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: like when I was younger and very drunk, sometimes I
Speaker 1: would go into restaurants and steal food from other people's
Speaker 1: plates because I was too drunk to know that things
Speaker 1: like property rights existed, and they weren't eating the food
Speaker 1: while I was taking it, and so William Walker, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's that's the that's the justifications Walker's using
Speaker 1: you to that a drunk met you walk into a
Speaker 1: Chili's and you're just like, man, sometimes it was way
Speaker 1: nicer than Chili's. I got some stories about a fucking
Speaker 1: Buddha bar and uh fucking Kiev that are yeah anyway, wow, yeah.
Speaker 1: So Walker argued that the Mexican government, which he had
Speaker 1: fled two cities already in order to avoid, had given
Speaker 1: up their claim to Baja by failing to protect it.
Speaker 1: This is as he's fleeing from the Mexican military. Baja was,
Speaker 1: in his words, a waif on the waters, and Mexico
Speaker 1: cannot complain if others take it and make it valuable.
Speaker 1: What such a piece of shit, dude, the balls on
Speaker 1: this fucking guy. I know it's amazing. Oh well, if
Speaker 1: it mattered so much, you would have fought for it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, stop playing game. That's exactly what I yelled
Speaker 1: at those people when I stole the food from their plates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like kind of like if like you, I've I
Speaker 1: was in a relationship where someone broke up with me
Speaker 1: to test if I would fight for their relationship. But
Speaker 1: I that's that's a healthy way to deal with the
Speaker 1: relationship right there. I took it as I was respecting
Speaker 1: what their wishes were, and I was like, oh, if
Speaker 1: that's how you feel, like, okay, then sorry. And then
Speaker 1: her friend was like, she wanted you to fight for her,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, what the fuck? I was
Speaker 1: told a different thing. I'm sorry, Okay, but I guess
Speaker 1: the same thing with Mexico. You didn't fight for her. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's mine now. Yes, yeah, William Walker is the
Speaker 1: same as your ex girlfriend. I say that a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you do. I'm glad we're going to get
Speaker 1: that in. Yeah. So in public dispatches, all this was
Speaker 1: framed in a mix of standard colonialist justifications like the
Speaker 1: ones above and the ever present assertion that Walker and
Speaker 1: his men were protecting the local Mexican people from dastardly
Speaker 1: dangerous natives. Now, there is no evidence that any of
Speaker 1: these people ever felt protected by him. In fact, since
Speaker 1: he and his men stole food and other supplies whileever
Speaker 1: they traveled, it is unlikely that the people of Insnata
Speaker 1: saw Walker's men is different from any other bandits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the best you can say for Walker and his soldiers
Speaker 1: is that they mostly rated the ranches of wealthy property owners.
Speaker 1: So hmm yeah. Now, one of the people that they
Speaker 1: stole from these wealthy property owners in Ensenada was named
Speaker 1: Antonio Maria Malindres, and he fled his ransacked home while
Speaker 1: walker'smen were there stealing shit from it for the town
Speaker 1: of Santo Tomas, and succeeded in raising a small militia
Speaker 1: to fight back against what he assumed was just a
Speaker 1: bunch of American horse themes from San Diego. Remember, like
Speaker 1: news doesn't travel at this period's he just sees these
Speaker 1: Americans with the guns. He's like, oh, they must have
Speaker 1: These must just be criminals who crawl, which is like
Speaker 1: not wrong, But he doesn't realize they're trying to make
Speaker 1: a nation. He just thinks they're stealing shit random. I
Speaker 1: think this is a thought many people in Baja California
Speaker 1: have had first, I guess centuries. Now they go, it's
Speaker 1: probably just a couple assholes from San Diego. I have
Speaker 1: embodied aspects of William Walker's behavior in the same city.
Speaker 1: And I apologize and have apologized repeatedly to the people
Speaker 1: of Ensenada for Oh wow, well you're you're a better
Speaker 1: man than he. Look if they if they weren't going
Speaker 1: to properly make use of the great resources of tramadol
Speaker 1: in nature, it's just going to waste. They will colonize
Speaker 1: the shit out of those hundred mic pills. Baby. Yeah,
Speaker 1: speaking of one hundred milligram tramadol pills, you know what
Speaker 1: you cannot buy over the internet without attracting substantial risk.
Speaker 1: It's it's time for an ad break. We're not supported
Speaker 1: by tramadol unfortunately, yet we're back, okay. So uh, this
Speaker 1: guy uh, Antonio Milindrez like uh, he makes a militia
Speaker 1: to fight back against Walker's men, and they successfully ambush
Speaker 1: some of Walker's soldiers who are in the middle of
Speaker 1: robbing a house, and they kill one of them and
Speaker 1: capture a route the rest. So Malendras takes some of
Speaker 1: these prisoners and he interrogates them, and he learns that
Speaker 1: like this, these are just a bunch of random bandits.
Speaker 1: These people are trying to conquer the entire Baja Peninsula.
Speaker 1: So that interrogation process must have been so weird. You
Speaker 1: think their horse evening, like what the fuck's your deal
Speaker 1: be here for? And they're like, uh, We're here to
Speaker 1: fucking take away for everything. And I'd be like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: oh wow, really, well have you a fucking bayonet point?
Speaker 1: So how's that looking for you right now? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: that that's kind of exactly what Malindraz does is he's like,
Speaker 1: all right, well we've got a still. We got to
Speaker 1: put a stop to this city. This isn't good. Oh
Speaker 1: you thought you were going to call him shit. So
Speaker 1: he puts together a force of about sixty men and
Speaker 1: he assaults Walker and his soldiers in in Sonata the
Speaker 1: next day, and Walker's men were quickly surrounded inside a
Speaker 1: walled adobe compound they'd taken for their headquarters. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: for Malindrez, they had cannons and they were very well
Speaker 1: set up inside this compound. So he's basically with an
Speaker 1: almost equal sized force of men charging Walker inside a
Speaker 1: fortified position with artillery, and it does not go well.
Speaker 1: More than a dozen of Malendres's men are killed, several
Speaker 1: more are wounded, and only one of Walker's raiders is
Speaker 1: shot dead, although eight more are wounded, So Malindres pulls
Speaker 1: back and the situation devolves into a siege. Now, at
Speaker 1: this point in time, the boat that Walker had chartered,
Speaker 1: the Caroline, had a great vantage point to watch all
Speaker 1: this unfold, and it's captain decided he had no interest
Speaker 1: in waiting around for the end and winding up in
Speaker 1: a Mexican prison. And his captain, by the way, is
Speaker 1: the guy Walker appointed his secretary of the Navy. So
Speaker 1: the Secretary of the Navy goes to those two captive
Speaker 1: Mexican governors on board and he's like, I don't want
Speaker 1: any part of this anymore, Like, yeah, I'm gonna work
Speaker 1: something out. Yeah, And like generations of Americans after him,
Speaker 1: they sailed to Cabo San Lucas to chill out. Uh
Speaker 1: irony of it all? Wait, So that guy he basically
Speaker 1: just gave him up and was like like release that
Speaker 1: the captive governors to just he takes them back to
Speaker 1: Cabo and he's like, yeah, I'm not a part of
Speaker 1: this anymore. Yeah. Uh. I wish we would see more
Speaker 1: people like that Secretary of the Navy in today's environment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I wish our secretary of the Navy was
Speaker 1: like that Secretary of the Navy and gave up our
Speaker 1: navy to Mexico. It would just be interesting, yeah, or
Speaker 1: at its like prosecuted like war criminals. Yeah. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: a little much to hope for. So William Walker did
Speaker 1: succeed in breaking the siege of Ensenada by launching a
Speaker 1: daring night attack after a series of rainstorms, but most
Speaker 1: of his opponents, including Malindres, fled into the hinterlands around
Speaker 1: the city in order to raise more men to repulse
Speaker 1: the Americans. And one of these guys, one of malindres
Speaker 1: as soldiers, a guy named Negrete, actually traveled to San
Speaker 1: Diego and then San Francisco to try to talk with
Speaker 1: US authorities and determined whether or not the government was
Speaker 1: okay with what was happening, which it basically like went
Speaker 1: to the American careers like, are you do you guys
Speaker 1: know what's happening down here? Is this you guys co
Speaker 1: sign this? Yeah? This seems like a problem to me. Wow.
Speaker 1: So while all this was going on, Walker had several
Speaker 1: men in California recruiting a new wave of soldiers to
Speaker 1: reinforce the Republic's beleaguered forty Ish man army. These guys
Speaker 1: succeeded and drying together roughly two hundred new soldiers and
Speaker 1: a new boat, the Anita. It was not a wildly
Speaker 1: competent group. Only the captain and first mate had any
Speaker 1: sailing experience, and the soldiers weren't much better at soldiering.
Speaker 1: One recruit later recalled that quote. Almost all on board
Speaker 1: were more or less drunk on the trip over the Sinota.
Speaker 1: Three of them died during the voyage over casualties of
Speaker 1: a minor storm. So what these are not the Navy
Speaker 1: seals riding into the rescue? Why is it always a
Speaker 1: bunch of drunk dudes? Because didn't he like panically, didn't
Speaker 1: he panic le hicabo? All drunken? Shit? What I mean?
Speaker 1: What other type of man is going to pick up
Speaker 1: a gun and try to conquer a sovereign nation with
Speaker 1: like forty other guys. That's true, A sober man's not
Speaker 1: going to make that call. Honestly, They'll be like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: I didn't really want to fight anymore? Is gonna be
Speaker 1: fight all Mexico? I don't care. Well, is the cocaine there?
Speaker 1: I'll check it out. I'll check it out. Wow. I mean, Also,
Speaker 1: I like the idea you're so drunk that you died
Speaker 1: in a storm on a ship. Yeah. Yeah, Like that's
Speaker 1: how bad. That's how a nept you are at sailing
Speaker 1: that three people drunk, baby boat drunk. Now. The Anita
Speaker 1: made port it in Sonata on December twentieth, a week
Speaker 1: after the end of the siege, and the added men
Speaker 1: more than quadrupled the size of Walker's force. They also
Speaker 1: supplied it with fresh cannon guns and powder. But their
Speaker 1: arrival also meant that Walker had that many more mouths
Speaker 1: to feed, which could only be accomplished by shamelessly stealing
Speaker 1: food from the locals they were there to ostensibly protect
Speaker 1: from bandits. Here we go. Oh boy, it's great. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote again from William Walker's Wars quote.
Speaker 1: Walker sent sixty five men under Captain George R. Davidson
Speaker 1: to Governor de Grete's command center at Santo Tomas. They
Speaker 1: found it undefended and seized it without a fight. In
Speaker 1: his brag filled reports to the North Samuel Ruland reporter
Speaker 1: that the wealthy ranchero owners, frustrated with a lack of
Speaker 1: protection by the Mexican government, had fully embraced the new Republic.
Speaker 1: He claimed that the locals offered Walker and his men
Speaker 1: free food and other supplies, but that the self proclaimed
Speaker 1: president had turned them down. Horses now having abundant supplies
Speaker 1: from the confiscated property of the outlaw malindres Ruined wrote
Speaker 1: that Walker intended to pay for all supplies received from
Speaker 1: friendly inhabitants, and Walker issued a decree condemning to death
Speaker 1: all persons guilty of plundering the property of the friendly inhabitants.
Speaker 1: In other words, ranch owners who opposed Walker would find
Speaker 1: their property pillaged, while those who acquiesced would be protected.
Speaker 1: Now that's the way he was supposed to work on paper, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but in reality his men stole everything that wasn't nailed down,
Speaker 1: even from the people who agreed to be part of
Speaker 1: this new republic to not get robbed. One landowner later wrote,
Speaker 1: houses were broken into families were forced to do the
Speaker 1: bidding of the invaders, and horses and saddles were taken
Speaker 1: from passing civilians. In short, the marauders were behaving as
Speaker 1: though they were absolute masters of the country. Haven't help
Speaker 1: anyone who resisted or in any way refused to do
Speaker 1: what they commanded for Then the fury of the entire
Speaker 1: company was vented on him. Oh so they were just basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: stick up for yourself and then we'll just beat the
Speaker 1: shit out of you, slash kill you. Was there like,
Speaker 1: was there like a massive body count at this point,
Speaker 1: like or were they or they made but it's probably
Speaker 1: recorded that probably lives trying at least a few. There's
Speaker 1: not like a direct count, but like you have to
Speaker 1: assume there were murders and obviously rapes. I'm gonna guess
Speaker 1: the majority of people learned to either hide from them
Speaker 1: or give up what because they're like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: like there's a bunch of guys with guns. Now, Like
Speaker 1: I guess we give them what they want. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: new volunteers continued to trickle in from the United States,
Speaker 1: inspired by the stories published in California newspapers and the
Speaker 1: promise of looting for themselves. By January of eighteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: William Walker's army had expanded to three hundred men. He
Speaker 1: celebrated this by declaring, get another name change to his
Speaker 1: new country. This is the third name change. The Republic
Speaker 1: of Lower California was now they're Republic of Sonora. It
Speaker 1: had two states, Sonora, where he held no land in
Speaker 1: lower California, where he controlled the town of en Sonata
Speaker 1: and two small outposts. Reports of these momentous changes and
Speaker 1: great victories were spread throughout the yellow Press of southern California.
Speaker 1: But things were not going well for Walker. His minutes
Speaker 1: succeeded in capturing mostly cows for food, and they're all beef.
Speaker 1: Diet had gotten quickly tirings. So they have enough food,
Speaker 1: but it's all beef and it's like all boiled beef.
Speaker 1: And they are not happy with this. They don't even
Speaker 1: know're not even local spices. Huh No, No, they mean
Speaker 1: they're white. Yeah, I know they had Yeah, even these
Speaker 1: white colonizers had linten. Yeah, I'm sure they must have
Speaker 1: smelled someone's cooking. They're like, well, what do you call that?
Speaker 1: Why is that so good? Human? Oh? Yeah, how do
Speaker 1: I get that? Yeah? So the president and his commanders,
Speaker 1: of course got bread and vegetables, but everyone else had
Speaker 1: to make do with just boiled beef in the occasional
Speaker 1: bit of corn. This frustrated the men enough that one
Speaker 1: of them destroyed the oven Walker's cook used to bake
Speaker 1: his bread. Yeah, petty. As the days and weeks rolled on,
Speaker 1: soldiers began to desert. Others fell sick and died. Arguments
Speaker 1: over the unequal district should have stolen horses led some
Speaker 1: of the remaining men to the brink of mutiny. When
Speaker 1: a group of them told the president colonel that they
Speaker 1: were leaving, he warned them that desertion was a capital offense.
Speaker 1: When this did not dissuade anyone, he tried his hand
Speaker 1: at making a glorious speech to inspire his soldiers to stay.
Speaker 1: He ended it by announcing that anyone who wished to
Speaker 1: leave could go, and anyone who wanted to stay would
Speaker 1: have to swear an oath through wheel and woe to
Speaker 1: stay with him until they had conquered all of western Mexico.
Speaker 1: So this is a little bit. I'm guessing it's not
Speaker 1: said that this was the case. I'm guessing this was
Speaker 1: sort of in an echo of I always forget this
Speaker 1: guy from my Texas history class, but one of the
Speaker 1: guys at the Alamo like drew a line in the
Speaker 1: sand and was literally like at least so the story goes,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to stay on this side
Speaker 1: and fight, you know, come on this side and whatever,
Speaker 1: and it's like this big moment from Texas history where
Speaker 1: this guy like draws this line in the sand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very powerful moment. Walker tries to do essentially the same
Speaker 1: thing and a quarter of his army leaves immediately. I
Speaker 1: love it. He's just like a shitty, toxic boss who
Speaker 1: liked he's so bad. And I love those moments. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't typically envision you, Robert, having traditional work history,
Speaker 1: but like, have you ever worked in an office where
Speaker 1: there was like the toxic boss and there was the
Speaker 1: moment he realized the whole office was against him or her? No,
Speaker 1: you know I've I've been really lucky in my bosses. Actually,
Speaker 1: oh man, Yeah, well that's true. Yeah, and you follow
Speaker 1: your you follow your HEARTI there been times when I've
Speaker 1: worked like retail or other things and like there's a
Speaker 1: moment like you guys gonna let this happen. Aarone's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we are because we hate you and you're not saying
Speaker 1: the worst, So welcome to this reality. I mean, I
Speaker 1: did have that one moment when Jack O'Brien asked us
Speaker 1: to swear an oath to him while he was trying
Speaker 1: to conquer and Sonata, But that was Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: didn't take it seriously. He thought, he says this shit
Speaker 1: all the time. He didn't have very many cannons, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah. So in short order, just because of all
Speaker 1: these guys who leave and then others dessert like, Walkers
Speaker 1: down to about one hundred and forty men, and he
Speaker 1: decides that his numbers have fallen enough that he has
Speaker 1: to move yet again, to the town of San Vincente.
Speaker 1: But he was halted in doing this when two US
Speaker 1: Navy ships filled with marines set anchor just outside of Ensnata.
Speaker 1: These were the US government's belated response to his invasion.
Speaker 1: Their job was to block any passage south of additional
Speaker 1: reinforcements for Walker's shrinking army. So Walker decides to march
Speaker 1: south anyway, and once again his forts is easily capture
Speaker 1: the undefended town, this time Sand Vincente. President Colonel Walker
Speaker 1: immediately demands the local tribes and citizens all swear personal
Speaker 1: fealty to him, which some of them did in order
Speaker 1: to avoid trouble. But Walker's army was in full collapse
Speaker 1: at this point. He left in Sonata with one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty men, but he had less than one hundred
Speaker 1: left by the time he got to San Vincente. So
Speaker 1: Walker grew furious with the constant desertions, and on February
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, some of his men caught a group of
Speaker 1: volunteers planning to dessert. Before they could actually get away,
Speaker 1: he placed five of them, the ring leaders, under arrest.
Speaker 1: Two were sentenced to lashing, and two were executed immediately.
Speaker 1: The fifth was pardon. Yeah, so he's killing his own
Speaker 1: guys now, it's yeah, part of it's fallen apart now.
Speaker 1: The fifth was pardoned because he was a good cattle
Speaker 1: driver and they needed no one knew how to do anything. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: observing his men murdering their comrades, William Walker wrote that
Speaker 1: this was quote a good test of military discipline, since
Speaker 1: killing your fellow soldiers was the hardest thing a soldier
Speaker 1: could do, and he added that God what on this occasion,
Speaker 1: the duty was more difficult because the number of Americans
Speaker 1: was small and was daily diminishing. Holy shit, I'm fucking
Speaker 1: I'm guessing we're starting to enter the third act of
Speaker 1: this disaster. Man, not even well, third act of Mexico,
Speaker 1: right right, oh my yeah again, just the idea. He's amazing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's really like in a like true people who
Speaker 1: have these like fixations on like dominating and conquering, like
Speaker 1: they absolutely live in their own mind. And despite all
Speaker 1: of the evidence and data that's in front of him
Speaker 1: that I would say, like an intelligent person like this
Speaker 1: is actually an abject failure and if I'm serious about this,
Speaker 1: I mean you need to rework it. They just go, nah,
Speaker 1: fuck it, hit the accelerator and let's just go pedal
Speaker 1: to the metal and see what happens. Look, if I
Speaker 1: got to kill some guys that are my own people,
Speaker 1: then it's what I'm gonna do. And then honestly, that's
Speaker 1: actually pretty chill because it's like a really sick test
Speaker 1: of like discipline. So yeah, it's you, yeah, actually what
Speaker 1: it must happen. So yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So at
Speaker 1: this point, Walker split his forces, leaving thirty men back
Speaker 1: in the Sonata and taking seventy further east, intent on
Speaker 1: finally capturing some land and Sonora, and this proved to
Speaker 1: be a bad call. Malindras had raised another militia, which
Speaker 1: he used to assault and capture San Vincente without much
Speaker 1: of a fight. He immediately executed a dozen of Walker's men,
Speaker 1: creating a sensation in California papers. This left Walker and
Speaker 1: his remaining soldiers stuck in the middle of Baja California
Speaker 1: with no base of operations or support. The whole mess
Speaker 1: collapsed in short order, and Walker eventually wound up flea
Speaker 1: for the US border. In the end, his army was
Speaker 1: reduced to just thirty three men. Twenty two of his
Speaker 1: volunteers had died in Mexico, eight more had been grievously wounded.
Speaker 1: They were all almost immediately arrested, and Walker was taken
Speaker 1: back to San Francisco for trial. He was indicted by
Speaker 1: a grand jury on May eleventh, eighteen sixty four, along
Speaker 1: with his secretaries of War and Navy. The charge was
Speaker 1: violation of the Neutrality Act, a crime they were obviously
Speaker 1: guilty of committing. The presiding judge was Isaac Ogier, the
Speaker 1: first DA for Los Angeles like the very first District
Speaker 1: Attorney for Los Angeles. Yeah, and his chief legal claim
Speaker 1: to fame was that in the past he'd introduced a
Speaker 1: bill as state assemblymen to ban free black people from
Speaker 1: living in California. So, as you might expect, he and
Speaker 1: many of the potential juror pool in San Francisco were
Speaker 1: inclined to sympathize with William Walker. Yeah, holy shit, Okay, yeah. So.
Speaker 1: Walker's chief defense was that he'd never intended to enter
Speaker 1: Mexico in a hostile manner. His expedition had only turned
Speaker 1: into an invasion after they were attacked by violent locals.
Speaker 1: Oh you fucking we were just on vacation with all
Speaker 1: of our guns and cannon cannons. What did you think?
Speaker 1: Oh my, oh you thought we were here to fucking colonize. No,
Speaker 1: was it because of the canons? Jesus you people see,
Speaker 1: I told you we should have painted him like a
Speaker 1: fun color. Yeah, they thought it was. They thought it
Speaker 1: was like for I mean, when I go on vacation
Speaker 1: with my cannons, I do paint them like a bright,
Speaker 1: happy like teal. Oh yeah, I find that that called
Speaker 1: like hello, kitty stickers all over them. Absolutely, like anti
Speaker 1: tank canon, my anti tank grounds and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely so uh. Walker neglected to mention that this violent
Speaker 1: response from the locals of La Pause was a result
Speaker 1: of him capturing the governor and declaring himself president. Walker's
Speaker 1: lawyer also argued that his client's motives had been pure,
Speaker 1: an attempt to drive back the savage apaches to protect
Speaker 1: the people of Baja. The government of the United States was,
Speaker 1: in their prosecution of Walker, the ally of the savage
Speaker 1: hole man. This is really yeah, the grade a racism,
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. And again it's timeless, like the same
Speaker 1: sort of flawed logic and reasoning then legal arguments. We're
Speaker 1: hearing like variations of them today still and it's amazing, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: actually you're you're probably on their side. Then if that's
Speaker 1: if you know, America is probably a communist nation, then
Speaker 1: if that's if I'm being if I'm in trouble for
Speaker 1: inciting violence or violating the neutral Okay, sure, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he is the type of American that there has never
Speaker 1: not been in America. Yeah, yeah, because that's what our
Speaker 1: country is. Yeah, we just look at we we got
Speaker 1: tired of other people telling us to give them their stuff,
Speaker 1: and like now we're into it our way, try it
Speaker 1: out our way. So the case went to jury, who
Speaker 1: deliberated for a grand total of eight minutes. They declared
Speaker 1: William Walker and his men not guilty. Oh my, oh fuck,
Speaker 1: of course this fuck they'll never listen. Piece is shit.
Speaker 1: A local newspaper, The Daily Altar, reported When the verdict
Speaker 1: was pronounced, which the foreman did in a very emphatic tone,
Speaker 1: there was an audible manifestation of applause outside the bar,
Speaker 1: and many came up to shake mister Walker by the
Speaker 1: hand and congratulate him. Good work on trying to conquer Mexico.
Speaker 1: Sorry it didn't work out. Hey, love, Hey, loved what
Speaker 1: you're going for, knew what you're going for. Love the
Speaker 1: big fan, big fan, Love the enthusiasm. Oh yeah, just
Speaker 1: a new place for slavery to flourish. Love that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you knew. That doesn't really matter,
Speaker 1: but I love the perks. Great. Yeah, Now a free man.
Speaker 1: Walker found employment is the editor of a newspaper in Sacramento.
Speaker 1: He wrote a series of editorials complaining about extremists on
Speaker 1: both sides of the slavery versus Avlan. He becomes MSNBC
Speaker 1: himself here, but writing was not enough to capture his
Speaker 1: attention anymore. Once you've tried to conquer a Central American nation,
Speaker 1: nothing else is going to hit the spot like trying
Speaker 1: to conquer another Central American nation. Never just done hit right,
Speaker 1: I've said it a thousand times. Yeah. Now, during this
Speaker 1: period Nicaragua was enmeshed in a civil war between two
Speaker 1: opposing political parts parties, the Legitimists and the Liberals. The
Speaker 1: Liberal Party had hired a number of American mercenaries, including
Speaker 1: a fellow named Cole, who'd worked with Walker on a
Speaker 1: newspaper called The Commercial Advertiser. Once Cole got the lay
Speaker 1: of the land in Nicaragua, he had the Liberal Party
Speaker 1: send an invitation to his friend Walker. The two started talking,
Speaker 1: and eventually Walker wound up in contact with representatives from
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party next, according to a write up in
Speaker 1: the Peng Gazette, eager to exploit the nation whose shipping
Speaker 1: route could prove immensely valuable to himself and to the
Speaker 1: United States, Walker agreed. This time. However, he made sure
Speaker 1: to circumvent neutrality laws by obtaining a contract to bring
Speaker 1: colonists to Nicaragua. On May third, eighteen fifty five, Walker
Speaker 1: and fifty seven followers left San Francisco by boat. Shortly
Speaker 1: after arriving, and reinforced with local Democratic troops, they attacked
Speaker 1: the legitimate stronghold of Rivas. They lost decisively, driven out
Speaker 1: of town after suffering significant casualties. Though his military prowess
Speaker 1: was questionable. Walker became the leader of the Democrats by
Speaker 1: default when the chiefs of both the military and executive
Speaker 1: branch died on October thirteenth, and what was considered to
Speaker 1: be the only truly adept maneuver of his military career,
Speaker 1: he commandeered a ferry and sailed to Grenada, taking the
Speaker 1: legitimate forces by surprise. At this point, he effectively gained
Speaker 1: control of Nicaragua, installing a puppet interim president in Patricio Rivas.
Speaker 1: Soon after, he had himself elected president and was inaugurated
Speaker 1: on July twelfth, eighteen fifty six. So he conquers Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: He's the president. Oh my, you did it, you son
Speaker 1: of a ba. He did it because he gets hired
Speaker 1: and you'll see them written as the Liberal or the
Speaker 1: Democrat party, depending on which source you find. But he
Speaker 1: this party hires him as like a mercenary, and he
Speaker 1: leads a disastrous attack and it gets everyone who's in
Speaker 1: charge of the party killed, and so he just takes
Speaker 1: control by the faults. Yeah, I don't know, my bugbling
Speaker 1: got all my bosses killed. So hey, you know what
Speaker 1: that means. Top of the This is particularly the part
Speaker 1: that would make a really good movie. Like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Eric Prince must like have like this, like
Speaker 1: has like bed sheets of this guy. Yeah. Yeah, Prince
Speaker 1: like goes to sleep coming thinking of William Walker and
Speaker 1: how he could be I get him. If only he'd
Speaker 1: had an air force, if only they would just let
Speaker 1: me modify my plane into a fighter jetge. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: in a matter of days, Walker went from hired mercenary
Speaker 1: to president of Nicaragua, presumably for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: I think that was the goal he had in mind.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't see a lot of future elections coming. No, definitely,
Speaker 1: no primaries. No. No one at least of all the
Speaker 1: American government had ever considered this to be a realistic possibility.
Speaker 1: But William Walker was very ready to run a country,
Speaker 1: and he got right to work making proclamations. English was
Speaker 1: declared the official language of Nicaragua. Now that's his first move.
Speaker 1: Well we're getting read all this fucking Spanish. First move,
Speaker 1: first order of business. All right, we're doing English, everybody.
Speaker 1: These people are speaking in Sonata and it doesn't even
Speaker 1: make sense. What the heck I thought it was just
Speaker 1: an en Sonata down here too. Huh oh boy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're getting rid of that straight away. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so property was confiscated from the defeated legitimists
Speaker 1: and handed over to William's American volunteers. He established a
Speaker 1: bilingual newspaper, El Nisi, which was based on a local
Speaker 1: legend about a gray eyed leader who would free Nicaragua
Speaker 1: from Spanish domination. William Walker, who had gleefully taken on
Speaker 1: the nickname the Gray Eyed Man of Destiny, had one
Speaker 1: of his pet journalists write an op ed in the
Speaker 1: paper claiming this traditional prophecy has been fulfilled to the letter.
Speaker 1: The gray eyed Man has come. Oh that must that
Speaker 1: must have a prophecy that and now it's real. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's real now, yeah absolutely, you know, but that that
Speaker 1: was that prophecy actually predates him made probably almost certainly not.
Speaker 1: He claimed it was a local prophecy. You motherfucker, I know,
Speaker 1: I know you're also like, hi, jacking. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: truly like, that's what that's what colonization is about. You
Speaker 1: hijack the culture, you completely erase it, you rework it
Speaker 1: for your own gains, and then you gaslight the people
Speaker 1: and there thinking yeah you wanted this or at least
Speaker 1: I'm going to project that to the other people who
Speaker 1: don't know any better. It's like what they would say
Speaker 1: about Native Americans using every part of the Buffalo. William
Speaker 1: Walker colonizes every part of the Nicaragua. Holy shit, the
Speaker 1: fucking gray eyed Please but Miles, you know what won't
Speaker 1: colonize Nicaragua and replace its native language with English. Hmmm,
Speaker 1: the products and services that support this podcast. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: one of our very few lines. Is you cannot have
Speaker 1: attempted to conquer Nicaragua. Well, I guess I won't have it.
Speaker 1: I won't have it supporting my podcast. I guess. Crystal
Speaker 1: geysers out of the question. Yes, yes, they are out
Speaker 1: of the question, as are a number of snack chip brands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's world ads, We're back. So President Walker had no
Speaker 1: intentions of actually freeing the Nicaraguan people from colonial domination.
Speaker 1: In fact, his goal was literally the opposite. On September
Speaker 1: twenty second, eighteen fifty six, President Walker issued an edict
Speaker 1: repealing the eighteen thirty eight decree that had banned slavery
Speaker 1: in Nicaragua, where he once had been something of a
Speaker 1: moderate on this issue. By eighteen fifty six, he'd swung
Speaker 1: all the way from pretty racist to so racist. Jefferson
Speaker 1: Davis would have been like, slow down, dude, No, he wrote, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's that sentence system. Yeah, soul with it. He wrote
Speaker 1: that Nicaraguans were half casts and fundamentally disorderly, and black
Speaker 1: people he thought had been placed on earth by God
Speaker 1: for the use of white men. He later wrote that
Speaker 1: Africa was, for more than five thousand years a mere
Speaker 1: waif on the waters of the world, fulfilling no part
Speaker 1: in its destinies and aiding in no manner the progress
Speaker 1: of general civilization. He saw slavery as crucial to his
Speaker 1: new goal, which was to rid Nicaragua of actual Nicaraguans
Speaker 1: by importing slaves to handle the farming for white people.
Speaker 1: This would stop the new white settlers Walker wanted from
Speaker 1: fraternizing or God forbid, breeding with any actual Nicaraguan people.
Speaker 1: Let's good. Oh wow, Yeah, this is ethnic cleansing that
Speaker 1: he he's getting himself lathered up to do some ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 1: Everything is a wave too. I just like that's a
Speaker 1: way fun. That's his favorite, Yeah, his favorite comparison to make.
Speaker 1: He wrote that quote the introduction of Negro slavery into
Speaker 1: Nicaragua would furnish a supply of constant and reliable labor
Speaker 1: requisite for the cultivation of tropical products. With the negro
Speaker 1: slave as his companion, the white man will become fixed
Speaker 1: to the soil, and they together would destroy the power
Speaker 1: of the mixed race, which is the bane of the country.
Speaker 1: Oh Jesus Christ, fucking yeah. Woh wow wow wow wow
Speaker 1: wow Wow. That really yeah. Jefferson Davis is like, bruh,
Speaker 1: that's wow. Okay, okay, h hey, I guess if that's
Speaker 1: if that's the tune you're singing. Holy shit, Okay, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got a vision. He's got a vision. He's got
Speaker 1: a vision. The fact that Nicaragua was now effectively a
Speaker 1: slave state would also help to draw in more Southern
Speaker 1: white volunteers to fill out William's New Old Country. He
Speaker 1: had notices printed up and distributed in several Southern American cities,
Speaker 1: including New Orleans. The notices stated the government of Nicaragua
Speaker 1: is desirous of having its land settled and cultivated by
Speaker 1: an industrious class of people, and offer, as an inducement
Speaker 1: to immigrants, a donation of two hundred and fifty acres
Speaker 1: of land for single person and one hundred acres additional
Speaker 1: to persons of family. Steamers leave New Orleans for San
Speaker 1: Juan on the eleventh and twenty sixth of each month.
Speaker 1: The fair is now reduced to less than half of
Speaker 1: the former rates. Wow, yeah, we're offering the government of
Speaker 1: Nicaragua was making this offer more white people. Come on,
Speaker 1: We've come on down and get your two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty acres. You better not be race mixing though, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you can work the land. There also just
Speaker 1: the romantic the romanticism of his writing about like the
Speaker 1: white man and the Negro together will be bound to
Speaker 1: the earth like friends forever, so fucking dark. Yeah, it's amazing,
Speaker 1: you got you gotta do that flowery shit. So people
Speaker 1: will be like, oh that sounds that sounds great, rather
Speaker 1: than like, oh, yeah, we're torturing people everybody. One of
Speaker 1: the important things to understand, even about like the pro
Speaker 1: slavery people, is that, like everyone wants to view themselves
Speaker 1: as the good guys, Like the pro slavery folks did
Speaker 1: not like to think of themselves as like violently enforcing
Speaker 1: a nightmarish regime of racial apartheid. They saw themselves as like,
Speaker 1: it's no, this is us and our friend friend who
Speaker 1: like needs a whipped to death sometimes. Yeah, oh that
Speaker 1: would Yeah. I didn't do that. The overseer did and
Speaker 1: that's the yeah, but we're still friends. Yeah. Back in
Speaker 1: the US, reactions to Walker's conquest varied largely by region.
Speaker 1: Even in the abolitionist North, though he had a lot
Speaker 1: of fans. Plays were written about him and performed in
Speaker 1: places like Manhattan. One eighteen fifty six playbill from the
Speaker 1: Party National Theater declared him the hope of Freedom. Another
Speaker 1: writer from Kentucky was inspired enough to write the Nicaragua
Speaker 1: National Song in Walker's honor. Here's wait. They there were
Speaker 1: fucking per plays like theatrical man Manhattan. Yeah. Can you
Speaker 1: get your hands on that script? I hope so. I
Speaker 1: have not yet, but that would be enough to read
Speaker 1: behind the bastard's table, read to end them all. We
Speaker 1: could really have some fun with that. Oh my god, God,
Speaker 1: I can only imagine that horseshit in that fucking script. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A writer from Kentucky was inspired, like I said, to
Speaker 1: write the Nicaragua National song. I'm gonna read a few
Speaker 1: bars from that mile, Okay, it needs not a profit
Speaker 1: or talker to tell you, in prose or in verse,
Speaker 1: the exploits of Patriot Walker, whom tyrants will long deem
Speaker 1: a curse. A brave son of freedom is Walker, and
Speaker 1: nations his fame will rehearse, Oh, freedom, freedom, the freedom
Speaker 1: to own slaves. And you know, there's gonna be some
Speaker 1: haters who are gonna act like he wasn't a good guy,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna see, dude, They're gonna be seeing his praises.
Speaker 1: There's some haters, but most people will look. Of course,
Speaker 1: he was also hated by the abolitionist press and by
Speaker 1: many people in free states. A conspiracy theory was developed
Speaker 1: that Walker's conquest of Nicaragua was part of some convoluted
Speaker 1: scheme to get the country annexed by the US and
Speaker 1: add another slave state to the Union. People who knew
Speaker 1: Walker didn't find that likely, at least that it was
Speaker 1: like a grand scheme to support slavery. One of his
Speaker 1: recruits later wrote, the real underlying purpose of Walker's going
Speaker 1: to Nicaragua, in my opinion, was empire in the Tropics,
Speaker 1: with Walker as the central figure of this. I never
Speaker 1: had any doubt. So like that's the chief debate is
Speaker 1: like either Walker was a pro slavery crusader and this
Speaker 1: was part of like a scheme to add more slave states,
Speaker 1: or he really just wanted his own empire in Central America. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's just one of those empire first. They're
Speaker 1: both plausible. Yeah, yeah, and it's like, oh, slavery is
Speaker 1: just a byproduct which I can live with. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: main goals empire or yeah, it really is hard to tell.
Speaker 1: It is hard to tell because by the time he's
Speaker 1: in charge of Nicaragua, racism is definitely not just a
Speaker 1: thing he's using to get more troops, but like a
Speaker 1: motivating force right behind him, like he's being like you could.
Speaker 1: There's a difference, you know, in how he was acted
Speaker 1: in Mexico. And it's like tough too, because even if
Speaker 1: he was like, noah, no, I'm not race, I was
Speaker 1: just doing that shit because I like empire. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: while mister Walker, because you walk the walk and talk
Speaker 1: the fucking talk of a maniacal slave owner. Yeah, something else.
Speaker 1: So the one positive impact of Walker's time and power
Speaker 1: is that it did successfully unite the two warring factions
Speaker 1: of the Nicaraguan government, the Legitimatest and liberal parties were
Speaker 1: able to come together to say fuck you to the
Speaker 1: white guy who'd conquered their country almost by accident, breaking
Speaker 1: with allies. Yeah. So they got together with some allies
Speaker 1: in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvator and put
Speaker 1: together an army of more than six thousand men to
Speaker 1: oppose William Walker. Now, by this point, Walker himself could
Speaker 1: draw in about fifteen hundred men. They were well armed
Speaker 1: and motivated, and in short order the two sides settled
Speaker 1: into a vicious guerrilla war, burning homes and villages. The
Speaker 1: Americans had the advantage of better weaponry and organization, but
Speaker 1: were hampered by the fact that they were often drunk
Speaker 1: as fuck and that William Walker was very bad at
Speaker 1: waging war. Yeah. Those are the two down sides. I
Speaker 1: can only imagine. Yeah, gorilla warfare and you're drunk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not ideal. The fuck are you talking? But it
Speaker 1: sounds like a disastrous combination. It was after a series
Speaker 1: of tactical blunders, Walker decided that his base in the
Speaker 1: city of Granada was untenable. Rather than just hand Rather
Speaker 1: than just hand it to the enemy, he evacuated his
Speaker 1: wounded and ordered the four hundred soldiers stationed there to
Speaker 1: destroy the entire town before leafing. Burn it all down. Wow, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, another thing we've seen too. We've got
Speaker 1: abandoned base. Burn it all down so they can't get anything.
Speaker 1: His filibuster army took to the task with glee, looting
Speaker 1: huge amounts of wine and getting wasted as shit as
Speaker 1: they forced hundreds of Nicaraguas out of their homes and
Speaker 1: then burn those homes to the ground. But they grew
Speaker 1: so enthralled with this activity that they failed to notice
Speaker 1: an army of fifteen hundred men surrounding them. Once the
Speaker 1: situation became clear, the troops tried to put up defensive fortifications,
Speaker 1: but they were way too drunk to actually do this.
Speaker 1: Which should have been an orderly retreat became a slaughter.
Speaker 1: More than half of Walker's forces in Grenada were killed
Speaker 1: or captured, and all these debts were utterly pointless, the
Speaker 1: result of Walker's cruel insistence that the city be destroyed.
Speaker 1: Any sane person would consider this a war crime as
Speaker 1: well as an act of supreme military idiocy, But William
Speaker 1: Walker wrote this about his actions in the aftermath as
Speaker 1: to the justice of the act. Few can question it
Speaker 1: for its inhabitants owed life and property to the Americans
Speaker 1: and service of Nicaragua, and yet they joined the enemies
Speaker 1: who strove to drive their protectors from Central America. Why
Speaker 1: don't you love your protectors who are burning your homes down?
Speaker 1: Can't you see we're protecting you. I'm protecting you by
Speaker 1: hurting you. Why can't you see this? He is like
Speaker 1: trying to gaslight all of Nicaragua, really truly. And also
Speaker 1: it's like is it that or it's And it's also
Speaker 1: like the gas slighting is a byproduct of his inability
Speaker 1: to just be honest about anything going on. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to choice, Yeah, turn their back on me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. On February twenty sixth, eighteen fifty six, Costa
Speaker 1: Rica officially declared war on Walker's government in Nicaragua. Their
Speaker 1: president issued a proclamation calling the great Central American family
Speaker 1: of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras together to fight Walker.
Speaker 1: This was partly inspired by the fact that some of
Speaker 1: Walker's forces had occupied the Costa Rican town of Santa Rosa,
Speaker 1: and Coaster was like, you guys are invading us now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: physisic role so Walker responds to this proclamation by issuing
Speaker 1: one of his own. The natural law of individual protection
Speaker 1: obliges us, the Americans of Nicaragua, to declare eternal enmity
Speaker 1: to the servile party and servile governments of Central America.
Speaker 1: The friendship that we have offered them has been rebuffed.
Speaker 1: We are left with no option other than to make
Speaker 1: them recognize that are in can be as dangerous and
Speaker 1: destructive as our friendship is faithful and true. I mean
Speaker 1: his friendship, by the way, invading Costa Rica and taking
Speaker 1: over Santa Rosa. Yeah, friendship means yes, stealing your shit,
Speaker 1: abusing you and then telling and then telling you you're
Speaker 1: the problem. Yeah, it's pretty pretty remarkable. It's uh, very
Speaker 1: very uh again, a lot of these sentiments coming out
Speaker 1: of him, Yeah are so. I'm like kind of amazed
Speaker 1: that I didn't know as much about him considering how
Speaker 1: much Yeah, like his actions like are you know, capture
Speaker 1: like an entire frame of mind for sin Era that
Speaker 1: extends to this day. He is the platonic ideal of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. Right exactly on March twentieth, the Costa
Speaker 1: Rican army reached Santa Rosa and forced Walker's forces out
Speaker 1: after a fourteen minute firefight. They then invaded the city
Speaker 1: of Rivas, pushing Walker's forces street by street until they
Speaker 1: were forced to hold up in a compound owned by
Speaker 1: a wealthy family. From inside the compound, the white men
Speaker 1: had a commanding firing position, something that Costa Rican forces
Speaker 1: could not crack without great loss of life. And to
Speaker 1: tell the story about what happened next, I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn to a write up in the Pengazette quote a
Speaker 1: Costa Rican drummer boy named Juan Santa Maria volunteered to
Speaker 1: charge the house with his torch as long as someone
Speaker 1: would take care of his mother in case of his death.
Speaker 1: He managed to light the house on fire, drawing out
Speaker 1: the filibusters, but he was gunned down and doing so.
Speaker 1: Juan Santa Maria is now Costa Rica's national hero. The
Speaker 1: international airport is named for him, and every April eleventh,
Speaker 1: the anniversary of the battle, the country celebrates Juan Santa Maria. Day.
Speaker 1: I write, that's the airport in San Jose, Yeah, Costa Rica. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's named after the guy who, like I burned down this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been there. I've been to that airport many times,
Speaker 1: and I disfigured. I don't know, maybe I didn't realize
Speaker 1: it's a dude or some guy. Yeah, I'm a torch
Speaker 1: this much a teenager, A teenager who was like, take
Speaker 1: care of my mom when I die, I'm going to
Speaker 1: burn this house down. We gotta get these fucking dudes
Speaker 1: out of here. What a fucking hero, what a g Yeah,
Speaker 1: god straight g also just sort of like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: down to do this. I'm like, yeah, man, but make
Speaker 1: sure my mama was taken care of, make sure my
Speaker 1: mom is okay. Fucking great dude, and yeah, of course
Speaker 1: that's a guy who gets a fucking holiday. So is
Speaker 1: he like he was like that. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember Lord of the Rings at Two Towers where
Speaker 1: the Yeah, he's like that with the torch to blow
Speaker 1: up the wall. I mean talk about some like that
Speaker 1: was based on him. Actually, So Tolkien just lifted that
Speaker 1: from Costa Rican history. Woke Tolkien, not what woking. Let's yeah,
Speaker 1: let's not dig into that too yet they are woke
Speaker 1: keep so yeah, and that's like part of what I
Speaker 1: was saying at the very top of this episode is like,
Speaker 1: this guy's really well known in the places he fucked up.
Speaker 1: We've just completely forgotten him in America, right, They're like
Speaker 1: they remember his acid Costa Rica. It's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a hero because he fucked up this hole, this
Speaker 1: whole guy's plan that you guys don't know about. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The brave Central American soldiers doggedly resisting the American Imperial
Speaker 1: wound up finding a surprising ally in their fight, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Speaker 1: What Oh my god. Yeah. Vanderbilt was one of the
Speaker 1: wealthiest men in history, and since eighteen forty nine his
Speaker 1: company had controlled transit lanes across Nicaragua. Vanderbilt's men had
Speaker 1: actually helped Walker's efforts early on, before he completely took
Speaker 1: over the country, But once he took power, the American
Speaker 1: filibuster had revoked Vanderbilt's company charter and stolen all of
Speaker 1: its boats. Bad com don't fuss, So what money, honey?
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt clearly cared nothing for the sovereignty of Nicaragua, but
Speaker 1: he hated William Walker for fucking with his money. In
Speaker 1: December of eighteen fifty six, Sylvanah Spencer, one of Vanderbilt's employees,
Speaker 1: led one hundred and twenty Costa Rican soldiers on a
Speaker 1: canoe rate of the port of Greytown, Nicaragua. They met
Speaker 1: with President Mora and eight hundred more troops there, now
Speaker 1: armed with guns comparable to the American weapons guns provided
Speaker 1: by Cornelius Vanderbilt, they succeeded in cutting off Walker's forces
Speaker 1: and severing his life lifelying to the United States, through
Speaker 1: which he received the reinforcements and supplies that made his
Speaker 1: occupation possible. At the same time, Honduras, El Salvador and
Speaker 1: Guatemala had advanced on Walker's northern territories. The situation degenerated
Speaker 1: until on May first, eighteen fifty seven, Walker surrendered to
Speaker 1: the US Navy and was taken back to New Orleans.
Speaker 1: He was, of course, greeted as a hero by throngs
Speaker 1: of adoring fans. An impromptu parade carried him to a
Speaker 1: fine hotel, where he delivered a speech, the New Orleans Delta.
Speaker 1: A local paper recalled it Leusie. In his calm earnest
Speaker 1: manner and with manly eloquence, he said, it was a
Speaker 1: proud consolation after months and years of trial, to experience
Speaker 1: the approbation that was given to the causes, he advocated
Speaker 1: it was a triumph greater than arms could ever win.
Speaker 1: With such manifestations, it was impossible that the cause of
Speaker 1: Nicaragua could fail, no matter who were its enemies, no
Speaker 1: matter how much they labored, no matter how much they willed.
Speaker 1: The enemy, he said, would yet be put beneath our feet.
Speaker 1: What a uh? We still get a chance, guys. The
Speaker 1: upward failure trajectory is unbolid truly, and I like that. Also,
Speaker 1: he's defining as the enemy the people of Nicaragua. And
Speaker 1: of course the Americat audience is like, yeah, fuck those guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: rather than being like, well, hold on, you went there
Speaker 1: and you fucked their whole shit up, they didn't like it. Okay, sure,
Speaker 1: what hey, let's you guys catching that five o'clock matinee
Speaker 1: of the William Walker Colonizer Fuckfest play. M hm, I
Speaker 1: bet that was a good play. We got it. We
Speaker 1: gotta get that script. Yeah, it has to be like
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress something. Someone help us. Fine, it's
Speaker 1: gotta be somewhere. It's gotta be somewhere. Now. It's hard
Speaker 1: to say how many lives precisely the whole debacle cost
Speaker 1: Walker took in about twenty five hundred soldiers during his
Speaker 1: time in power, forty percent of them died from either
Speaker 1: combat or illness, and it's unknown how many Central American
Speaker 1: soldiers and civilians died, but the number has to be
Speaker 1: at least in the low thousands. Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: Walker barely seemed to notice any of this. He still
Speaker 1: considered himself the president of Nicaragua, and he traveled quickly
Speaker 1: to Washington, DC see, where he met with President Buchanan.
Speaker 1: He told the actual president that he intended to return
Speaker 1: to his country. He also issued a formal complaint against
Speaker 1: the naval commander who'd arrested him. He suffered no legal
Speaker 1: consequences for his actions and was allowed to travel across
Speaker 1: the country raising money for a return to Nicaragua. My god,
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Right. Wait, so he had another trial in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, I'm guessing yeah, fine, and it went the
Speaker 1: same same thing. Yeah, Hey, I love you, Billy, keep
Speaker 1: on keeping on my man. Yeah, same, essentially, the same
Speaker 1: thing happens. Yeah, I mean, I actually I don't think
Speaker 1: there's a trial in Nicaragua or in New Orleans, but
Speaker 1: like yeah, he uh oh, so they just arrested Like, hey,
Speaker 1: come on, knock it off, you're coming home. Yeah for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he gets off scott free. Oh okay, so he's on
Speaker 1: time out. Yeah, so he traveled, not even time out
Speaker 1: because he immediately starts traveling around to raise money to
Speaker 1: like reinvade Nicaragua. In eighteen sixty, he published a book,
Speaker 1: The War in Nicaragua, and named himself as General William
Speaker 1: Walker on the title page. So he's been he has
Speaker 1: been colonel to general. Yeah, he went from colonel to
Speaker 1: general general. Oh wow, g e n apostrophe l he
Speaker 1: uh yeah, what the southernize is it? It's like a
Speaker 1: you know, like version of general. Yeah, it seems I
Speaker 1: feel like he thinks it seems a little bit less
Speaker 1: pompous or but like if yeah, if he had actually
Speaker 1: spelled it out, would that have been like cause him
Speaker 1: trouble because he's technically not a general. No, no, you
Speaker 1: could anyone could be any rank in the military they
Speaker 1: wanted at that point. Oh great, just a matter of
Speaker 1: calling it yourself. That So the book he dedicated to
Speaker 1: my comrades and Nicaragua, Uh, to do justice to their
Speaker 1: acts and motives, to the living, with hope that we
Speaker 1: may soon meet again on the soil for which we
Speaker 1: have suffered more than the pangs of death, the reproaches
Speaker 1: of a people for whose wealthare We've stood, ready to
Speaker 1: die to the memory of those who perished in the struggle,
Speaker 1: with a vow that, as long as life lasts, no
Speaker 1: peace shall remain with the foes who libel their names
Speaker 1: and strive to tear away the laurel which hangs over
Speaker 1: their graves. M A, oh, okay, yeah, Miles, it's better.
Speaker 1: There's not often lessons in the lives of these bastards.
Speaker 1: If there is in fact any lesson at all in
Speaker 1: the life of William Walker, it's that attempting to conquer
Speaker 1: Central American states with an army of drunken Southerners is
Speaker 1: apparently addictive. Shortly after publishing his stupid book, William Walker
Speaker 1: shacked up with a group of British settlers who planned
Speaker 1: to start a colony in Rowatan, an island off the
Speaker 1: coast of Honduras. Like the Nigaraguan Liberal Party, they asked
Speaker 1: for his help. He agreed, but was captured immediately by
Speaker 1: the British Navy on his way to start a war
Speaker 1: with Honduras. At the time, the British Empire controlled what's
Speaker 1: now believed and they considered William Walker, this guy whose
Speaker 1: only ambition is starting a series of ill conceived wars.
Speaker 1: They decide he's a dangerous influence on the region, and
Speaker 1: so rather than send him back to the USA, they
Speaker 1: make one of the only decisions the British Empire ever
Speaker 1: made that I fully endorse. They hand him over to
Speaker 1: the Honduran government for justice. Fuck yeah, yeah. He is
Speaker 1: sentenced instantly to die, and on September twelfth, eighteen sixty,
Speaker 1: William Walker was executed by firing squad. This Honduran firing
Speaker 1: squad is hell bent on making sure the motherfucker is dead. Yeah, people,
Speaker 1: I want to read you a quote from The New
Speaker 1: York Times writing about his execution. Three soldiers stepped forward
Speaker 1: to within twenty feet of him and discharged their muskets.
Speaker 1: The balls entered his body, and he leaned forward a little,
Speaker 1: but it being observed that he was not dead. A
Speaker 1: fourth soldier mercifully advanced so close to the suffering man
Speaker 1: that the muscle of the musket almost touched his forehead, and,
Speaker 1: being there discharged, scattered his brains and skull to the winds.
Speaker 1: Thus sends the life of the gray eyed Man of
Speaker 1: destiny fuck scattered his brains and skull to the wind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fucking blew his head off. Wow. I can only imagine
Speaker 1: how in indignant he was to in the like what
Speaker 1: that trial was or whatever quote unquote trial, if he
Speaker 1: had anything to say, or if at the last one
Speaker 1: he's like I'm trying to help. Yeah, today, William Walker
Speaker 1: is an obscure figure in the United States. I would
Speaker 1: be surprised if much more than like ten percent of
Speaker 1: the audience had heard anything about this guy before the episode.
Speaker 1: Like you said you flew into that airport named after
Speaker 1: the kid who fucked up his plans for a bunch
Speaker 1: of times. Yeah. I only learned about this guy like
Speaker 1: a year ago when a fan from Central America suggested
Speaker 1: him as a bastard. And he is still quite famous
Speaker 1: in the places he harmed. They remember William Walker and
Speaker 1: Sonora and Nicaragua and Costa Rica and Honduras. But here
Speaker 1: in the US of A, the only folks who still
Speaker 1: know the gray eyed Man of Destiny are history buffs
Speaker 1: and libertarians. Oh oh yeah, buddy, we had a fun
Speaker 1: last act of this episode. I want to end this
Speaker 1: by talking about a hilarious article I found on the
Speaker 1: CATO Foundation website about William Walker. Oh yeah, baby, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's reviewing a book called Tycoons War about Walker's career,
Speaker 1: and the fine folks at CATO really fucking like William Walker.
Speaker 1: Here's how they described the start of his war in
Speaker 1: Nicaragua with the same strict discipline he used in his
Speaker 1: Sonura campaign. Walker and fifty eight men sailed in May
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five for Nicaragua and made their rate of
Speaker 1: their revolutionary capital of Leon. Walker's reputation had preceded him,
Speaker 1: and he was well received. He and his men captured Grenada.
Speaker 1: Their fighting abilities in Walker's leadership defeated numbers that were
Speaker 1: as much as ten to one. Holy shit. Oh I'm
Speaker 1: not done, but let's just let that paragraph breathe the
Speaker 1: same strict discipline. Is there even a book they could
Speaker 1: have read that would have even given them that idea?
Speaker 1: Are they completely like? How do we make this guys?
Speaker 1: I haven't read this book Tycoons War, but maybe it
Speaker 1: makes it out that way. His own soldiers, when writing
Speaker 1: about it, later, repeatedly referenced how drunk they were. Holy shit.
Speaker 1: At discipline, of course, and his master tactical abilities that
Speaker 1: got all of the other guys in charge killed. His
Speaker 1: story captured world attention. He had brought an element of
Speaker 1: peace to the war ravaged country and hope the changes
Speaker 1: he enacted would help bring the entire Central American region
Speaker 1: under American control, changes like instituting slavery and making English
Speaker 1: the national language. In the new revolutionary government that formed,
Speaker 1: he was made commander in chief of the Nicaraguan Army.
Speaker 1: As such, he controlled Nicaragua in eighteen fifty eight. Minor
Speaker 1: breakdowns and uprisings led to the collapse of the government,
Speaker 1: and in Walker's re establishment of it, he was elected president.
Speaker 1: Walker's government was recognized by the US government under President
Speaker 1: Franklin Pierce, and friendly relations were established. Walker was so
Speaker 1: popular he was able to recruit thousands of Americans into
Speaker 1: his private army. Like, oh wow, bravo. Reading modern libertarians
Speaker 1: right about this has convinced me that, like, oh no,
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of people who would like today
Speaker 1: if an American tried to invade Nicaragua to make it
Speaker 1: part of America and reinstitute slavery, they'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: fuck yeah, why not absolutely, And it's I'm you know,
Speaker 1: they leave out the important lesson for colonizer has gone wrong?
Speaker 1: Is it can end up with your brains and skull
Speaker 1: scattering into the wind. Yeah, it's it's frustrating because like,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got your you've got your your good
Speaker 1: libertarians and your evil libertarians embodied by the Cato Institute,
Speaker 1: and like, like, as a libertarian, your your attitude should
Speaker 1: be this guy interfered directly with the liberty of an
Speaker 1: entire people, and he got murdered for it. This is
Speaker 1: a happy story therefore, Yeah, it makes sense played out. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's I don't know that this whole good on
Speaker 1: the Cato Institute for keeping the memory of William Walker
Speaker 1: alive by lying about it. Yeah, I mean people need heroes,
Speaker 1: you know. So strict discipline, strict discipline. Everyone's black the
Speaker 1: fuck out drunk fighting in a lot of wars. In
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, William Walker's strict discipline reminds me
Speaker 1: of my own strict discipline. Yeah, just like, fuck it, man,
Speaker 1: play it like a video game. See what happens. Yeah, Miles, yep.
Speaker 1: How you feeling. How are you feeling at the end
Speaker 1: of this? Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad. We get I'm
Speaker 1: on an episode where like there's justice. Uh yeah, Like
Speaker 1: typically it's been like and they died in obscurity and
Speaker 1: natural death, or like to this day, Eric Prince is
Speaker 1: still trying to fucking you know, act out his like
Speaker 1: army fantasy, or and they were rich and beloved forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or like you know when I when we did Trump University.
Speaker 1: That's that's that chapter is still being written. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a nice, wrapped up version of
Speaker 1: this moment in history with a lesson for wanna be colonizers.
Speaker 1: Uh and also a great lesson now knowing the history
Speaker 1: of U was it once? Uh? One Santa Maria, Yeah, one,
Speaker 1: Santa Maria. Yeah. Shout out to him, man, and shout
Speaker 1: out to him. Yeah, the kid's cool as hell. So yes, Miles,
Speaker 1: you want to colonize the end of this episode with
Speaker 1: some some plugables, Oh man, Yeah, I'm gonna keep plugging.
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Speaker 1: of a whacky group of volunteers to go with you
Speaker 1: as well. I bet I could get forty five heavily
Speaker 1: armed men to go get painkillers and Ensnata with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and absolutely not needed. But a no worth the store out,
Speaker 1: No you don't. They sell them to you willingly, so
Speaker 1: there's no need for arms. Yeah, that's just for the funzies. Robert, Well,
Speaker 1: the episode's over. What Robert also hosts at Worst Year Ever,
Speaker 1: which is on the Twinstagram. We also have a Twinstagram
Speaker 1: for our show at Bastards Pod, and also follow Robert
Speaker 1: at I Right, okay, we have a tea public store.
Speaker 1: She's somebody is holding her forehead in just absolute disappointment.
Speaker 1: Just for you as a host. I just want to
Speaker 1: communicate that to you. It's not really a child disappointed
Speaker 1: mom by someone someone tweeted earlier. Robert has finally succeeded
Speaker 1: in doing that thing men do where they forcibly make
Speaker 1: themselves so incompetent at something that a woman has to
Speaker 1: handle it. And that exactly that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 1: I remember how quickly that happens too, because I believe
Speaker 1: the last time I was on this show, you used
Speaker 1: to actually give out this information I did. I did,
Speaker 1: used to remember it used to do my job. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Sophie's just going to be doing the entire show and
Speaker 1: I will still get paid, and that's that is my retirement.
Speaker 1: And then you have fully William Walker the fuck out
Speaker 1: of this thing. Yeah all right, Robert, shut the fuck up.
Speaker 1: The episode's over. It is Wow