Filibusters and Financiers (1916)

Seitenzahl:

268

Gewicht:

395 g

Erschienen bei:

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Kurzbeschreibung

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VIII The Sailing Of "the Immortals" If we are to have a clear understanding of the conditions leading to Walker's invasion of Nicaragua, we must take into consideration the political condition of that country as well as its geographical importance. The five States of Central America declared their independence of Spain in 1821 and in 1824 established a republic modelled after that of the United States. This union maintained a precarious existence, being dissolved in 1826, reestablished in 1829, unsettled by revolutions from 1830 to 1840, abolished, then partly restored in 1851, and at length permanently dissolved in 1852. From 1830 to 1855 the State of Nicaragua suffered from constant revolution.1 The people had been brought up under a highly despotic colonial regime, and had never had an opportunity to learn the lessons of self-government. It is doubtful, moreover, whether such a .. heterogeneous population could have ever developed into a de- mocracy. The total population of Nicaragua in 1850 was estimated at 260,000. One-half of these were of mixed Spanish-Indian descent, a third were pure-blooded Indians, a tenth were whites, and the rest were negroes.2 The people as a whole were proud, ignorant, and intolerant, and were given to violent factionalism which was based on no real principles. Class feeling played its part and served to aggravate the strife. There were two parties, ' the Liberal, or democratic, and the Legitimist, or aristocratic. These may once have stood for what each professed to advocate,but by 1850 they had degenerated into "ins" and "outs." Sectional jealousies also played a part in the struggles. Granada, the largest city, was the Legitimist stronghold and dominated the southern half of the republic; and it was natural, then, that Granada's r...

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Mehr von:  William Oscar Scroggs, Cambridge Scholars Publishing