biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1824–60)
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| biography:
| Adventurer and filibuster, born in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He earned degrees in medicine and law but failed to find success practising law, and in 1853 gained notoriety by attempting to seize and govern the Mexican province of Lower California. In 1855 he led a small band of mercenaries to Nicaragua, and after overthrowing the government, he briefly served as president (1856–7). With visions of uniting all the Central American republics under his control, he announced plans to build a canal linking the Atlantic and the Pacific, but he was ousted (1857) by agents of Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose commercial interests he had opposed. An attempt to return to Nicaragua later that year was foiled. In 1860 he landed in Honduras with yet another scheme to seize power but was arrested, and after a Honduran court martial, was shot by a firing squad. |
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