David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64478
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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WALKER?S MANIFEST DESTINY by Choral Pepper
WALKER?S MANIFEST DESTINY
It was a time when ?poor Lower California? had had about all it could endure --conquistadores, buccaneers, padres, smugglers,
revolutionists, invaders, bandits, pestilence, and con men. Then, in 1852, Raousset de Boulbon, a French ?soldier-of- fortune,? entered Sonora.
Rumor quickly reached San Francisco that France was about to acquire the Mexican territory immediately adjoining the southwestern boundary of the
United States. Considering the prospect a national insult and direct blow to ?manifest destiny? a contingent of fire-eating San Franciscans developed
a filibustering scheme of their own with William Walker, a native of Tennessee but now a resident of Marysville, California, as their leader. A man
of slight build with delicate facial features, Walker had studied both law and journalism in Pennsylvania, Paris, Gottingen, and Heidelberg before
beginning his career with a newspaper in New Orleans. When it subsequently folded, he worked on a San Francisco newspaper before finally opening a
law practice in Marysville.
So in 1853, accompanied by his good friend Henry P. Watkins, Walker-- later to become known as ?The Grey-eyed Man of Destiny?-- embarked for Guaymas,
Mexico to examine local conditions. What he found was a community ?threatened? by the local Yaquis which, in his chivalrous view, demanded
protection. Thus he returned to San Francisco. His first act was to float a bond issue to raise money for the treasury of the newly formed and
protective Republic of Sonora and Lower California. A recruiting office was opened and a large ship named the Arrow was purchased to carry Walker and
his liberation forces to the new nation. Their first objective was to seize Baja California. Walker was to be President of the new Republic; his
friend Watkins, Vice President.
Before the expedition could sail on the 30th of September 1853, however, the Arrow was confiscated by the United States Army under orders of President
Fillmore for breaching a pact of neutrality with a friendly power. In that decade of the fifties, Jefferson Davis and the Southern senators were not
to be flouted. In William Walker?s scheme they could visualize a new Texas and future slave votes for the Senate. Moreover, many that cared nothing
about Walker?s project resented the arrogant interference on the part of Fillmore. Walker never did recover the confiscated brig, but within two
weeks had raised enough money to acquire a larger one.
Therefore, on October 16, 1853, Walker, with forty-six men and supplies, escaped Fillmore?s attention and sailed unmolested for Baja in the Caroline,
leaving Vice President Watkins in charge in San Francisco. M.de Boulbon?s aborted French conquest of Mexico, meanwhile, had faded from public view.
In due time the warriors arrived at La Paz. When Walker dropped anchor in the harbor, small boats put out from shore to ferry the army to land. The
merchants were delighted to see a ship in port. The city lay down before the invaders like a trollop. The army strolled over to the governor?s
palace, arrested that executive and carried boxes of state documents back to the Caroline. Walker then issued a proclamation promising general
protection and religious toleration with laws based upon the Louisiana Code -- a simple way of introducing slavery. Declaring himself president of the
new Republic, the victorious 29-year-old Walker then lowered the Mexican flag and hoisted his own -- two stars representing Lower California and
Sonora with two red stripes enclosing a white one.
For three days there was a fiesta. The army spent money in local cantinas and brothels, but then, like many soldiers, retired to the barracks to
await their next payday. Walker began buying supplies with money drawn on the national treasure of the Republic of Sonora and Lower California. His
welcome diminished. Mexican pesos and Yankee dollars were welcome tender, but paper Sonoran dollars had no value to the citizens of La Paz.
The Mexican army in La Paz consisted of one man, a Lieutenant Manuel Pineada, who had been ignored by the conquerors because nobody knew who he was.
When the spending spree was over, Pineada met with some of the merchants and a decision was reached that the time had come for their guests to depart.
There was a problem with the governor who was still a prisoner on the ship, but the consensus was that the governor was only a politician and could
easily be replaced.
A counterattack was launched against the invaders. Lt. Pineada did not wish anyone to be seriously hurt so his attack, led by himself in command of
twelve volunteers, consisted of a barrage of sticks and stones against a six-man detail that was returning to the ship with supplies paid for with
?Sonoran? money. Walked was incensed over this sudden terrorist activity. Immediately he put ashore some thirty-armed man. Lt. Pineada prudently
withdrew with his smaller band, but he obviously was upset over the state of affairs and dispatched a message to the Mexican Army detachment stationed
at a camp some 100 kilometers to the north.
Walker interpreted the withdrawal as a signal of victory for his troops. When word of the encounter reached San Francisco, Watkins announced the
battle in a like vein, commenting that Baja was being released from the tyrannous rule of Mexico and that its people were overjoyed. The untapped
mineral and agricultural resources soon would be properly developed with the help of her sister republic above the border, and once the conquest had
been consolidated, the United States government would recognize the new nation. San Francisco rejoiced. A new ship, the Anita was purchased and 250
new recruits were enlisted.
Meanwhile, Lt. Pineada had decided that, even with the help of the dozen Mexican Army regulars, the odds still were not in his favor for a direct
confrontation with the invaders. He enlisted the help of a prostitute who also was incensed over being paid in Sonoran currency by one of the
soldiers. To her next client from Walker?s army she confidentially reported that the Mexican Army detachment to the north was very large, that more
than a thousand troops were marching on the city.
President Walker sent word to the Vice President, his friend Watkins in San Francisco, requesting that he speed up recruiting and that, due to
military expediency, he was moving the temporary capital of Sonora to Santa Cruz. Then he sailed off with his army and the governor of La Paz. Off
the tip of Baja he spotted what appeared to be a warship, so he prudently by-passed Santa Cruz and put in at Magdalena Bay instead. There the Indians
listened politely to his proclamation, but became unfriendly when the army attempted to buy fruit with paper money.
Walker moved on. His next port of call was Ensenada, less than 100 kilometers from the United States border. This was a matter of military strategy,
he explained in his next message to the Vice President. He would consolidate the territory closer to his line of supply. The good citizens of Ensenada
also were delighted to see a fresh ship in port. They clapped and cheered as he led his men in a parade through the community, and he evicted one
Pedro Gastelum from the town?s finest dwelling to use as his own headquarters, which he named Fort McKibbon. Oddly, in Ensenada, the merchants
accepted the Sonoran currency, possibly because they were told that it was as good as a dollar in the United States. Trouble however, arose on a
different front.
Walker dispatched a detail to secure horses, cattle, and food at La Grulla Ranch, located some distance from the city. The owners of the ranch were
justifiably upset over this confiscation and sought help from a notorious bandit in the area named Antonio Melendrez. The bandit gang consisted of
some seventy-five men, and they were happy to help their friends at La Grulla. Indeed, a large part of the band used the ranch as a cover for their
other activities, posing as farm hands and slipping stolen horses into the ranch herds to hide them. Thus, Melendrez took it as a personal affront
when the Yankee visitors in Ensenada resteal some of his stolen horses.
As the Walker detachment made its way back to Ensenada, it was ambushed by Melendrez? men. Walker?s army suffered its first casualty. The rest of the
detachment fled and reported this terrorist incident to President Walker at Fort McKibbon. Walker was incensed. He immediately had the army round up
the citizens in town and bring them to Fort McKibbon, where he ?talked to the people.? He had come only to protect them from the outrages of their
own government, he said. His sole objective was the amelioration of their own social and political conditions. By all the arts, which conduce to
civilization, he continued, he desired to render them free from the curse of the Mexican Republic that was not strong enough to protect them, but was
strong enough to eat up the products of their industry. No bandit would be permitted to disgrace the flag of the new Sonoran Republic, whereas
plundering bands of wandering robbers even now were attempting to destroy the saviors.
It was a beautiful speech. A copy was sent to the Vice President, but didn?t arrive until many months later. Few people understood what Walker was
saying, and while he delivered his speech, the Mexican governor from La Paz bribed the skipper of the Caroline to take him back home. No sooner had
news of this calamity been reported to President Walker than he was informed that fifty-eight soldiers, pulling a six-pound canon, were headed toward
Ensenada from Tijuana. With the military detachment was the entire band of Antonio Melendrez. The enemies had joined to rid Baja of its savior.
There was nothing Walker could to but fight. The army and bandits were between him and the border, and the brig was sailing happily toward La Paz.
The encounter was of short duration. In it Walker suffered thirteen casualties, eight dead and five wounded. The Mexican army detachment lost three
men, and one of the bandits was wounded. Melendrez and Colonel Negrete of the Mexican detachment conferred. A fight was not necessary. Walker?s men
were deployed around the northern edge of the town at the base of two small hills. Between these two hills ran a small stream from which the
freebooters were getting their water. A few miles to the east, the stream divided into a Y. It was comparatively simple to post a few snipers on the
top of the hill to keep Walker?s men from passing through the canyon back into the city, then dam the tributary of the stream that flowed through his
camp.
The siege lasted eight days before Walker?s luck began to change. First, a rare fall thunderstorm swept across the desert. The pressure from the
run-off waters collapsed the dam. Under cover of the storm, the freebooters killed three of the hilltop snipers. During the height of the storm, the
Anita arrived in Ensenada with 250 heavily armed reinforcements for Walker. The solitary cannon of the Mexican Army became bogged down in the mud.
Negrete and Melendrez were much too practical to emulate the fabled Spartans. Between them they had fewer arms and fewer men than the filibustering
Walker. With a Latin shrug, they abandoned their cannon and drifted away; Negrete to Tijuana and Melendrez back into the mountains with his men. A
greatly relieved Walker moved back into his comfortable quarters at Fort McKibbon.
The administration of the new republic lasted three months in Ensenada. Walker admirably played the role required of a head of state. He issued
decrees, attended reviews, and through Vice President Watkins, sounded out the U.S. State Department on the possibility of diplomatic interchange.
There were some problems, of course. Three soldiers were accused of undermining the faith of the people in their new currency. Walker had proclaimed
that the new Sonoran dollar was worth the same as one Yankee dollar. The three soldiers were buying them at the rate of fifty-to-one. They were
stripped of their stripes and sent back to the United States in disgrace. His greatest problem was Melendez. Periodically one of the bandits would
pick off a soldier of the republic. Whenever a detachment was sent into the hills to look for Melendez, however, no trace of him could be found.
Walker calculated the risk. He sent 200 men to comb the area where the bandit was believed to be in hiding. While they were gone, Melendrez and his
band slipped into Ensenada. They cleaned the army?s mess hall of a week?s supply of provisions and were gone before the theft was discovered.
Toward the end of the third month, a United States warship, the Portsmouth, came into Ensenada harbor with an answer to Walker?s bid for recognition.
President Fillmore had no wish to interfere with Walker?s manifest destiny, the skipper told President Walker, but would President Walker get the hell
out of Ensenada and quit embarrassing the United States government. Walker?s alternative is not known, if there was one, but he decided to accede to
Fillmore?s wishes.
With an announcement that Ensenada would forever be known as the cradle of Sonoran liberty and that this part of his campaign was now secured, he
appointed a grocer as governor-general and to him gave the keys to Fort McKibben. He then divided his army into three groups. One he sent to San
Vicente and another to El Rosario to solidify the government in those two communities. The fate of these two detachments is unknown, but it is
presumed that most of them eventually drifted back above the border. The third group, made of the best 100 men, came under the personal leadership of
President and General Walker and set out for the long, dreary march across the desolate dunes of Camino del Diablo to establish the seat of government
for the new republic in Sonora. As soon as he had departed, the newly appointed governor-general gave the keys of Fort McKibbon to their original
owner and went back to his grocery business.
Walkers division consisted of his 100 men and an equal number of horses and cattle. Most of the animals had been commandeered at La Grulla ranch.
Walker never did discover that this was the hideout for Malendrez, If he had, he might have understood why the indigent bandit and his men trailed the
army. By the time the army had crossed the rugged mountains of the peninsula, it had lost two men, four horses and twenty heads of cattle. Not one
casualty was suffered by the harassing banditos. The frustrated Walker decided to adopt the practice of Hernan Cortez when he impressed the Toltecs
into his army on the march to Mexico City.
Thus, when the battered Sonoran army emerged on the lowlands and came upon a small Indian village, Walker enlisted thirty Cocopa Indians in the
service of his Republic. The Indians were delighted to serve in the cause, Walker reported to his men; a further indication that people were tired of
the oppression from the Mexican government. The expedition with its new personnel renewed its trek. The following morning, when the army arose, it
discovered that all of the Indians had deserted, taking with them thirty heads of cattle plus the entire rations for the group. Walker angrily sent a
detail back to the Indian village. The detail, carrying two bodies, returned in less than two hours. Melendrez had ambushed it.
They reached the Colorado River. A Captain Douglas and a Mr. Smith crossed the stream on the first raft that was built. In his rucksack, Douglas
carried a pint of whiskey. Shortly after reaching the other side of the river, Smith stole the whiskey, whereupon Douglas shot him dead. Walker gave
Douglas a presidential pardon for his crime. The men drove the cattle into the river in an attempt to force them to swim across. About half of them
drowned and were swept into the gulf. That night, as the army camped on the eastern bank of the Colorado, a large segment of the group had second
thoughts about Walker?s manifest destiny. By morning fifty-two men had reached a decision. With not so much as a nod to their president, they left the
camp and marched north to Fort Yuma in the United States. With more than a thousand miles to go to the seat of the new government, the army had
dwindled to forty-three men and had lost most of its food. President Walker wisely decided that it would be more practical to establish a temporary
capital back in Baja at San Vicente
He lost some more cattle when he recrossed the Colorado River. His band now numbered fewer than that of Melendrez?s sixty horsemen. By evening,
Walker reached Rancho Guadalupe, which he captured with no difficulty. He decided that his men needed a rest and they would remain there for a few
days. The men, however, got little rest. Melendrez hid his men in the rugged terrain surrounding the ranch and kept up a sporadic sniper fire during
the night. Shortly after dawn, Walker decided to counterattack and ordered twenty-five men to wipe them out. The snipers prudently withdrew with
Walker?s men in pursuit.
The bandits then raced into the village from the opposite direction, guns blazing. The eighteen filibusters still in Rancho Guadalupe hid in a small
adobe building and watched Melendrez round up the remaining cattle and drive them off toward the mountain. So outnumbered were they that not one
dared fire a shot and so betray their hiding place. The twenty-five-man detail sent after the snipers gave up its chase about five miles from the
village and turned back. About two miles from the tiny town, they rode into an ambush. Ten more were slain. When the survivors realized that they
were completely encircled, they threw down their arms and raised their hands in surrender. Melendrez wanted no prisoners, however. He was an honest
bandit, not a soldier. He merely took their horses and pistols and motioned them back to the village on foot.
For three days, Walker and the thirty-two survivors of his army remained in Rancho Guadalupe seeing no sign of the dreaded bandit. Then, knowing they
could not remain there indefinitely, the band marched into the desert. They had hiked about ten miles toward San Vicente when they spotted the
bandits. This time their behavior seemed different, as if they purposely wanted to be seen -- four of the bandits on horseback, motionless with hands
resting on the saddle horn. Panic-stricken, the men started to run back in the direction of the ranch, then again abruptly halted. Four other bandits
were in the almost identical pose with those in the west. There were none to the north. Slowly and fearfully the bedraggled survivors began to move
in that direction. Within a matter of a few hours it became clear to Walker what Melendrez was doing. Every time Walker attempted to turn his men in
the direction of Ensenada or San Vicente, the four horsemen would appear in the distance. Only when he turned north did they disappear. Melendrez was
herding them toward the United States as if they were cattle being driven into a corral.
Some days later when the sad army straggled onto the outskirts of Tijuana, Walker pulled them all together. They had no money; they were hungry and
tired. He presented each remaining member with an IOU for back wages and rations allowance on the treasury of the non-existent republic. He then told
them to cross the border and return to San Francisco where they would receive further orders. As for himself, Walker said he would slip through the
lines of the enemy and get back to San Vicente.
Once across the border, the filibusters surrendered to Major McKinstry of the United States Army. The soldiers remaining in control at Walker?s San
Vicente headquarters were less fortunate. Although supreme while their ammunition lasted, they eventually met their ends by garrote and dagger.
As for Walker, whether or not he really intended to return to San Vicente is unknown, but what is known is that as soon as his last soldier
disappeared, Walker removed the insignia as general of the Sonora Republic Army from his soiled, ragged uniform, walked boldly into town, and took a
room at the town?s single lodging house. Apparently he still had some dollars, for his first act was to send a porter to bring a tailor to his room.
His second act was to bathe in the hostelry?s only tub down the hall.
When he returned to his room, Colonel Negrete was sitting on the bed. Also in the room were three Mexican soldiers. According to legend, the Mexican
colonel was in a hurry, so much so that he could not allow Walker time to get dressed. Wearing only his thin summer ?union suit,? Walker was paraded
under guard out of the hotel and into the street to make his way back across the border. Also according to legend, Colonel Negrete sent Walker?s
uniform to Melendrez as a souvenir.
History does not report the bandit?s ultimate fate, but Walker and Watkins were tried in San Francisco and found guilty of violating the United States
neutrality laws. They each were fined $1,500, but this was allowed to go by default. Paradoxically, both men were treated as heroes in San Francisco,
as were the men arriving from Tijuana to collect their IOUs.
Some years ago, after a chapter on Walker?s ?manifest destiny? was published in The Mysterious West, a book I co-authored with Brad Williams in 1967,
we received a letter from a descendent of one of Walker?s soldiers. In it she excerpted a paragraph from the soldier?s memoirs in which he described
Walker as ?the shortest, slightest of men, but utterly devoid of fear; a soldier valiant beyond words who never ran from a bullet.? Walker may have
been a joke to Tijuana, but to his men he was an Atlas.
The humiliating experience with the Mexican bandits was soon forgotten. A short time later, Walker proposed another expedition-- this time to liberate
the oppressed people of Nicaragua. Almost all of the survivors signed on.
Walker?s adventures in Nicaragua are much better known than his four-month fiasco in Baja California. He set himself up successfully as president of
that Central American nation, was thrown out of the country, then tried it all over again. When the Central Americans eventually tired of the same
old game, they ended it by standing Walker up against a wall and filling him full of bullets.
So much for Manifest Destiny
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thebajarunner
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3687
Registered: 9-8-2003
Location: Arizona....."Free at last from crumbling Cali
Member Is Offline
Mood: muy amable
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Walker
Sounds almost as famous as the estimable Walker Evans, the alltime "Walker of Baja"
Well, and then you have Graham, who is also one great "Walker of Baja"
Sorry, been out in the sun too long today, could not resist!
Baja Arriba!!
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