U.S. Adventurism Toward the Spanish Gulf and Mexico

Part of the Clements Center Brown Bag Lecture Series.

General Manuel Mier y Terán of Mexico wrote of the United States in 1829: “There is no Power like that to the north, which by silent means, has made conquests of momentous importance.” The “North Americans” showed “dexterity” and “constancy in their designs,” aimed at Spanish Florida and now Texas. Private ambition worked hand in hand with a seemingly conspiratorial U.S. government policy: the propagation of “extravagant” territorial claims by “dissembling writers,” the movement of adventurers and empresarios into disputed border regions, the incitement of frontier discord followed by U.S. national intervention. This formula, which Mier y Terán confessed was of admirable efficacy, led inexorably in his view toward the incorporation of coveted regions into the North American republic. In his talk, David Narrett will address a core issue posed by Mier y Terán’s stunning analysis—namely the extent to which the U.S. government allowed or even encouraged its own citizens to take military action as “filibusters” against Spanish Florida and Texas, and more generally to participate as volunteer soldiers in the Mexican Wars of Independence (1810-1821). To “filibuster” was to be a “freebooter” or volunteer combatant, fighting against a particular nation with which one’s own country was officially at peace. Professor Narrett will distinguish between circumstances in which military adventurers were relatively free to operate across national boundaries and when they were more circumscribed by Washington. David Narrett, Associate Professor of History at The University of Texas at Arlington, received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1981. He is a Research Fellow at the Clements Center this academic year to complete his book manuscript, “Frontiers of Adventurism and Intrigue: The West Florida, Louisiana, and Texas Borderlands, 1763-1825” for publication.