Since Walker thought he desperately sought U.S. diplomatic recognition that he could win this war only by securing recruits from the United States.
Such recognition will allow their regime to circumvent the Neutrality Act of 1818, which prohibited the recruitment of filibusters on U.S. soil. Yet President Pierce long resisted general public force to legitimize a government led by just just what their attorney general called a “monomaniac buccaneer, robber and pirate.” 81 Like many U.S. presidents, he deemed filibusterism a force that is unruly undermined their management’s expansionist designs. 82 ultimately, the Democratic president yielded in a failed effort to secure their celebration’s nomination for the future election that is presidential. The nicaraguan priest AgustГn Vijil, in the White House on May 14, 1856, Pierce officially received Walker’s envoy. Even though the administration’s relations with Walker soured quickly thereafter, the president never revoked his recognition, even when the filibuster regime had dropped aside after Central American armies grabbed Walker’s money of Granada in December 1856 (Walker and their males would wait in Nicaragua for the next five months). 83 whenever Pierce’s successor, James Buchanan, took workplace in March 1857, few Spanish American governments thought that the administration that is new end U.S. help for Walker. To the contrary, numerous feared so it could never be certainly not a “filibuster federal government.” 84
Pierce’s recognition associated with the Walker regime consolidated international views that the usa had become, to cite the british minister that is prime a country of “rogues.” 85 Since governments in European countries and Latin America deemed filibusterism a flagrant breach of worldwide legislation, these people were outraged by Pierce’s choice to embrace it as the best kind of U.S. expansion. 86 nonetheless they had been a lot more worried about Walker’s popular help in the us. “The individuals, the magazines, the meetings,” warned the Guatemalan international minister, “they each one is for Walker, and so they all speak about dispossessing the Indians along with other races that individuals these nations to be able to set up an us federal federal government.” 87 numerous international observers rightly surmised that Walker’s motion had develop into a phenomenon that is national. As Walker hoped, U.S. recognition of his regime swelled the movement of U.S. colonists to Nicaragua, because of the bulk from the North. 88 A U.S. shipping representative advertised that their business transported about 12,000 emigrants (including ladies and young ones) to Walker’s world. 89 This massive exodus underscored to Spanish American observers just exactly how filibusterism had develop into a “social cancer” impacting the entire usa. 90
Southern US officials worried most importantly that Pierce’s recognition had intensified U.S. calls to invade their very own countries.
Many feared that the southward march of U.S. expansion by ocean wouldn’t normally stop until, whilst the Peruvian 
international minister stated, “the brand brand brand New World is kept with only 1 nation—the United states Union.” 91 Since Democrats vehemently supported expansion that is southward their sweeping triumph when you look at the U.S. elections of November 1856 only intensified South United states fears. So that it had not been Pierce’s recognition regarding the Walker regime by itself but alternatively filibusterism’s mass appeal in the us that led South United states politicians and intellectuals to recognize with Central People in the us’ plight and need the creation of a continental alliance against U.S. expansion.
By pressing Spanish People in america to find this kind of alliance, President Pierce assisted them find out “Latin America.”
the word had really been created before Pierce respected the Walker regime. In February 1856, a Costa Rican paper had denounced Walker as a risk to your whole “Latin-American battle.” 92 however in this situation “Latin America” had been utilized being an adjective, to determine a “race.” Only after Pierce’s recognition did Spanish Us Americans start to utilize the term being a noun to denote an entity that is geopolitical. One individual that is such the Chilean Francisco Bilbao, whom invoked “Latin America” in a message he offered in Paris on June 22, 1856, to Southern People in the us protesting U.S. recognition associated with Walker regime. 93 the word had recently been mentioned a week early in the day by the journalist that is french stomach in a Paris-based log, for which he demanded that the European abilities react to Pierce’s work by earnestly giving support to the main American struggle contrary to the filibusters. 94 stomach defined “Latin America” as being an entity that is latin its populace ended up being Catholic and spoke a Romance language. But he additionally echoed prejudices that are european Spanish America by claiming that Spanish colonialism had produced a populace that has been anti-entrepreneurial and not capable of democratic guideline, and therefore looking for European guidance. Stomach’s article had small resonance in Spanish America, though it may have introduced the word to Bilbao. In that case, the Chilean changed Belly’s meaning of “Latin America” by valorizing the democratic virtues of Spanish Us citizens. Possibly it will help explain why their speech had this kind of impact that is strong it had been posted straight away in Paris and within almost a year starred in Spanish United states newspapers. 95
Bilbao securely connected the concept of Latin America with all the call for a continental alliance against U.S. and expansionism that is european. Like other South United states liberals, he previously very very long admired the usa. But as soon as U.S. filibusterism received the backing for the White home, Bilbao deemed it a menacing “colossus” bent on exterminating the “Latin-American battle.” 96 their message echoed a vital improvement in the dominant South American view of Walker: the filibuster not represented a little, crazed team but alternatively embodied the expansionist nature regarding the U.S. individuals. While he exclaimed, “Walker may be the intrusion, Walker may be the conquest, Walker could be the united states of america.” Bilbao additionally attacked European Countries. He warned of European designs from the Southern Hemisphere and denounced the post-1848 autumn of democratic governments into the “Old World.” 97 in his mind’s eye, European countries’s reactionary change made the Americas the entire world’s vanguard of democratic republicanism. He hence insisted that Latin America disassociate itself from Europe as a whole—and not only from “backward” Spain. For Bilbao, the difference between the continent and both the usa and Europe ended up being perhaps most useful marked by joining the terms “Latin” and “America.”
