FILIBUSTERS (Sp, filibuster°. from Fr. fribustier. from Dutch rrijbucter, boiler. freebooter, from cvij. free + butler. from boric, Eng. boot, profit I. The na111e once applied to a class of piratieal adventurers in the West Indies during the seventeenth century (see CA N but now generally used to designate any group 111' association of inen who. in gard of international law, forcibly intervene as private individuals in the affairs of any foreign State with which their own Government is at the time on terms of !wave. In Anterienn history the term is applied specifically to those citizens of the United States, or residents therein, who, at vari ous times in the nineteenth century, intervened in the affairs of the West Indies, or of Central or South America, for the purpose of freeing colonies from Spanish domination or independent States from misgovernment, frequently with an underlying motive of securing the annexation of additional territory to the United States, and in many cases of extending the area of slavery and thus augmenting the influence of the 'slave power' in governmental affairs. Aaron Burr planned to lead a great filibustering expedition into Mexico and Central America in 1800-07, and the acquisition of Texas, in 1845, was brought about chiefly by filibusters from the Southern States; but the most famous expedi tions in American history were those of Lopez and Walker. Lopez, after making several fruit
less attempts, in 1850.51, to effect the liberation of Cuba, was finally, on August 16, 1851, defeat ed, captured, and executed. NN'alker succeeded (1855) in overturning the Government of Nica ragua, but quarreled with the native leaders, and in 1857 was brought back to the United States by an American naval officer, to whom he had surrendered. He subsequently (1857-60) or ganized three more expeditions, each of which failed, and in September, 1860, was routed by the President of Honduras and summarily executed. (See LOPEZ, NARCISO; and WALKER. WILLIAM.) Minor expeditions were sent from the United States to Cuba during the years 1868-93, but they accomplished little and attracted relatively little attention, though much excitement was caused in 1873 by the brutal execution at Santi ago, Cuba, of a number of Americans, mostly filibusters, found by the Spanish authorities aboard the captured steamer Virginius. Consult Roche, Byways of War: The Story of the Fili busters (Boston, 1901). See VIRGINIUS MAS SACRE, THE.