Piracy on Lake Nicaragua
This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2018) |
Piracy on Lake Nicaragua | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Golden Age of Piracy and Piracy in the Caribbean | |||||||
"Henry Morgan Recruiting for the Attack", by Howard Pyle. | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Spain Nicaragua Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala |
West Indies Pirates American Filibusters | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Fernando Francisco de Escobedo Rafaela Herrera Fruto Chamorro Laureano Pineda José María Cañas |
Henry Morgan William Dampier William Walker Charles Henningsen |
Between 1665 and 1857, Caribbean
History
17th century
Lake Nicaragua, then called the Sweet Sea, is the largest freshwater lake in Central America and is connected to the Caribbean Sea by the San Juan River. Due to the destruction of León in 1610, by a volcano, the port of Granada became a main centre of commercial activity and was considered the "jewel" of Spanish colonies in the New World.[citation needed] By 1650 the Golden Age of Piracy had begun in which buccaneers from several races and nations infested the West Indies. The lake is known to have been controlled by pirates as early as 1665 when Henry Morgan led six shallow draft canoes up the San Juan for an attack on Granada. The canoes were twelve metres long and acquired during an attack on Villahermosa, Mexico, after which Morgan's sailing ships were captured by the Spanish. In June Morgan led his band up the river by night while hiding in the day and when they reached the lake the pirates stealthily crossed it and landed outside town. A general assault was then made on Granada and the Spanish were found completely off guard. After the hostilities had ceased Morgan went after the city's treasury of silver and his men set fire to the buildings and sank all of the Spanish boats found in port.[citation needed]
The pirates escaped with an estimated 500,000 sterling silver pounds before sailing up the
18th century
Since the establishment of
19th century
Filibustering became popular in the 19th century, primarily in Latin America (the term originated from the Spanish word filibustero which meant pirate or buccaneer). Perhaps the most famous filibustering expedition was William Walker's Conquest of Nicaragua in 1855, by which time the country was independent from Spanish rule. A civil war had broken out in 1854 between liberal and conservative forces; the conservatives, or Legitimists, held Granada while the liberals held Leon. Initially Walker had been commissioned by the liberal government of President General Francisco Castellón to bring 300 men to aid in the war against the Legitimists, but his real intentions were to take over the country, as he had in Baja California and Sonora, Mexico. Walker sailed from San Francisco in May 1855 with sixty men and when he arrived in Nicaragua his small army of filibusters was increased by about 300 Americans and locals, including the pirate Charles Frederick Henningsen. After a series of battles against both the Legitimists and the liberals, Walker established himself as the ruler of Nicaragua and even received recognition from the American President Franklin Pierce. Recognition didn't last long though, when Walker seized property belonging to Cornelius Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company, the United States government withdrew their support.[4]
Soon after that the filibusters engaged in a
See also
References
- ^ "Granada Nicaragua - History". Granadanicaragua.net. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
- ^ "Pirates of the Rio San Juan". Archived from the original on 28 June 2011. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ a b "Who Was William Walker? The Ultimate Yankee Imperialist". Latinamericanhistory.about.com. Archived from the original on 17 October 2011. Retrieved 1 September 2018.