Because of our focus on men’s adventure magazines and the bold spirits in those pages who venture forth in search of recognition and riches, we couldn’t leave this news item uncommented upon. Plus it’s Sunday and we have free time. Yesterday two Texas men—Gavin Weisenburg and Tanner Thomas—were charged in court with plotting to invade the Haitian island of La Gonâve with plans to kill all the men and sexually enslave all the women and children. The actual grand jury indictment lists conspiracy to murder, maim, or kidnap in a foreign country, and production of child pornography among their alleged crimes. The two are also guilty of delusions of grandeur—with a population of 100,000 on La Gonâve to somehow subdue, they would have had their work cut out for them.
But they had a blueprint how to carry out that work. Allegedly, for nearly a year leading up their arrest, Weisenburg and Thomas created operational and logistical plans, schemed to recruit a mercenary force of largely homeless people from the Washington, D.C. area, purchase a boat, firearms, and ammunition, and learned to speak Haitian Creole in
order to smooth local relations. Thomas even allegedly enlisted in the U.S. military to learn a little about weapons, strategy, and of course efficient killing. Yes, it reads like comedy, especially pinning their success on homeless assistance, but these two wouldn’t be the first individual Americans to stage a seemingly doomed invasion of a neighboring tropical country.
During the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War various parties attempted to destabilize Mexico, Cuba, and South America. This all stemmed from longstanding discussion in the American South, from political circles to wealthy parlors to editorial pages, about subjugating parts of Latin America and exporting the unwholesome institution of slavery there. When the Confederacy came into being, written into its constitution was the right to expand to—i.e. invade—other countries. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, was dedicated to the idea, as was his inner circle.
Probably the most notorious slavery expansionist was a man named William Walker, who in 1855 invaded Nicaragua with a band of mercenaries, thieves, and soldiers. He had previously tried to invade Mexico and failed. In Nicaragua he actually set up a puppet president and installed himself as the country’s behind-the-scenes ruler. U.S. President Franklin Pierce, who was pro-slavery, diplomatically recognized this regime.
Later Walker staged a rigged election and was named Nicaragua’s official president. He lasted about year before being chased out. He fled to New York City, where he was welcomed as a hero, but never one to say enough is enough, he fooled around in Central America once more and this time was executed for his meddling.
Of course, Weisenburg and Thomas are two unlit candles compared to Walker or other slavery expansionists such as Matthew Fontaine Maury and many others, but the basic instinct certainly doesn’t sound much different. The sexual slavery part may seem outrageous, but it’s important to remember that legal slavery was sexual slavery, so they aren’t so different from those old Confederates who had their eyes aimed southward. We just wonder whether, like Walker and Maury, they’ll be feted as brave heroes in some circles. The way things are going in the U.S., we really wouldn’t be surprised.
