Filibustering on the San Juan

This chapter will highlight the crucial role of the Nicaragua Canal route in the ambitions of American filibusters Henry Kinney and William Walker, as well as the route’s centrality to the clash between Central American republics and the filibusters in the region’s guerra nacional . Ultimately, the short but frenetic period of filibustering in Nicaragua had several enduring consequences both for the fate of the canal route and the “Mosquito question.” While the war disrupted transit activities and undermined dreams of building a canal through Nicaragua, it also paradoxically speeded up the process of settlement of the Mosquito question as metropolitan governments realized that the longer the status of the Mosquito region remained unresolved, the more prone it would be to filibustering enterprises.