Part Two: The Dumbest Colonizer in History

Robert is joined again by Miles Gray to continue discussing William Walker.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Internet. Shit. I'm Robert Evans again, still badly introducing my
podcast Behind the Bastards about bad people, terrible ones. Miles
still my guest. Yes, still ashamed to be here after
that introduction? How are you doing? Oh? Not than that
intro gave me life quite the opposite. Oh yeah that
it didn't look like it. It looked like you died

(00:25):
a little bit inside. Oh that's just because I got
an email, say, oh saying I owe money for car
insurance or something. Oh man, I have some good news
about Geico, but I forget what it is. Can you
save me fifteen percent or more? I don't know. Okay,
well i'll test that theory. I'm going to go to
the insurance provider and I'm going to enter code bastards

(00:47):
and see what I get. Yeah. You just you find
someone who sells insurance and you you paint or carve
that into them, and you'll get a discount on your insurance.
That's the way it works. Fantastic. Yeah, you know, I'm sorry.
I'm a little bit distracted right now. My friend Michael
had a really rough night and I've just kind of
been trying to text him through it. Ohe Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:10):
You know, he's a nice guy. Every now and then
he just kind of you know, we all make bad choices. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
he's trying to buy an election. I think there are
just some women who maybe didn't like maybe a couple
jokes I made. It was my favorite line. Yeah, this
is the night after the the the debate. We'll try

(01:31):
not to talk about it too much because we have
an even more problematic man than Michael Bloomberg to discuss.
I want to talk about old Willie Walker here. Yeah, yeah,
Bill Walker, will Helm Walker. So when we left off
with our story, William Walker had just captured a new
country by stealing a town from Mexico and then murdering
several of its people when they dared to say, hey,

(01:54):
we're maybe not okay with us, right, Yeah, And I
got like, you gotta have an element Maybe respects the
wrong word, but something for a guy who like captures
a small town and is like, I got me a
country now, I have I have respect in the way
that I would have like respect, like if it were
a script and it wasn't real and it was for

(02:15):
the pure comedy, I would have respect for that character. Yeah,
I'm like, this is great for the plot. Yeah, there's
like a fun Will Ferrell movie. And in aspects of this,
if you trim out the racism and slavery and murder,
yeah yeah, Will Ferrell would be the right guy to
play this dude. Yeah yeah. Oh he's big, yeah, big guy.

(02:37):
I could see like Sam Rockwell too. Oh, Sam Rockwell
would be fun. He's like that might be better. Yeah,
Will Ferrell like there's a there's like a silent confidence
to him. Sam Rockwell has the range to like tap
into like a guy who is trying to prove his
like hero Grandpa wrong. Yeah, He's got that like nervous
like energy thing like that, like say yeah, yeah, yeah,

(02:59):
I think you're right. Sam rockwells well a lot of comedy.
I'd like to open part two this episode with a
paragraph from the book Filibusters and Financiers, which is again
a nineteen sixteen book that is kind of like bemusicly
positive towards William Walker and the ideas of manifest Destiny.

(03:22):
It includes a paragraph describing the general character of the
American man during this period of time, and I find
this passage really insightful for trying to get into the
head of like what a lot of people, like the
people back at home who thought what Walker was doing
in Mexico was awesome, Like, what's kind of going on
in their brains? I think this is an interesting paragraph. Oy,

(03:42):
So again, this is writing about the American man in general.
In the eighteen fifties quote he was always sure that
he was right. The belief of the Americans in their
own excellence was one of the things which most impressed
and puzzled the foreign visitor. Success in the struggle for
existence in the New World had produced unbounded egotism self confidence.
Every vigorous boy passes through such a stage as he

(04:03):
approaches adolescence. To other members of his family and to
his neighbors, he seems something of a bully. In this period,
other nations entertained a similar opinion of young America. All
the world regarded this country as a braggart and a bully,
and the estimate was not entirely unjust. It is consoling, however,
to record that our faults, numerous as they were, were
symptoms of youth and superabundant health, rather than signs of

(04:24):
senile degeneracy. So we were giant dicks during this period
of time, but like we were young or whatever. Yeah, yeah,
that's what happens. You get to get some genocidal colonizer
thoughts and he ACKed him out. Okay, sorry, Yeah, it's amazing.
I love that paragraph. So depending on which source you read,

(04:47):
you're gonna get different takes in terms of like what
William's attitudes towards slavery during this period of time. Some
sources paint him is kind of indifferent to it in
his early life, like obviously his parents had slaves, but
he wasn't a slaveholder. His magazine was kind of for
the time and place kind of soft on abolition Like
obviously they ran ads for slaves, but they weren't like
like a lot of papers in that period of time

(05:08):
would have been like abolitionist should be murdered for so,
like they weren't on that into things, right, right, So
I guess less Fox News, more CNN. Yeah, yeah, HE'SNBC
whatever it is. Yeah, I take him away, really, Yeah,
we'll take your money and we'll half call it out,
but we'll take your money. Yeah. I think we can
all rest assured that both CNN and MSNBC in the

(05:29):
eighteen fifties would have been both sides saying the hell
out of slavery. Oh, yes, yes, they're gonna be like, hey,
you know it's it's like, who is it? Was it?
Andrew Jackson is like, hey, you got a wolf by
the years? You know what? Do you know? You're gonna
let it go? I don't know, man, maybe maybe stop
grabbing wolves? Yeah, Andrew, Andrew, why are we grabbing wolves?
You sick? Fuck you grab a wolf by the years

(05:49):
and nothing's gonna know what? Now, let it go. You
deserve to be mulled to death. Yeah. Yeah, it's just
like somebody fucking with a wolf and big like, there's
no way to stop this wolf from being angry at me.
Hold on, you're grabbing it by the fucking hu was that?
Wasn't that Andrew Jackson who said that? I think? I
think so subodous Jackson. Yeah, it definitely sounds Jackson eight. So,

(06:10):
whatever the case, in terms of William's views on slavery,
by the time he wound up in Sonora, he had
transformed into a strict supporter of America's peculiar institution. A
write up I found in the Pin Gazette notes he
may have had a change of heart or may simply
have recognized the usefulness of pro slavery sentiment and gaining
support and recruits for his filibustering. The most ardent advocates

(06:31):
of Manifest Destiny were Southerners, who viewed expansion and annexation
as opportunities to establish new slave states, tipping the tenuous
balance with the abolitionist North. Most of Walker's in the
stees On the Mexican Adventure had been recruited from the
slave states of Tennessee and Kentucky. Once in control, Walker
borrowed the laws of Louisiana for his new republic, making
slavery legal by default. So we're gonna talk about that

(06:54):
a little bit more later. But yeah, well i'll astual
right now. Scott Martel, Williams's best biographer and the author
William Walker's Wars, It makes a point of noting that
Walker could have just as easily stolen the laws and
constitution of California because he'd worked as a lawyer in
both states, so he knew the laws just as well. Right,
But California didn't allow slavery, right, which suggests that Walker

(07:15):
was explicitly motivated to make a new slave state in
northern Mexico. And it's interesting because, like Walker himself never
actually owned a slave, So maybe this was all about
trying to recruit more Southerners to come to his banner,
oh right, being like, hey, we're we're slave friendly. Yeah,
we're slave friendly. We're going to make another Texas underneath Texas.
It's going to be even Texas or oh wow, yeah

(07:37):
you imagine, yes, yeah, I guess. I'm I'm having trouble
even processing that concept, but I'm going to trust you
on that. Yeah. So he was not ideologically committed to slavery,
at least in his writing in prior, where he'd supported
slavery and slave states under the ages of democracy, which
you know, ignores the fact that the actual slave people

(07:57):
couldn't vote. And this kind of pre to be like,
this line of reasoning would prove to be regular behavior
for Walker. He justified his invasion of Mexico on humanitarian grounds,
citing the raids by indigenous people and the unfair taxes
taken by Mexico, without actually ever talking to those people
or furnishing any evidence that he wanted them to free
him or him to free them. Yeah. In parsing out

(08:19):
the actual motivations, of William Walker personally. Martell Citeses historian
Frank Soul who wrote that Walker was quote a brave,
highly educated, and able man. Whatever maybe thought of his
discretion and true motives of conduct in the expedition, he
seems to have taken a high moral and political position
in the affair, though his professions were peculiar in their propriety,
not readily admitted by downright sticklers for equity and natural law.

(08:41):
A few of his coagitators were also men of a
keen sense of honor, who forgot or he did not
in the excitement of the adventure the opinions of mere
honest men upon the subject. But the vast majority of
Walker's followers can only be viewed as desperate actors in
a true filibustering or robbing speculation. The good of the
wretched and apache oppressed scenorians was not in their thoughts.
If they succeeded, they might lay the sheer foundations of fortunes.

(09:03):
If they failed, it was only time and perhaps life lost.
In either event, there was grand excitement in the game.
Yeah that could I thought you were reading a description
like before the Second Iraq War or something. Holy Shau
nother thing's ever changed. Yeah, it's like, yeah, look, here's
here's the flow chart. Dude, does this country have something

(09:24):
you want? Yes? Are they willing to let you take it? Yes?
Or no? If it says no, okay, invade on the
grounds of humanitarian crisis. And it's just that, right, Yeah,
And you have a couple of guys in there who
really do think they're they're doing the humanitarian thing, and
you shove those dudes out front because it makes for
a good look. But ninety percent of everybody's just like,
I want to get what's fucking mind? And they got

(09:45):
out of this way? What do I got to say?
What do I got to say to get over there? Yeah? Yeah, fine, fine, fine,
fine fine fine, yeah. Ye yeah, that that humanitarian for sure.
It's interesting that Walker just stole all the laws and
legal code of Louisiana because you might expect that, as
a former newspaper editor and a call a man of
letters and a lawyer, that like he would have written
something in the founding document of his innor nation, like

(10:06):
something at all, anything to like state out what its
values or beliefs or goals were, right, like the Declaration
of Independence or the Bill of rights, and it says
a lot that Walker ignored doing any of that and
just was like, ah, we'll just be like Louisiana. Yeah.
I guess that's usually like a time for like an
egomaniac to like really do a nice solo on yourself,
being like, oh, yeah, here step one of my constitution

(10:28):
of my new country I'm doing, where he's just kind
of like, fuck it, I'm just gonna steal my I'm
not going to do my homework. Yeah. Maybe so, I
guess that's less about him really wanting to start his
own country and more just the idea that he could. Yeah.
I think it was more just like he wanted. I
suspect his goal was to just try to conquer this
chunk of Mexico and then give it to like have

(10:51):
it be annexed by the United States and get fucking
rich as shit and be the founding father of a
new state. I really think that was kind of his
end goal here. He's like a fucking Freemanni shit. Yeah, yeah,
exactly like it. You can tell like there's a I
think it's probably a good idea to look at kind
of John Brown as an example of another kind of
deluded guy who had like dreams of setting up his

(11:12):
own state with a tiny number of men. And like
the first thing Brown did before he even got militarily
involved was right up like a constitution and a statement
of values and all these things that like someone who
actually believes something does with bark on a plan like this. Yeah, yeah,
Walker does not believe in shit other than getting rich
and famous. I think that's where I land on this.

(11:33):
So he really is the modern American. I think we're
strying to see this. Like there's not even like the
romance of it all like some of these other figures have.
It's purely yeah, no, man, this is lucrative and it's
like weird to say, but he doesn't even have the
kind of ethical commitment to love slavery. Like he never
owns a slave, He doesn't care that much. He's using

(11:54):
that because he knows it'll get him recruits, but like
he doesn't even he's not even committed to that right on. Yeah,
it's a just as it's weird, Like it would honestly
be a little bit I would still I mean, differently
gross if he was like a committed slaveholder, but instead
he's just sort of like using this really gross thing
other people are committed to to further his own post.

(12:15):
It's so weird, just total master manipulator. Yeah. Anyway, back
to the story. So where we are when we left off,
is he they captured the town of Lapause shot, some
people captured the new governor, who they found on a boat,
and then sailed away from the city and towards Cabo
San Lucas. Yeah. So they set up a camp outside

(12:38):
of Cabo San Lucas and prepared to affect their invasion,
and unfortunately for them, the locals had heard all about
what they were doing in Lapause and had organized a
militia to resist. Oh hell yeah. Yeah. Now, Walker had
been expecting a few volunteers to arrive from San Francisco
to like show up his numbers, but they didn't get
there in time, and after a few days he decided

(12:58):
he had to move his new nation capital for the
third time in like two weeks. He hadn't even conquered
so did he even step foot step foot or he
just like he's gonna be He was like right this boat. Yeah,
they were like camped outside and he was like, oh ship,
there's like way more of them than us, and they're
actually ready now, Like I can't just stumble into the
mayor's office and Sam at church? Yeah, like wave a muscar?

(13:21):
Who's in charge? Yeah? Nah me? Now so so then
he had to pack his ship up yep and look
for capital three point zero. Looks for capital three point oh.
So you're in Baja, right, you're in Baja. You're looking
for you want it to be on the coast, obviously,
Like you're in Baja, you gotta be on the fucking coast.
Cabo is not working out. Where do you? Where do you?

(13:43):
Where do you go? I don't know? I mean, like,
do you It sounds like if you're smart, you're like,
all right, I've made Mexico way too hot for me. No, no, no,
He's still He's still sticking with them. He's still he
is committed to Mexico. This is a fucking idiot. And
the reason this is hysterical close. The reason this is

(14:04):
hysterical will make less sense to people who do they
haven't lived in southern California. But he rolls to fucking
in Sonata. Baby there he is hell yeah, baby Today
known for its beautiful beaches, pleasant weather, and dirt sheep
drug store tramadol in Sonata was at that point the

(14:25):
furthest northern settlements on the BOP. And it's like, I
love en Sonata. Oh yeah, I mean everyone knows you
go there. You better learn the generic name for prescription drugs.
And you're down there. Yeah, you're damn right. No. So,
its proximity to San Diego would secure his flank and
provide him with an easy route to accept new American volunteers.

(14:46):
His forces landed in in Sonata on November thirtieth, eighteen
fifty three, and seized the town without a fight because
it was barely a town. Shortly there, yeah, there was, yeah,
shortly thereafter, he posted a message in the center of
town explaining his intentions to his new citizens. He sent
a copy of this message to the San Diego Herald.
And I have to note that this message to his

(15:06):
new citizens and in Sonata was written in English. Of course,
I mean, yes, of course, of course. You're like, yeah,
I don't know what here. This is what I'm telling you,
and figure it out. Oh, I don't know what they
speak in Sonata. What is it French? What is it?
I don't know that one. Uh, he argued in his

(15:29):
letter that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which had ended
the Mexican American War, had established a state of affairs
whereby Mexico could not adequately care for its western provinces,
since they were like cut off from the rest of Mexico. Furthermore, quote,
the moral and social ties which bound it to Mexico
have been even weaker and more dissolute than the physical. Hence,
to develop the resources of California and to affect a

(15:50):
proper social organization therein, it was necessary to make it independent. Independent, hmmm, hmmm.
Walker pointed out that Baja many natural resources which required
good government by white people in order to truly exploit,
and then Miles then he got then he got really racist.

(16:11):
Then he yeah, no, no, he fucking dives into it now, oh, Quote,
the territory on your Mexican rule would forever remain wild,
half savage and uncultivated, covered with an indolent and half
civilized people desirous of keeping all foreigners from entering the
limits of the state. When the people of a territory
fail almost entirely to develop the resources nature has placed

(16:33):
at their command, the interests of civilization require others to
go in and possess the land they cannot, nor should
they be allowed to play the dog and the manger
and keep others from possessing what they have failed to
occupy and appropriate. Oh my god, m that is some
colonizer mentality there. Fucking I don't know if I'm like hi,

(16:54):
because I'm so fucking like it's so cringey to hear
it like that, or I'm maybe I'm sack actually high,
but I feel that cause of visceral sense. Oh, it's
the real motivation behind all colonialism that some most colon
I particularly like most people who who write positively about

(17:14):
colonialism in like the twentieth century, covered up a bit more. Yeah, yeah, Like, oh,
you guys are too dumb and arcane to fucking know
what to do with this stuff. Therefore you need me
to come in exploit it, give you nothing, and then
when you ask for something, I'll, you know, I'll say
you're a communist, and then I'll send it. Send some
people to the School of Americas. It's a little bit
like when I was younger and very drunk, sometimes I

(17:36):
would go into restaurants and steal food from other people's
plates because I was too drunk to know that things
like property rights existed, and they weren't eating the food
while I was taking it, and so William Walker, Yeah,
that's that's that's that's the that's the justifications Walker's using
you to that a drunk met you walk into a

(17:57):
Chili's and you're just like, man, sometimes it was way
nicer than Chili's. I got some stories about a fucking
Buddha bar and uh fucking Kiev that are yeah anyway, wow, yeah.
So Walker argued that the Mexican government, which he had
fled two cities already in order to avoid, had given
up their claim to Baja by failing to protect it.
This is as he's fleeing from the Mexican military. Baja was,

(18:21):
in his words, a waif on the waters, and Mexico
cannot complain if others take it and make it valuable.
What such a piece of shit, dude, the balls on
this fucking guy. I know it's amazing. Oh well, if
it mattered so much, you would have fought for it.
So yeah, stop playing game. That's exactly what I yelled
at those people when I stole the food from their plates. Yeah,

(18:42):
that's like kind of like if like you, I've I
was in a relationship where someone broke up with me
to test if I would fight for their relationship. But
I that's that's a healthy way to deal with the
relationship right there. I took it as I was respecting
what their wishes were, and I was like, oh, if
that's how you feel, like, okay, then sorry. And then
her friend was like, she wanted you to fight for her,

(19:04):
and I was like, well, what the fuck? I was
told a different thing. I'm sorry, Okay, but I guess
the same thing with Mexico. You didn't fight for her. Okay,
so it's mine now. Yes, yeah, William Walker is the
same as your ex girlfriend. I say that a lot. Yeah,
I know you do. I'm glad we're going to get
that in. Yeah. So in public dispatches, all this was

(19:25):
framed in a mix of standard colonialist justifications like the
ones above and the ever present assertion that Walker and
his men were protecting the local Mexican people from dastardly
dangerous natives. Now, there is no evidence that any of
these people ever felt protected by him. In fact, since
he and his men stole food and other supplies whileever
they traveled, it is unlikely that the people of Insnata

(19:46):
saw Walker's men is different from any other bandits. Yeah,
the best you can say for Walker and his soldiers
is that they mostly rated the ranches of wealthy property owners.
So hmm yeah. Now, one of the people that they
stole from these wealthy property owners in Ensenada was named
Antonio Maria Malindres, and he fled his ransacked home while

(20:07):
walker'smen were there stealing shit from it for the town
of Santo Tomas, and succeeded in raising a small militia
to fight back against what he assumed was just a
bunch of American horse themes from San Diego. Remember, like
news doesn't travel at this period's he just sees these
Americans with the guns. He's like, oh, they must have
These must just be criminals who crawl, which is like
not wrong, But he doesn't realize they're trying to make

(20:27):
a nation. He just thinks they're stealing shit random. I
think this is a thought many people in Baja California
have had first, I guess centuries. Now they go, it's
probably just a couple assholes from San Diego. I have
embodied aspects of William Walker's behavior in the same city.
And I apologize and have apologized repeatedly to the people
of Ensenada for Oh wow, well you're you're a better

(20:49):
man than he. Look if they if they weren't going
to properly make use of the great resources of tramadol
in nature, it's just going to waste. They will colonize
the shit out of those hundred mic pills. Baby. Yeah,
speaking of one hundred milligram tramadol pills, you know what

(21:10):
you cannot buy over the internet without attracting substantial risk.
It's it's time for an ad break. We're not supported
by tramadol unfortunately, yet we're back, okay. So uh, this

(21:30):
guy uh, Antonio Milindrez like uh, he makes a militia
to fight back against Walker's men, and they successfully ambush
some of Walker's soldiers who are in the middle of
robbing a house, and they kill one of them and
capture a route the rest. So Malendras takes some of
these prisoners and he interrogates them, and he learns that
like this, these are just a bunch of random bandits.
These people are trying to conquer the entire Baja Peninsula.

(21:53):
So that interrogation process must have been so weird. You
think their horse evening, like what the fuck's your deal
be here for? And they're like, uh, We're here to
fucking take away for everything. And I'd be like, oh shit,
oh wow, really, well have you a fucking bayonet point?
So how's that looking for you right now? Yeah? So
that that's kind of exactly what Malindraz does is he's like,

(22:15):
all right, well we've got a still. We got to
put a stop to this city. This isn't good. Oh
you thought you were going to call him shit. So
he puts together a force of about sixty men and
he assaults Walker and his soldiers in in Sonata the
next day, and Walker's men were quickly surrounded inside a
walled adobe compound they'd taken for their headquarters. But unfortunately
for Malindrez, they had cannons and they were very well

(22:37):
set up inside this compound. So he's basically with an
almost equal sized force of men charging Walker inside a
fortified position with artillery, and it does not go well.
More than a dozen of Malendres's men are killed, several
more are wounded, and only one of Walker's raiders is
shot dead, although eight more are wounded, So Malindres pulls
back and the situation devolves into a siege. Now, at

(23:00):
this point in time, the boat that Walker had chartered,
the Caroline, had a great vantage point to watch all
this unfold, and it's captain decided he had no interest
in waiting around for the end and winding up in
a Mexican prison. And his captain, by the way, is
the guy Walker appointed his secretary of the Navy. So
the Secretary of the Navy goes to those two captive
Mexican governors on board and he's like, I don't want

(23:21):
any part of this anymore, Like, yeah, I'm gonna work
something out. Yeah, And like generations of Americans after him,
they sailed to Cabo San Lucas to chill out. Uh
irony of it all? Wait, So that guy he basically
just gave him up and was like like release that
the captive governors to just he takes them back to
Cabo and he's like, yeah, I'm not a part of

(23:42):
this anymore. Yeah. Uh. I wish we would see more
people like that Secretary of the Navy in today's environment. Yeah,
you know, I wish our secretary of the Navy was
like that Secretary of the Navy and gave up our
navy to Mexico. It would just be interesting, yeah, or
at its like prosecuted like war criminals. Yeah. Wow, that's

(24:03):
a little much to hope for. So William Walker did
succeed in breaking the siege of Ensenada by launching a
daring night attack after a series of rainstorms, but most
of his opponents, including Malindres, fled into the hinterlands around
the city in order to raise more men to repulse
the Americans. And one of these guys, one of malindres
as soldiers, a guy named Negrete, actually traveled to San

(24:24):
Diego and then San Francisco to try to talk with
US authorities and determined whether or not the government was
okay with what was happening, which it basically like went
to the American careers like, are you do you guys
know what's happening down here? Is this you guys co
sign this? Yeah? This seems like a problem to me. Wow.

(24:45):
So while all this was going on, Walker had several
men in California recruiting a new wave of soldiers to
reinforce the Republic's beleaguered forty Ish man army. These guys
succeeded and drying together roughly two hundred new soldiers and
a new boat, the Anita. It was not a wildly
competent group. Only the captain and first mate had any
sailing experience, and the soldiers weren't much better at soldiering.

(25:07):
One recruit later recalled that quote. Almost all on board
were more or less drunk on the trip over the Sinota.
Three of them died during the voyage over casualties of
a minor storm. So what these are not the Navy
seals riding into the rescue? Why is it always a
bunch of drunk dudes? Because didn't he like panically, didn't

(25:28):
he panic le hicabo? All drunken? Shit? What I mean?
What other type of man is going to pick up
a gun and try to conquer a sovereign nation with
like forty other guys. That's true, A sober man's not
going to make that call. Honestly, They'll be like, oh, wait,
I didn't really want to fight anymore? Is gonna be
fight all Mexico? I don't care. Well, is the cocaine there?

(25:51):
I'll check it out. I'll check it out. Wow. I mean, Also,
I like the idea you're so drunk that you died
in a storm on a ship. Yeah. Yeah, Like that's
how bad. That's how a nept you are at sailing
that three people drunk, baby boat drunk. Now. The Anita
made port it in Sonata on December twentieth, a week
after the end of the siege, and the added men

(26:13):
more than quadrupled the size of Walker's force. They also
supplied it with fresh cannon guns and powder. But their
arrival also meant that Walker had that many more mouths
to feed, which could only be accomplished by shamelessly stealing
food from the locals they were there to ostensibly protect
from bandits. Here we go. Oh boy, it's great. So
I'm going to quote again from William Walker's Wars quote.

(26:36):
Walker sent sixty five men under Captain George R. Davidson
to Governor de Grete's command center at Santo Tomas. They
found it undefended and seized it without a fight. In
his brag filled reports to the North Samuel Ruland reporter
that the wealthy ranchero owners, frustrated with a lack of
protection by the Mexican government, had fully embraced the new Republic.
He claimed that the locals offered Walker and his men
free food and other supplies, but that the self proclaimed

(26:58):
president had turned them down. Horses now having abundant supplies
from the confiscated property of the outlaw malindres Ruined wrote
that Walker intended to pay for all supplies received from
friendly inhabitants, and Walker issued a decree condemning to death
all persons guilty of plundering the property of the friendly inhabitants.
In other words, ranch owners who opposed Walker would find
their property pillaged, while those who acquiesced would be protected.

(27:21):
Now that's the way he was supposed to work on paper, Yeah,
but in reality his men stole everything that wasn't nailed down,
even from the people who agreed to be part of
this new republic to not get robbed. One landowner later wrote,
houses were broken into families were forced to do the
bidding of the invaders, and horses and saddles were taken

(27:42):
from passing civilians. In short, the marauders were behaving as
though they were absolute masters of the country. Haven't help
anyone who resisted or in any way refused to do
what they commanded for Then the fury of the entire
company was vented on him. Oh so they were just basically, yeah,
stick up for yourself and then we'll just beat the
shit out of you, slash kill you. Was there like,

(28:03):
was there like a massive body count at this point,
like or were they or they made but it's probably
recorded that probably lives trying at least a few. There's
not like a direct count, but like you have to
assume there were murders and obviously rapes. I'm gonna guess
the majority of people learned to either hide from them

(28:23):
or give up what because they're like, you know, there's
like there's a bunch of guys with guns. Now, Like
I guess we give them what they want. Yeah, So,
new volunteers continued to trickle in from the United States,
inspired by the stories published in California newspapers and the
promise of looting for themselves. By January of eighteen fifty four,
William Walker's army had expanded to three hundred men. He

(28:43):
celebrated this by declaring, get another name change to his
new country. This is the third name change. The Republic
of Lower California was now they're Republic of Sonora. It
had two states, Sonora, where he held no land in
lower California, where he controlled the town of en Sonata
and two small outposts. Reports of these momentous changes and
great victories were spread throughout the yellow Press of southern California.

(29:06):
But things were not going well for Walker. His minutes
succeeded in capturing mostly cows for food, and they're all beef.
Diet had gotten quickly tirings. So they have enough food,
but it's all beef and it's like all boiled beef.
And they are not happy with this. They don't even
know're not even local spices. Huh No, No, they mean
they're white. Yeah, I know they had Yeah, even these

(29:28):
white colonizers had linten. Yeah, I'm sure they must have
smelled someone's cooking. They're like, well, what do you call that?
Why is that so good? Human? Oh? Yeah, how do
I get that? Yeah? So the president and his commanders,
of course got bread and vegetables, but everyone else had
to make do with just boiled beef in the occasional
bit of corn. This frustrated the men enough that one

(29:48):
of them destroyed the oven Walker's cook used to bake
his bread. Yeah, petty. As the days and weeks rolled on,
soldiers began to desert. Others fell sick and died. Arguments
over the unequal district should have stolen horses led some
of the remaining men to the brink of mutiny. When
a group of them told the president colonel that they
were leaving, he warned them that desertion was a capital offense.
When this did not dissuade anyone, he tried his hand

(30:11):
at making a glorious speech to inspire his soldiers to stay.
He ended it by announcing that anyone who wished to
leave could go, and anyone who wanted to stay would
have to swear an oath through wheel and woe to
stay with him until they had conquered all of western Mexico.
So this is a little bit. I'm guessing it's not
said that this was the case. I'm guessing this was
sort of in an echo of I always forget this
guy from my Texas history class, but one of the

(30:31):
guys at the Alamo like drew a line in the
sand and was literally like at least so the story goes,
you know, if you want to stay on this side
and fight, you know, come on this side and whatever,
and it's like this big moment from Texas history where
this guy like draws this line in the sand. Yeah,
very powerful moment. Walker tries to do essentially the same
thing and a quarter of his army leaves immediately. I

(30:55):
love it. He's just like a shitty, toxic boss who
liked he's so bad. And I love those moments. I
don't I don't typically envision you, Robert, having traditional work history,
but like, have you ever worked in an office where
there was like the toxic boss and there was the
moment he realized the whole office was against him or her? No,

(31:16):
you know I've I've been really lucky in my bosses. Actually,
oh man, Yeah, well that's true. Yeah, and you follow
your you follow your HEARTI there been times when I've
worked like retail or other things and like there's a
moment like you guys gonna let this happen. Aarone's like, yeah,
we are because we hate you and you're not saying
the worst, So welcome to this reality. I mean, I
did have that one moment when Jack O'Brien asked us

(31:38):
to swear an oath to him while he was trying
to conquer and Sonata, But that was Yeah, and you
didn't take it seriously. He thought, he says this shit
all the time. He didn't have very many cannons, right,
So yeah. So in short order, just because of all
these guys who leave and then others dessert like, Walkers
down to about one hundred and forty men, and he
decides that his numbers have fallen enough that he has

(32:00):
to move yet again, to the town of San Vincente.
But he was halted in doing this when two US
Navy ships filled with marines set anchor just outside of Ensnata.
These were the US government's belated response to his invasion.
Their job was to block any passage south of additional
reinforcements for Walker's shrinking army. So Walker decides to march
south anyway, and once again his forts is easily capture

(32:21):
the undefended town, this time Sand Vincente. President Colonel Walker
immediately demands the local tribes and citizens all swear personal
fealty to him, which some of them did in order
to avoid trouble. But Walker's army was in full collapse
at this point. He left in Sonata with one hundred
and forty men, but he had less than one hundred
left by the time he got to San Vincente. So
Walker grew furious with the constant desertions, and on February

(32:42):
twenty eighth, some of his men caught a group of
volunteers planning to dessert. Before they could actually get away,
he placed five of them, the ring leaders, under arrest.
Two were sentenced to lashing, and two were executed immediately.
The fifth was pardon. Yeah, so he's killing his own
guys now, it's yeah, part of it's fallen apart now.
The fifth was pardoned because he was a good cattle

(33:03):
driver and they needed no one knew how to do anything. Yeah. So,
observing his men murdering their comrades, William Walker wrote that
this was quote a good test of military discipline, since
killing your fellow soldiers was the hardest thing a soldier
could do, and he added that God what on this occasion,
the duty was more difficult because the number of Americans

(33:23):
was small and was daily diminishing. Holy shit, I'm fucking
I'm guessing we're starting to enter the third act of
this disaster. Man, not even well, third act of Mexico,
right right, oh my yeah again, just the idea. He's amazing, Yeah,

(33:45):
and he's really like in a like true people who
have these like fixations on like dominating and conquering, like
they absolutely live in their own mind. And despite all
of the evidence and data that's in front of him
that I would say, like an intelligent person like this
is actually an abject failure and if I'm serious about this,
I mean you need to rework it. They just go, nah,

(34:08):
fuck it, hit the accelerator and let's just go pedal
to the metal and see what happens. Look, if I
got to kill some guys that are my own people,
then it's what I'm gonna do. And then honestly, that's
actually pretty chill because it's like a really sick test
of like discipline. So yeah, it's you, yeah, actually what
it must happen. So yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So at

(34:29):
this point, Walker split his forces, leaving thirty men back
in the Sonata and taking seventy further east, intent on
finally capturing some land and Sonora, and this proved to
be a bad call. Malindras had raised another militia, which
he used to assault and capture San Vincente without much
of a fight. He immediately executed a dozen of Walker's men,
creating a sensation in California papers. This left Walker and

(34:51):
his remaining soldiers stuck in the middle of Baja California
with no base of operations or support. The whole mess
collapsed in short order, and Walker eventually wound up flea
for the US border. In the end, his army was
reduced to just thirty three men. Twenty two of his
volunteers had died in Mexico, eight more had been grievously wounded.
They were all almost immediately arrested, and Walker was taken
back to San Francisco for trial. He was indicted by

(35:14):
a grand jury on May eleventh, eighteen sixty four, along
with his secretaries of War and Navy. The charge was
violation of the Neutrality Act, a crime they were obviously
guilty of committing. The presiding judge was Isaac Ogier, the
first DA for Los Angeles like the very first District
Attorney for Los Angeles. Yeah, and his chief legal claim
to fame was that in the past he'd introduced a

(35:34):
bill as state assemblymen to ban free black people from
living in California. So, as you might expect, he and
many of the potential juror pool in San Francisco were
inclined to sympathize with William Walker. Yeah, holy shit, Okay, yeah. So.
Walker's chief defense was that he'd never intended to enter
Mexico in a hostile manner. His expedition had only turned

(35:55):
into an invasion after they were attacked by violent locals.
Oh you fucking we were just on vacation with all
of our guns and cannon cannons. What did you think?
Oh my, oh you thought we were here to fucking colonize. No,
was it because of the canons? Jesus you people see,
I told you we should have painted him like a
fun color. Yeah, they thought it was. They thought it

(36:16):
was like for I mean, when I go on vacation
with my cannons, I do paint them like a bright,
happy like teal. Oh yeah, I find that that called
like hello, kitty stickers all over them. Absolutely, like anti
tank canon, my anti tank grounds and things like that. Yeah,
absolutely so uh. Walker neglected to mention that this violent
response from the locals of La Pause was a result

(36:36):
of him capturing the governor and declaring himself president. Walker's
lawyer also argued that his client's motives had been pure,
an attempt to drive back the savage apaches to protect
the people of Baja. The government of the United States was,
in their prosecution of Walker, the ally of the savage
hole man. This is really yeah, the grade a racism,

(37:00):
Yeah it is. And again it's timeless, like the same
sort of flawed logic and reasoning then legal arguments. We're
hearing like variations of them today still and it's amazing, like, oh, well,
actually you're you're probably on their side. Then if that's
if you know, America is probably a communist nation, then
if that's if I'm being if I'm in trouble for

(37:20):
inciting violence or violating the neutral Okay, sure, okay, Yeah,
he is the type of American that there has never
not been in America. Yeah, yeah, because that's what our
country is. Yeah, we just look at we we got
tired of other people telling us to give them their stuff,
and like now we're into it our way, try it
out our way. So the case went to jury, who

(37:41):
deliberated for a grand total of eight minutes. They declared
William Walker and his men not guilty. Oh my, oh fuck,
of course this fuck they'll never listen. Piece is shit.
A local newspaper, The Daily Altar, reported When the verdict
was pronounced, which the foreman did in a very emphatic tone,
there was an audible manifestation of applause outside the bar,
and many came up to shake mister Walker by the

(38:02):
hand and congratulate him. Good work on trying to conquer Mexico.
Sorry it didn't work out. Hey, love, Hey, loved what
you're going for, knew what you're going for. Love the
big fan, big fan, Love the enthusiasm. Oh yeah, just
a new place for slavery to flourish. Love that. I mean,
I don't know if you knew. That doesn't really matter,
but I love the perks. Great. Yeah, Now a free man.

(38:24):
Walker found employment is the editor of a newspaper in Sacramento.
He wrote a series of editorials complaining about extremists on
both sides of the slavery versus Avlan. He becomes MSNBC
himself here, but writing was not enough to capture his
attention anymore. Once you've tried to conquer a Central American nation,

(38:46):
nothing else is going to hit the spot like trying
to conquer another Central American nation. Never just done hit right,
I've said it a thousand times. Yeah. Now, during this
period Nicaragua was enmeshed in a civil war between two
opposing political parts parties, the Legitimists and the Liberals. The
Liberal Party had hired a number of American mercenaries, including
a fellow named Cole, who'd worked with Walker on a

(39:07):
newspaper called The Commercial Advertiser. Once Cole got the lay
of the land in Nicaragua, he had the Liberal Party
send an invitation to his friend Walker. The two started talking,
and eventually Walker wound up in contact with representatives from
the Liberal Party next, according to a write up in
the Peng Gazette, eager to exploit the nation whose shipping
route could prove immensely valuable to himself and to the

(39:28):
United States, Walker agreed. This time. However, he made sure
to circumvent neutrality laws by obtaining a contract to bring
colonists to Nicaragua. On May third, eighteen fifty five, Walker
and fifty seven followers left San Francisco by boat. Shortly
after arriving, and reinforced with local Democratic troops, they attacked
the legitimate stronghold of Rivas. They lost decisively, driven out

(39:48):
of town after suffering significant casualties. Though his military prowess
was questionable. Walker became the leader of the Democrats by
default when the chiefs of both the military and executive
branch died on October thirteenth, and what was considered to
be the only truly adept maneuver of his military career,
he commandeered a ferry and sailed to Grenada, taking the
legitimate forces by surprise. At this point, he effectively gained

(40:10):
control of Nicaragua, installing a puppet interim president in Patricio Rivas.
Soon after, he had himself elected president and was inaugurated
on July twelfth, eighteen fifty six. So he conquers Nicaragua.
He's the president. Oh my, you did it, you son
of a ba. He did it because he gets hired
and you'll see them written as the Liberal or the
Democrat party, depending on which source you find. But he

(40:33):
this party hires him as like a mercenary, and he
leads a disastrous attack and it gets everyone who's in
charge of the party killed, and so he just takes
control by the faults. Yeah, I don't know, my bugbling
got all my bosses killed. So hey, you know what
that means. Top of the This is particularly the part
that would make a really good movie. Like, oh yeah,

(40:54):
I think Eric Prince must like have like this, like
has like bed sheets of this guy. Yeah. Yeah, Prince
like goes to sleep coming thinking of William Walker and
how he could be I get him. If only he'd
had an air force, if only they would just let
me modify my plane into a fighter jetge. Yeah. So,
in a matter of days, Walker went from hired mercenary

(41:16):
to president of Nicaragua, presumably for the rest of his life.
I think that was the goal he had in mind.
I don't I don't see a lot of future elections coming. No, definitely,
no primaries. No. No one at least of all the
American government had ever considered this to be a realistic possibility.
But William Walker was very ready to run a country,
and he got right to work making proclamations. English was

(41:39):
declared the official language of Nicaragua. Now that's his first move.
Well we're getting read all this fucking Spanish. First move,
first order of business. All right, we're doing English, everybody.
These people are speaking in Sonata and it doesn't even
make sense. What the heck I thought it was just
an en Sonata down here too. Huh oh boy. Yeah,

(42:00):
we're getting rid of that straight away. Yeah, it's amazing.
So yeah, so property was confiscated from the defeated legitimists
and handed over to William's American volunteers. He established a
bilingual newspaper, El Nisi, which was based on a local
legend about a gray eyed leader who would free Nicaragua
from Spanish domination. William Walker, who had gleefully taken on

(42:23):
the nickname the Gray Eyed Man of Destiny, had one
of his pet journalists write an op ed in the
paper claiming this traditional prophecy has been fulfilled to the letter.
The gray eyed Man has come. Oh that must that
must have a prophecy that and now it's real. Yeah
it's real now, yeah absolutely, you know, but that that
was that prophecy actually predates him made probably almost certainly not.

(42:48):
He claimed it was a local prophecy. You motherfucker, I know,
I know you're also like, hi, jacking. I mean, it's
truly like, that's what that's what colonization is about. You
hijack the culture, you completely erase it, you rework it
for your own gains, and then you gaslight the people
and there thinking yeah you wanted this or at least

(43:09):
I'm going to project that to the other people who
don't know any better. It's like what they would say
about Native Americans using every part of the Buffalo. William
Walker colonizes every part of the Nicaragua. Holy shit, the
fucking gray eyed Please but Miles, you know what won't
colonize Nicaragua and replace its native language with English. Hmmm,

(43:31):
the products and services that support this podcast. Yeah, that's
one of our very few lines. Is you cannot have
attempted to conquer Nicaragua. Well, I guess I won't have it.
I won't have it supporting my podcast. I guess. Crystal
geysers out of the question. Yes, yes, they are out
of the question, as are a number of snack chip brands. Yeah,
let's world ads, We're back. So President Walker had no

(44:01):
intentions of actually freeing the Nicaraguan people from colonial domination.
In fact, his goal was literally the opposite. On September
twenty second, eighteen fifty six, President Walker issued an edict
repealing the eighteen thirty eight decree that had banned slavery
in Nicaragua, where he once had been something of a
moderate on this issue. By eighteen fifty six, he'd swung

(44:21):
all the way from pretty racist to so racist. Jefferson
Davis would have been like, slow down, dude, No, he wrote, yeah,
he's that sentence system. Yeah, soul with it. He wrote
that Nicaraguans were half casts and fundamentally disorderly, and black
people he thought had been placed on earth by God
for the use of white men. He later wrote that

(44:43):
Africa was, for more than five thousand years a mere
waif on the waters of the world, fulfilling no part
in its destinies and aiding in no manner the progress
of general civilization. He saw slavery as crucial to his
new goal, which was to rid Nicaragua of actual Nicaraguans
by importing slaves to handle the farming for white people.
This would stop the new white settlers Walker wanted from

(45:03):
fraternizing or God forbid, breeding with any actual Nicaraguan people.
Let's good. Oh wow, Yeah, this is ethnic cleansing that
he he's getting himself lathered up to do some ethnic cleansing.
Everything is a wave too. I just like that's a
way fun. That's his favorite, Yeah, his favorite comparison to make.
He wrote that quote the introduction of Negro slavery into
Nicaragua would furnish a supply of constant and reliable labor

(45:26):
requisite for the cultivation of tropical products. With the negro
slave as his companion, the white man will become fixed
to the soil, and they together would destroy the power
of the mixed race, which is the bane of the country.
Oh Jesus Christ, fucking yeah. Woh wow wow wow wow
wow Wow. That really yeah. Jefferson Davis is like, bruh,

(45:50):
that's wow. Okay, okay, h hey, I guess if that's
if that's the tune you're singing. Holy shit, Okay, Well, yeah,
he's got a vision. He's got a vision. He's got
a vision. The fact that Nicaragua was now effectively a
slave state would also help to draw in more Southern
white volunteers to fill out William's New Old Country. He

(46:11):
had notices printed up and distributed in several Southern American cities,
including New Orleans. The notices stated the government of Nicaragua
is desirous of having its land settled and cultivated by
an industrious class of people, and offer, as an inducement
to immigrants, a donation of two hundred and fifty acres
of land for single person and one hundred acres additional
to persons of family. Steamers leave New Orleans for San

(46:32):
Juan on the eleventh and twenty sixth of each month.
The fair is now reduced to less than half of
the former rates. Wow, yeah, we're offering the government of
Nicaragua was making this offer more white people. Come on,
We've come on down and get your two hundred and
fifty acres. You better not be race mixing though, yeah,
and then you can work the land. There also just

(46:54):
the romantic the romanticism of his writing about like the
white man and the Negro together will be bound to
the earth like friends forever, so fucking dark. Yeah, it's amazing,
you got you gotta do that flowery shit. So people
will be like, oh that sounds that sounds great, rather
than like, oh, yeah, we're torturing people everybody. One of
the important things to understand, even about like the pro

(47:17):
slavery people, is that, like everyone wants to view themselves
as the good guys, Like the pro slavery folks did
not like to think of themselves as like violently enforcing
a nightmarish regime of racial apartheid. They saw themselves as like,
it's no, this is us and our friend friend who
like needs a whipped to death sometimes. Yeah, oh that

(47:38):
would Yeah. I didn't do that. The overseer did and
that's the yeah, but we're still friends. Yeah. Back in
the US, reactions to Walker's conquest varied largely by region.
Even in the abolitionist North, though he had a lot
of fans. Plays were written about him and performed in
places like Manhattan. One eighteen fifty six playbill from the

(47:58):
Party National Theater declared him the hope of Freedom. Another
writer from Kentucky was inspired enough to write the Nicaragua
National Song in Walker's honor. Here's wait. They there were
fucking per plays like theatrical man Manhattan. Yeah. Can you
get your hands on that script? I hope so. I

(48:22):
have not yet, but that would be enough to read
behind the bastard's table, read to end them all. We
could really have some fun with that. Oh my god, God,
I can only imagine that horseshit in that fucking script. Yeah.
A writer from Kentucky was inspired, like I said, to
write the Nicaragua National song. I'm gonna read a few
bars from that mile, Okay, it needs not a profit

(48:44):
or talker to tell you, in prose or in verse,
the exploits of Patriot Walker, whom tyrants will long deem
a curse. A brave son of freedom is Walker, and
nations his fame will rehearse, Oh, freedom, freedom, the freedom
to own slaves. And you know, there's gonna be some
haters who are gonna act like he wasn't a good guy,
but you're gonna see, dude, They're gonna be seeing his praises.

(49:06):
There's some haters, but most people will look. Of course,
he was also hated by the abolitionist press and by
many people in free states. A conspiracy theory was developed
that Walker's conquest of Nicaragua was part of some convoluted
scheme to get the country annexed by the US and
add another slave state to the Union. People who knew
Walker didn't find that likely, at least that it was
like a grand scheme to support slavery. One of his

(49:29):
recruits later wrote, the real underlying purpose of Walker's going
to Nicaragua, in my opinion, was empire in the Tropics,
with Walker as the central figure of this. I never
had any doubt. So like that's the chief debate is
like either Walker was a pro slavery crusader and this
was part of like a scheme to add more slave states,
or he really just wanted his own empire in Central America. Yeah.

(49:50):
I think it's just one of those empire first. They're
both plausible. Yeah, yeah, and it's like, oh, slavery is
just a byproduct which I can live with. Yeah, my
main goals empire or yeah, it really is hard to tell.
It is hard to tell because by the time he's
in charge of Nicaragua, racism is definitely not just a
thing he's using to get more troops, but like a
motivating force right behind him, like he's being like you could.

(50:12):
There's a difference, you know, in how he was acted
in Mexico. And it's like tough too, because even if
he was like, noah, no, I'm not race, I was
just doing that shit because I like empire. It's like, well,
while mister Walker, because you walk the walk and talk
the fucking talk of a maniacal slave owner. Yeah, something else.
So the one positive impact of Walker's time and power

(50:34):
is that it did successfully unite the two warring factions
of the Nicaraguan government, the Legitimatest and liberal parties were
able to come together to say fuck you to the
white guy who'd conquered their country almost by accident, breaking
with allies. Yeah. So they got together with some allies
in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvator and put
together an army of more than six thousand men to

(50:55):
oppose William Walker. Now, by this point, Walker himself could
draw in about fifteen hundred men. They were well armed
and motivated, and in short order the two sides settled
into a vicious guerrilla war, burning homes and villages. The
Americans had the advantage of better weaponry and organization, but
were hampered by the fact that they were often drunk
as fuck and that William Walker was very bad at

(51:15):
waging war. Yeah. Those are the two down sides. I
can only imagine. Yeah, gorilla warfare and you're drunk. Yeah,
it's not ideal. The fuck are you talking? But it
sounds like a disastrous combination. It was after a series
of tactical blunders, Walker decided that his base in the
city of Granada was untenable. Rather than just hand Rather

(51:37):
than just hand it to the enemy, he evacuated his
wounded and ordered the four hundred soldiers stationed there to
destroy the entire town before leafing. Burn it all down. Wow, okay,
I mean yeah, another thing we've seen too. We've got
abandoned base. Burn it all down so they can't get anything.
His filibuster army took to the task with glee, looting
huge amounts of wine and getting wasted as shit as

(52:00):
they forced hundreds of Nicaraguas out of their homes and
then burn those homes to the ground. But they grew
so enthralled with this activity that they failed to notice
an army of fifteen hundred men surrounding them. Once the
situation became clear, the troops tried to put up defensive fortifications,
but they were way too drunk to actually do this.
Which should have been an orderly retreat became a slaughter.
More than half of Walker's forces in Grenada were killed

(52:21):
or captured, and all these debts were utterly pointless, the
result of Walker's cruel insistence that the city be destroyed.
Any sane person would consider this a war crime as
well as an act of supreme military idiocy, But William
Walker wrote this about his actions in the aftermath as
to the justice of the act. Few can question it
for its inhabitants owed life and property to the Americans

(52:41):
and service of Nicaragua, and yet they joined the enemies
who strove to drive their protectors from Central America. Why
don't you love your protectors who are burning your homes down?
Can't you see we're protecting you. I'm protecting you by
hurting you. Why can't you see this? He is like
trying to gaslight all of Nicaragua, really truly. And also

(53:02):
it's like is it that or it's And it's also
like the gas slighting is a byproduct of his inability
to just be honest about anything going on. Yeah, I
want to choice, Yeah, turn their back on me. Yeah,
it's amazing. On February twenty sixth, eighteen fifty six, Costa
Rica officially declared war on Walker's government in Nicaragua. Their
president issued a proclamation calling the great Central American family

(53:26):
of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras together to fight Walker.
This was partly inspired by the fact that some of
Walker's forces had occupied the Costa Rican town of Santa Rosa,
and Coaster was like, you guys are invading us now, Yeah,
physisic role so Walker responds to this proclamation by issuing
one of his own. The natural law of individual protection

(53:47):
obliges us, the Americans of Nicaragua, to declare eternal enmity
to the servile party and servile governments of Central America.
The friendship that we have offered them has been rebuffed.
We are left with no option other than to make
them recognize that are in can be as dangerous and
destructive as our friendship is faithful and true. I mean
his friendship, by the way, invading Costa Rica and taking

(54:09):
over Santa Rosa. Yeah, friendship means yes, stealing your shit,
abusing you and then telling and then telling you you're
the problem. Yeah, it's pretty pretty remarkable. It's uh, very
very uh again, a lot of these sentiments coming out
of him, Yeah are so. I'm like kind of amazed

(54:30):
that I didn't know as much about him considering how
much Yeah, like his actions like are you know, capture
like an entire frame of mind for sin Era that
extends to this day. He is the platonic ideal of
the Republican Party. Right exactly on March twentieth, the Costa
Rican army reached Santa Rosa and forced Walker's forces out

(54:52):
after a fourteen minute firefight. They then invaded the city
of Rivas, pushing Walker's forces street by street until they
were forced to hold up in a compound owned by
a wealthy family. From inside the compound, the white men
had a commanding firing position, something that Costa Rican forces
could not crack without great loss of life. And to
tell the story about what happened next, I'm going to
turn to a write up in the Pengazette quote a

(55:14):
Costa Rican drummer boy named Juan Santa Maria volunteered to
charge the house with his torch as long as someone
would take care of his mother in case of his death.
He managed to light the house on fire, drawing out
the filibusters, but he was gunned down and doing so.
Juan Santa Maria is now Costa Rica's national hero. The
international airport is named for him, and every April eleventh,
the anniversary of the battle, the country celebrates Juan Santa Maria. Day.

(55:37):
I write, that's the airport in San Jose, Yeah, Costa Rica. Yeah,
it's named after the guy who, like I burned down this. Yeah,
I've been there. I've been to that airport many times,
and I disfigured. I don't know, maybe I didn't realize
it's a dude or some guy. Yeah, I'm a torch
this much a teenager, A teenager who was like, take
care of my mom when I die, I'm going to

(55:58):
burn this house down. We gotta get these fucking dudes
out of here. What a fucking hero, what a g Yeah,
god straight g also just sort of like, oh, you're
down to do this. I'm like, yeah, man, but make
sure my mama was taken care of, make sure my
mom is okay. Fucking great dude, and yeah, of course
that's a guy who gets a fucking holiday. So is
he like he was like that. I don't know if
you remember Lord of the Rings at Two Towers where

(56:19):
the Yeah, he's like that with the torch to blow
up the wall. I mean talk about some like that
was based on him. Actually, So Tolkien just lifted that
from Costa Rican history. Woke Tolkien, not what woking. Let's yeah,
let's not dig into that too yet they are woke
keep so yeah, and that's like part of what I

(56:40):
was saying at the very top of this episode is like,
this guy's really well known in the places he fucked up.
We've just completely forgotten him in America, right, They're like
they remember his acid Costa Rica. It's like, oh, yeah,
he's a hero because he fucked up this hole, this
whole guy's plan that you guys don't know about. Wow. Yeah.
The brave Central American soldiers doggedly resisting the American Imperial
wound up finding a surprising ally in their fight, Cornelius Vanderbilt.

(57:04):
What Oh my god. Yeah. Vanderbilt was one of the
wealthiest men in history, and since eighteen forty nine his
company had controlled transit lanes across Nicaragua. Vanderbilt's men had
actually helped Walker's efforts early on, before he completely took
over the country, But once he took power, the American

(57:26):
filibuster had revoked Vanderbilt's company charter and stolen all of
its boats. Bad com don't fuss, So what money, honey?
Vanderbilt clearly cared nothing for the sovereignty of Nicaragua, but
he hated William Walker for fucking with his money. In
December of eighteen fifty six, Sylvanah Spencer, one of Vanderbilt's employees,
led one hundred and twenty Costa Rican soldiers on a

(57:46):
canoe rate of the port of Greytown, Nicaragua. They met
with President Mora and eight hundred more troops there, now
armed with guns comparable to the American weapons guns provided
by Cornelius Vanderbilt, they succeeded in cutting off Walker's forces
and severing his life lifelying to the United States, through
which he received the reinforcements and supplies that made his
occupation possible. At the same time, Honduras, El Salvador and

(58:07):
Guatemala had advanced on Walker's northern territories. The situation degenerated
until on May first, eighteen fifty seven, Walker surrendered to
the US Navy and was taken back to New Orleans.
He was, of course, greeted as a hero by throngs
of adoring fans. An impromptu parade carried him to a
fine hotel, where he delivered a speech, the New Orleans Delta.
A local paper recalled it Leusie. In his calm earnest

(58:29):
manner and with manly eloquence, he said, it was a
proud consolation after months and years of trial, to experience
the approbation that was given to the causes, he advocated
it was a triumph greater than arms could ever win.
With such manifestations, it was impossible that the cause of
Nicaragua could fail, no matter who were its enemies, no
matter how much they labored, no matter how much they willed.
The enemy, he said, would yet be put beneath our feet.

(58:52):
What a uh? We still get a chance, guys. The
upward failure trajectory is unbolid truly, and I like that. Also,
he's defining as the enemy the people of Nicaragua. And
of course the Americat audience is like, yeah, fuck those guys. Yeah,
rather than being like, well, hold on, you went there
and you fucked their whole shit up, they didn't like it. Okay, sure,

(59:16):
what hey, let's you guys catching that five o'clock matinee
of the William Walker Colonizer Fuckfest play. M hm, I
bet that was a good play. We got it. We
gotta get that script. Yeah, it has to be like
the Library of Congress something. Someone help us. Fine, it's
gotta be somewhere. It's gotta be somewhere. Now. It's hard
to say how many lives precisely the whole debacle cost

(59:37):
Walker took in about twenty five hundred soldiers during his
time in power, forty percent of them died from either
combat or illness, and it's unknown how many Central American
soldiers and civilians died, but the number has to be
at least in the low thousands. Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. Now,
Walker barely seemed to notice any of this. He still
considered himself the president of Nicaragua, and he traveled quickly

(59:59):
to Washington, DC see, where he met with President Buchanan.
He told the actual president that he intended to return
to his country. He also issued a formal complaint against
the naval commander who'd arrested him. He suffered no legal
consequences for his actions and was allowed to travel across
the country raising money for a return to Nicaragua. My god,
pretty cool. Right. Wait, so he had another trial in

(01:00:19):
New Orleans, I'm guessing yeah, fine, and it went the
same same thing. Yeah, Hey, I love you, Billy, keep
on keeping on my man. Yeah, same, essentially, the same
thing happens. Yeah, I mean, I actually I don't think
there's a trial in Nicaragua or in New Orleans, but
like yeah, he uh oh, so they just arrested Like, hey,
come on, knock it off, you're coming home. Yeah for that. Yeah,

(01:00:40):
he gets off scott free. Oh okay, so he's on
time out. Yeah, so he traveled, not even time out
because he immediately starts traveling around to raise money to
like reinvade Nicaragua. In eighteen sixty, he published a book,
The War in Nicaragua, and named himself as General William
Walker on the title page. So he's been he has
been colonel to general. Yeah, he went from colonel to

(01:01:02):
general general. Oh wow, g e n apostrophe l he
uh yeah, what the southernize is it? It's like a
you know, like version of general. Yeah, it seems I
feel like he thinks it seems a little bit less
pompous or but like if yeah, if he had actually
spelled it out, would that have been like cause him

(01:01:23):
trouble because he's technically not a general. No, no, you
could anyone could be any rank in the military they
wanted at that point. Oh great, just a matter of
calling it yourself. That So the book he dedicated to
my comrades and Nicaragua, Uh, to do justice to their
acts and motives, to the living, with hope that we
may soon meet again on the soil for which we
have suffered more than the pangs of death, the reproaches

(01:01:44):
of a people for whose wealthare We've stood, ready to
die to the memory of those who perished in the struggle,
with a vow that, as long as life lasts, no
peace shall remain with the foes who libel their names
and strive to tear away the laurel which hangs over
their graves. M A, oh, okay, yeah, Miles, it's better.

(01:02:09):
There's not often lessons in the lives of these bastards.
If there is in fact any lesson at all in
the life of William Walker, it's that attempting to conquer
Central American states with an army of drunken Southerners is
apparently addictive. Shortly after publishing his stupid book, William Walker
shacked up with a group of British settlers who planned
to start a colony in Rowatan, an island off the
coast of Honduras. Like the Nigaraguan Liberal Party, they asked

(01:02:32):
for his help. He agreed, but was captured immediately by
the British Navy on his way to start a war
with Honduras. At the time, the British Empire controlled what's
now believed and they considered William Walker, this guy whose
only ambition is starting a series of ill conceived wars.
They decide he's a dangerous influence on the region, and
so rather than send him back to the USA, they

(01:02:52):
make one of the only decisions the British Empire ever
made that I fully endorse. They hand him over to
the Honduran government for justice. Fuck yeah, yeah. He is
sentenced instantly to die, and on September twelfth, eighteen sixty,
William Walker was executed by firing squad. This Honduran firing

(01:03:13):
squad is hell bent on making sure the motherfucker is dead. Yeah, people,
I want to read you a quote from The New
York Times writing about his execution. Three soldiers stepped forward
to within twenty feet of him and discharged their muskets.
The balls entered his body, and he leaned forward a little,
but it being observed that he was not dead. A
fourth soldier mercifully advanced so close to the suffering man

(01:03:36):
that the muscle of the musket almost touched his forehead, and,
being there discharged, scattered his brains and skull to the winds.
Thus sends the life of the gray eyed Man of
destiny fuck scattered his brains and skull to the wind. Yeah,
fucking blew his head off. Wow. I can only imagine

(01:03:58):
how in indignant he was to in the like what
that trial was or whatever quote unquote trial, if he
had anything to say, or if at the last one
he's like I'm trying to help. Yeah, today, William Walker
is an obscure figure in the United States. I would
be surprised if much more than like ten percent of
the audience had heard anything about this guy before the episode.

(01:04:19):
Like you said you flew into that airport named after
the kid who fucked up his plans for a bunch
of times. Yeah. I only learned about this guy like
a year ago when a fan from Central America suggested
him as a bastard. And he is still quite famous
in the places he harmed. They remember William Walker and
Sonora and Nicaragua and Costa Rica and Honduras. But here
in the US of A, the only folks who still

(01:04:40):
know the gray eyed Man of Destiny are history buffs
and libertarians. Oh oh yeah, buddy, we had a fun
last act of this episode. I want to end this
by talking about a hilarious article I found on the
CATO Foundation website about William Walker. Oh yeah, baby, yeah,
it's reviewing a book called Tycoons War about Walker's career,

(01:05:03):
and the fine folks at CATO really fucking like William Walker.
Here's how they described the start of his war in
Nicaragua with the same strict discipline he used in his
Sonura campaign. Walker and fifty eight men sailed in May
eighteen fifty five for Nicaragua and made their rate of
their revolutionary capital of Leon. Walker's reputation had preceded him,

(01:05:24):
and he was well received. He and his men captured Grenada.
Their fighting abilities in Walker's leadership defeated numbers that were
as much as ten to one. Holy shit. Oh I'm
not done, but let's just let that paragraph breathe the
same strict discipline. Is there even a book they could
have read that would have even given them that idea?

(01:05:47):
Are they completely like? How do we make this guys?
I haven't read this book Tycoons War, but maybe it
makes it out that way. His own soldiers, when writing
about it, later, repeatedly referenced how drunk they were. Holy shit.
At discipline, of course, and his master tactical abilities that

(01:06:07):
got all of the other guys in charge killed. His
story captured world attention. He had brought an element of
peace to the war ravaged country and hope the changes
he enacted would help bring the entire Central American region
under American control, changes like instituting slavery and making English
the national language. In the new revolutionary government that formed,

(01:06:28):
he was made commander in chief of the Nicaraguan Army.
As such, he controlled Nicaragua in eighteen fifty eight. Minor
breakdowns and uprisings led to the collapse of the government,
and in Walker's re establishment of it, he was elected president.
Walker's government was recognized by the US government under President
Franklin Pierce, and friendly relations were established. Walker was so
popular he was able to recruit thousands of Americans into

(01:06:49):
his private army. Like, oh wow, bravo. Reading modern libertarians
right about this has convinced me that, like, oh no,
there's still a lot of people who would like today
if an American tried to invade Nicaragua to make it
part of America and reinstitute slavery, they'd be like, yeah,
fuck yeah, why not absolutely, And it's I'm you know,

(01:07:12):
they leave out the important lesson for colonizer has gone wrong?
Is it can end up with your brains and skull
scattering into the wind. Yeah, it's it's frustrating because like,
you know, you've got your you've got your your good
libertarians and your evil libertarians embodied by the Cato Institute,
and like, like, as a libertarian, your your attitude should

(01:07:34):
be this guy interfered directly with the liberty of an
entire people, and he got murdered for it. This is
a happy story therefore, Yeah, it makes sense played out. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
but it's I don't know that this whole good on
the Cato Institute for keeping the memory of William Walker
alive by lying about it. Yeah, I mean people need heroes,
you know. So strict discipline, strict discipline. Everyone's black the

(01:07:59):
fuck out drunk fighting in a lot of wars. In
a lot of ways, William Walker's strict discipline reminds me
of my own strict discipline. Yeah, just like, fuck it, man,
play it like a video game. See what happens. Yeah, Miles, yep.
How you feeling. How are you feeling at the end
of this? Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad. We get I'm

(01:08:20):
on an episode where like there's justice. Uh yeah, Like
typically it's been like and they died in obscurity and
natural death, or like to this day, Eric Prince is
still trying to fucking you know, act out his like
army fantasy, or and they were rich and beloved forever. Yeah,
or like you know when I when we did Trump University.

(01:08:41):
That's that's that chapter is still being written. So yeah,
it's nice to have a nice, wrapped up version of
this moment in history with a lesson for wanna be colonizers.
Uh and also a great lesson now knowing the history
of U was it once? Uh? One Santa Maria, Yeah, one,
Santa Maria. Yeah. Shout out to him, man, and shout

(01:09:03):
out to him. Yeah, the kid's cool as hell. So yes, Miles,
you want to colonize the end of this episode with
some some plugables, Oh man, Yeah, I'm gonna keep plugging.
Four to twenty Day Fiance. It's a show with Sophia Alexandra,

(01:09:24):
who's also been a guest on this podcast, where we
talk about the absolute garbage nightmare reality show ninety Day Fiance,
but we smoke weed and we're just having a laugh,
you know. So check that one. Out and then I
don't know, check out the daily ZiT Geist too. That's
every day, every day, bro, like every day every day
brom ten uh yeah on social media at miles of

(01:09:48):
gray g r A Y and you can find me
somewhere on the internet. No one knows where, no one
ever has known where, and no one ever will know where.
And people still don't know that you are actually a
disembodied voice truly, and you're just an AI algorithm that
we interact. I am. I am channeled by a mix

(01:10:09):
of coating and dark Satanist magic and tramadol and tramatl
Oh my god, I need to I do need to
go back to en Sonata cal and I is another
couple of pharmacis. Yeah, I'm she can get a bunch
of a whacky group of volunteers to go with you
as well. I bet I could get forty five heavily
armed men to go get painkillers and Ensnata with them. Yeah,

(01:10:30):
and absolutely not needed. But a no worth the store out,
No you don't. They sell them to you willingly, so
there's no need for arms. Yeah, that's just for the funzies. Robert, Well,
the episode's over. What Robert also hosts at Worst Year Ever,
which is on the Twinstagram. We also have a Twinstagram

(01:10:51):
for our show at Bastards Pod, and also follow Robert
at I Right, okay, we have a tea public store.
She's somebody is holding her forehead in just absolute disappointment.
Just for you as a host. I just want to
communicate that to you. It's not really a child disappointed
mom by someone someone tweeted earlier. Robert has finally succeeded

(01:11:15):
in doing that thing men do where they forcibly make
themselves so incompetent at something that a woman has to
handle it. And that exactly that's exactly what I did.
I remember how quickly that happens too, because I believe
the last time I was on this show, you used
to actually give out this information I did. I did,
used to remember it used to do my job. Eventually,

(01:11:36):
Sophie's just going to be doing the entire show and
I will still get paid, and that's that is my retirement.
And then you have fully William Walker the fuck out
of this thing. Yeah all right, Robert, shut the fuck up.
The episode's over. It is Wow