Filibuster (military)

A filibuster (from the Spanish filibustero), also known as a freebooter, is someone who engages in an unauthorized military expedition into a foreign country or territory to foster or support a political revolution or secession. The term is usually applied to United States citizens who incited rebellions/insurrections across Latin America with its recently independent but unstable nations freed from royal control of the Kingdom of Spain and its Spanish Empire in the 1810s and 1820s. These occurred particularly in the mid-19th century, usually with the goal of establishing an American-loyal regime that could later be annexed into the North American Union as territories or free states, serving the interests of the United States. Probably the most notable example is the Filibuster War initiated by William Walker in the 1850s in Nicaragua and Central America.

Filibusters are irregular soldiers who act without official authorization from their own government, and they are generally motivated by financial gain, political ideology, or the thrill of adventure. Unlike mercenaries, filibusters are independently motivated and work for themselves, while a mercenary leader operates on behalf of others. The freewheeling actions of the filibusters of the 1850s led to the name being applied figuratively later in the North American English language political idiom of the political and legislative delaying act of filibustering in the United States Congress, especially in the upper chamber of the U.S. Senate. Military filibustering can be considered a form of freelance imperialism. Filibusters typically failed because of "lack of resources" although the regular U.S. Army sometimes attempted to intervene.

The English term "filibuster" derives from the Spanish filibustero, itself deriving originally from the Dutch vrijbuiter, 'privateer, pirate, robber' (also the root of English freebooter). The Spanish form entered the English language in the 1850s, as applied to military adventurers from the United States then operating in Central America and the Spanish West Indies.

The Spanish language term was first applied to persons raiding Spanish colonies and merchant ships of the Kingdom of Spain and its Spanish Empire in the Americas, in the West Indies islands of the Caribbean Sea, the most famous of whom was the Englishman naval hero and captain, Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 1596) of the beginning Royal Navy of the Kingdom of England, with his June 1572 sea campaign and infamous raid and sacking of the town on Nombre de Dios of (Colon Province in modern Panama in Central America). With the end of the era of Caribbean / West Indies piracy in the early 18th century, the term of reference "filibuster" fell out of general currency for a while.

The term was revived in the following mid-19th century to describe the actions of adventurers who tried to take control of various Caribbean / West Indies islands, Mexican, and Central American territories by force of arms. In 1806, the general Francisco de Miranda launched an unsuccessful expedition to liberate Venezuela from Royal Spanish rule with volunteers from the United States recruited in New York City. The three most prominent filibusters of that era were Narciso López (1797–1851) and John Quitman (1798–1858), both in Cuba, along with William Walker (1824–1860), with the Walker affair in Baja California, Sonora of northern Mexico; along with further south to Costa Rica and lastly Nicaragua in Central America. The term returned to North American English language parlance to refer to López's 1851 Cuban expedition.

Other filibusters include the Americans Aaron Burr (former Vice President of the United States, about the Louisiana Purchase / Louisiana Territory and old Southwest Territory), Chatham Roberdeau Wheat (Cuba, Mexico, and Italy), William Blount (old Southwest Territory / West Florida / Florida), James Long (Texas / Republic of Texas), Augustus W. Magee (Texas / Republic of Texas), George Mathews (East Florida / Florida), George Rogers Clark (Louisiana Purchase / Louisiana Territory and old Southwest Territory / Mississippi Territory), William S. Smith (Venezuela), Ira Allen (Canada), William A. Chanler (Cuba and Venezuela), Samuel Brannan (Kingdom of Hawaii / Hawaii), Joseph C. Morehead (Mazatlan, Mexico), Henry Alexander Crabb (Sonora, northern Mexico), and Jordan Goudreau (Venezuela).

Non-American filibusters include the Frenchs Adel Aubert du Petit-Thouars (Tahiti), Marquis Charles de Pindray and Count Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon (Sonora, northern Mexico), the Dutch Luis Brion (Venezuela), the British Gregor MacGregor (Florida, Central America, and South America), and Thomas Cochcrane (Peru), the Italian Giuseppe Garibaldi (Italy), the Peruvian Leoncio Prado (Cuba), the Cubans Ambrosio José Gonzales , Manuel de Quesada y Loynaz, Emilio Laurent Dubet and Fidel Castro (Cuba), the Venezuelans Narciso López (Cuba), Francisco de Miranda, Santiago Mariño, Jose Antonio Paez, Ezequiel Zamora, Juan Crisostomo Falcon, Antonio Guzmán Blanco, Joaquin Crespo, Rafael de Nogales Mendez, Nicolas Rolando, Miguel Antonio Matos, Gustavo Machado, Simon Antonio Urbina, Roman Delgado Chalbaud, Jose Maria Ortega Martinez, and Fernando Soto Rojas (Venezuela).

Although the American public often enjoyed reading about the thrilling adventures of mercenary filibusters, those Americans involved in filibustering expeditions were usually in violation of the first Neutrality Act of 1794 that made it illegal for a citizen to wage war against another country at peace with the United States. For example, the journalist John L. O'Sullivan (1813–1895), who coined the related phrase "manifest destiny" for the movement of American westward expansion, was put on trial for raising money in America for López's failed southern filibustering expedition in Cuba.