The Guns That Nobody Hired
(Kean Collection / Getty Images)
Before “filibuster” meant a very long Senate speech, it was a term for a military adventurer who tried to overthrow a foreign government without official state backing. In the 19th century, US-based filibusters launched many expeditions in Latin America — sometimes out of opposition to Spanish colonialism, but more often with the goal of setting up petty dictatorships and overseas citadels for Southern slave capital.
Aaron Burr
When Vice President Aaron Burr killed his rival Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel, his career in US politics was finished. He looked for a fresh start in a new country — a country that he would allegedly try to create himself by conspiring with a group of planters and rogue military officers to seize the Southwest Territory from the Spanish. Upon learning of the plot, Thomas Jefferson charged his former vice president with treason, forcing Burr into exile in Europe.
Francisco de Miranda
In 1806, after serving in the American and French revolutions, Francisco de Miranda gained tacit US support for an expedition to end Spanish colonial rule in his homeland of Venezuela. The gambit failed, as did a second British-backed attempt later that year. However, once Venezuela won de facto independence in 1810, Miranda returned to the country, where he briefly became dictator before being arrested and delivered to the Spanish by Simón Bolívar.
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