Manifest destiny's underworld
Subtitle: filibustering in antebellum America
By: Robert E. May.
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 426
Subjects: Filibusters -- America -- History -- 19th century; Political culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century; United States -- Territorial expansion -- History -- 19th century; United States -- Foreign relations -- 1815-1861; United States -- Military relations
Description: "In this book, Robert May uncovers the surprising and often tragic story of America's once notorious but now forgotten "filibusters" - the reckless freebooters and adventurers who in the years before the Civil War defied their own government and the military might of the European powers by launching private military expeditions against foreign countries.

Not only did an American, William Walker ("the gray-eyed man of destiny"), succeed in conquering Nicaragua and becoming its president, but other American groups attacked Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras, and Canada. So frequent became these invasions and reported plots that U.S. filibusters were feared throughout Latin America and in many other places, even in distant Hawaii. On several occasions, they nearly embroiled the U.S. government in unwanted wars with foreign nations.".

"May investigates the changing conditions in America, especially in its port cities, that caused thousands of men to risk their lives in these criminal schemes, how they were financed and organized, and why the U.S. government had little success in curtailing them. Surveying antebellum popular media, he shows how the filibustering phenomenon infiltrated the American psyche in newspapers, theater, music, advertising, and literature.

Condemned abroad as pirates, frequently in language strikingly similar to modern American denunciations of foreign terrorists, the filibusters were often celebrated at home as heroes who epitomized the spirit of Manifest Destiny."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: CHAPTER ONE; title: Narciso Lopez's Predecessors I; title: CHAPTER TWO; title: Harry Maury's America 19; title: CHAPTER THREE; title: America's Second Sin 59; title: CHAPTER FOUR; title: John Goddard's Lesson 81; title: CHAPTER FIVE; title: Samuel Hay's Puzzlement 17; title: CHAPTER SIX; title: Francis Smith's Integrity 169; title: CHAPTER SEVEN; title: New York's Visitors 83; title: CHAPTER EIGHT; title: The State Department's Albatross 215; title: CHAPTER NINE; title: Judge Campbell's Nightmare 249; title: Epilogue 281; title: Notes 297; title: Index 405.