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Post by elisabeth on Aug 23, 2006 23:03:27 GMT -6
I don't know about the motives of the 1850s filibusters; but a similar movement in the 1860s ('68?) was, from what I've read, decidedly anti-slavery. A lot of idealistic Americans, both army officers and civilians, tried to flock to Cuba to support an uprising of the slaves against their Spanish masters. Lots of people got together little units of their own to go across and fight. (It was a bit like the 1930s and the Spanish Civil War, with everyone zooming off to fight against Franco.) It threatened such a haemorrhage of army officers that Grant had to pass a law to make it illegal. If I remember correctly.
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Post by markland on Aug 24, 2006 4:42:10 GMT -6
Billy There's a fair amount of infromation on William Logan Crittenden in "Last of Their Class" by James S, Robbins. Crittenden was the last in the West Point class of 1845. He, like Lt Crittenden of Co. L, was a member of the Crittenden family of Kentucky. William L. Crittenden was the nephew of Lt Crittenden's grandfather. The grandfather was the Crittenden of the "Crittenden Compromise" and had a son who was a Conferderate general and a son (J.J.'s father) who was Union general. I haven't read the book yet, but it seems that after leaving the Army, William L became a filabusterer, a group of American adventurers American should be proud of. He got involved in an effort to free Cuba from Spain. The effort failed and he was executed in Cuba. rch Many thanks for the information RCH...looking at their years of service, I had thought that two of the older Crittendens were brothers or cousins and the others off-spring. Last of Their Class? I had noticed that book but had refrained from picking it up. I will have to get it from the library as I just blew my allowance on three Lincoln books: Manhunt, A Council of Rivals & The Darkest Dawn (the last by LBHA member Tom Goodrich). Those will hold me for a bit, especially since I slipped in Josephy's book about the Nez Perce Note, for those who like audio-books, you might give Manhunt a try. While driving to NC through lost-in-the-middle-of-nowhere Kentucky, we listened to a local college FM station (Murray State?-near Paducah) which had a half-hour reading from that book; I am not sure if it was by the author or not but it was compelling. The book reads equally well. Be good, Billy
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Post by Dark Cloud on Aug 24, 2006 8:40:24 GMT -6
I'd read that, E, as more in the nature of soldiers needing to fight some more on both sides of our CW. Oh, and for hard cash. Key figures were actually Confederates who fought against Spain, like this Gordon, and I doubt any of them fought to free Cuban slaves.
Our supposed 'help' did little more than to get everyone enthused and excited to fight, make a bad job of it, then 'resign' their 'commissions' and return to the US. Apparently a very few of our own, who knows on which of the three sides they fought, were caught and killed. But 200k Cubans were as well, and that's admittedly a huge percentage of the island's population and probably far under the total. We did worse in Haiti, and Walker was a record holder in Nicaragua, but there's a lot to be said for a close second.
In any case, it was in 1851 that a Crittendon and Lopez left New Orleans on a mission to free Cuba from Spain and make it part of the South.
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Post by elisabeth on Aug 25, 2006 0:36:14 GMT -6
Yes, but you appeared to be broadening it to maintain that all "American adventurers" were out to uphold slavery/make money. If I misread you, my apologies. All I was saying is that there were occasions when less venal motives came into play.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Aug 25, 2006 0:47:42 GMT -6
And I'm hearing conjecture. Who served for no compensation? Selfless in a cause?
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Post by elisabeth on Aug 26, 2006 3:08:02 GMT -6
You're hearing conjecture. I'm conjecturing that Cuban slaves are unlikely to be rich paymasters. But I could be wrong.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Aug 26, 2006 10:20:58 GMT -6
Well, depending on the stock market and long term investments they had, maybe.
Where I think you spin off into error is viewing Cuba as heroic slaves fighting for freedom against cruel, sadistic Spanish overlords. This is the stigmata of Americans: childish oversimplification. You're European and above all that.
Short story. Slaves. Local colonial Cuban landowners divided by race, class, economic factors, geography. Local militias and law enforcement with various allegiances. Spanish colonial masters. Spanish military. The Church. As in the northern British colonies, it was the middle class landowners who wanted the taxing Masters from over the Sea - Spain, in this case - out, and they enlist who they can to support their selfish goals, and they hire American military giants. In the course of the war, they split apart and fight among themselves, and of course the former slaves take it in the slats as ever, no matter what.
This predictable and grotesque hypocrisy of Latin revolution continues unabated today, not helped by enthusiastic Americans who see only two sides, good and evil, and who in the cold light of history may have made things much worse by disallowing internal change. Hard to say, but it's a very different world outside these shores.
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Post by elisabeth on Aug 26, 2006 11:06:05 GMT -6
You flatter me ...
I'm sure you're right, and that the complexities were as you describe. However, it appears that the "enthusiastic Americans" of the time were seeing it in that simplistic way. All the more, perhaps, for having come through one war to which a degree of idealism could be attached, and -- in the case of army officers -- finding themselves reduced to the grubby and ambiguous little police actions of the frontier. Something they could sell to themselves as A Noble Cause must have seemed rather attractive. The reality when they got there might have been a different matter, but that, of course, came later.
Do you know of a good book on this episode? For some reason I find it intriguing, and I'd like to read more about it than I've been able to glean from the internet.
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