Tomorrow
Nicaragua and four other Central American nations will celebrate
their independence. But unlike Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, and
El Salvador, Nicaraguans will start celebrating today!
And
that's because another patriotic victory occurred on September 14,
1856, coincidentally the day before Independence Day.
At
the time, there was a struggle for power between two groups of
Nicaraguans, and the fighting was threatening the existence of the
country. One faction invited a mercenary army to get involved—which
means they brought in soldiers from foreign lands who were not
fighting for home and family, but instead for money. This particular
mercenary army was mostly made up of men from the United States! The
leader of the mercenaries was an American man named William Walker,
who declared himself president of Nicaragua in 1855.
Apparently,
Walker wanted to either rule over Nicaragua and other Central
American nations in order to get them accepted as slave-owning states
in the U.S.—or, if that didn't work out, he wanted to keep on
ruling over the land himself. Either way, Walker is considered a
filibuster. This isn't the filibuster that is a
llllooooooonnnnnnnggggg speech made in Congress in order to stall a
bill or to block it from being voted on. The William Walker kind of
filibuster is a buccaneer, freebooter, or adventurer who takes
private military action in a foreign country. In other words, America
wasn't attacking Nicaragua, but an American sure was!
A
small group of Nicaraguans was in charge of slowing down Walker and
his men—even though the mercenary army was larger and had much
newer, better weapons. Things seemed grim for the Nicaraguans,
especially when their guns jammed, but they fought bravely on, even
throwing rocks at the enemy when their guns wouldn't work. When
things looked especially bad, one of the Nicaraguans released some
horses from an enclosure. Hearing the sound of galloping horses, the
mercenaries thought that cavalry reinforcements had arrived to fight
against them—and the mercenaries ran away, scared for their lives.
Today
the Nicaraguans celebrate this unlikely victory of a small, badly
equipped army against a larger, richer army. Happy San Jacinto Day!
To
learn more about William Walker, check out this earlier post.
And to learn more about Nicaragua, check out this and this other earlier post.
Also
on this date:
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