FILIBUSTERS (Sp. corrupted from Dutch vrijbueter, our ((freebooter"), originally the West Indian buccaneers; in the 19th cen tury and now, any lawless band who attack a foreign country not at war with their own. Especially, the United States companies who used to make descents on the Spanish-Ameri can states or colonies, either from personal ambition tempted by their anarchic state, or to annex them to the Union as slave territory. Burr's Southwestern Empire was to have been the fruit of the most stupendous filibustering expedition of modern times (1806-07) • Texas actually was the fruit of another, disguised as colonization. The later ones, 1850-60, were all of the secondtype. One of their chief promot ers was J. A. Quitman of Mississippi. In 1850 he aided the adventurer Lopez to fit out abortive expeditions to Cuba, for which both com panions were arrested but acquitted. In Au gust 1851 Lopez sailed from New Orleans with 500 men and landed in Cuba, but the Cubans would not rise. Lopez's force was routed and scattered to the mountains, and he was caught and garroted. Pierce's proclamation of 31 May 1854 showed that the government would tolerate no more of this against Spanish territory; Mexico was too strong to attack privately; and Central America being the only available North American section left, William Walker (q.v.) raised a California company in 1855 and as sailed Nicaragua. He defeated the government troops, captured Granada the capital, executed his principal antagonists and set up a govern ment recognized by Pierce, which re-established slavery and invited Southern immigration. But his performances raised an insurrection, helped by other Central American states, and by a United States corporation he had foolishly plundered, and he was driven out in April 1857. On a second expedition in November, he was seized and brought back; a third was stopped by the government; with a fourth he landed in Honduras, 27 June 1860, and was defeated, court-martialed and shot. There was no more filibustering till after the War; but from 1868 till the Spanish War of 1898 there was more or less, in co-operation with the Cubans. The
most noted case was of the Virginius (q.v.) in 1873, which was captured by the Spaniards, and the commander, Fry, with 36 of the crew, were shot.
Filibustering enterprises when they meet with failure entail loss of life and of liberty, as well as denunciation from the nation in whose aid they were organized, whereas in case of success filibusters are acclaimed as national heroes.
Among modern filibusters may be mentioned Dr. Jameson (q.v.) and his raiders in South Africa in 1895. After-having been condemned to death and to terms of imprisonment by the Boer government, they were eventually turned over to the English authorities for punishment, and taken to trial in London, where they were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprison ment.
Perhaps the most noted filibuster in modern times was the Italian patriot Garibaldi (q.v.). In 1862 the Italian government was compelled to arrest him at Aspromonte in order to pre vent him from carrying out his project of an armed expedition against the papal states, with which King Victor Emmanuel was then at peace, and in 1867, having managed to evade the watchfulness of the Italian authorities, he actually invaded the papal states, defeating the Pope's troops at Monte Rotonda, being after ward himself routed at Mentana by the French military force that occupied Rome. For this violation of the Italian laws on the subject of filibustering he was arrested by the Italian gov ernment after his retreat from Mentana and imprisoned for a time in the fortress of Ales sandria. Other modern filibusters were M. De Mayrena, the Parisian clubman and counter part of Alphonse Daudet's de Tarascon,' who established himself as king of the Sedangs, and who died as such in his palace in the island of Tio-Man, in the Indo China Seas; and the Franco-American soldier of fortune and Parisian journalist °Baron') Harden Hickey, who figured for a time as prince and ruler of the island of Trinidad, on the Brazilian coast. See BUCCANEERS; FREE BOOTER ; PIRATE. See also FILIBUSTERING IN LEGISLATION.