Hello All
The last newspaper story may or not be related to the 1884 crime at at. But it does seem like a suspicious story as I cannot trace the name of the alleged shipwreck or the alleged location stated in the Pacific. There is a desolation Island in the Indian Ocean called Kerguelen Island.
As quoted by the newspaper the story could of been a cover to hide the fact that they were on their way to Cuba as Mercenaries.
The fact remains that these raiders that robbed Honolulu were never caught either by pulling off the perfect crime or was allow to escape by design.
But perhaps the newspaper was referring to another island in the Pacific? Many Islands were given many names by different explorers. Some Island have 4 or 5 different names depending on what chart you have.
Hardluck.
Hello All
There is one suspect that may be linked to the Invasion of Hawaii by pirates. Whoever they were they certainly had some form of military training. So who could of been behind the raid?
There is one name comes up again and again when there is a mention in American newspapers of a Filibustering expedition. General Butler.
Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 ? January 11, 1893) was an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 33rd Governor of Massachusetts.
During the American Civil War, his administration of occupied New Orleans, his policies regarding slaves as contraband, his ineffectual leadership in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, and the fiasco of Fort Fisher rank him as one of the most controversial political generals of the war. He was widely reviled for years after the war by Southern whites, who gave him the nickname "Beast Butler." or alternatively "'Spoons' Butler," the latter nickname derived for his alleged habit of pilfering the silverware of Southern homes in which he stayed.
It was in the Civil war that he fell from grace later changing into a hawkish Republican and a taste for command he was not above from profiteering from political situations. As a later Politician he hated the Monroe Doctrine of United States Neutrality in regards to affairs in other countries. The events of the French occupation in Mexico made him believe as well as others that America should take their place in the world and become a colonial power themselves. He as well of others in government helped changed Americas view on the Monroe doctrine.
This change in Policy led to the Warship Maine being sunk in Cuba leading to the American Spanish war, Later the American and Philippine war. However General Butler wanted America to be a Colonial power like the European powers who were engaged in colonial expansion of their own and was prepared to privately bank role filibustering expeditions.
The first country to fall to Americas colonial expansion was Hawaii an ineffective dysfunctional state run by an absolute monarchy. This raid of Hawaii humiliating the king showing how ineffectual the defenses were of the Hawaiian kingdom really was. Eventually these failings led Hawaii to be Annexed by the United States.
If General Butler was the mastermind behind the raid then perhaps it through him we could find the men behind one of the most daring filibustering raids in history.
One of the most brilliant military operations under the flag of piracy that very few people ever knew even happened.
Perhaps that is one of reasons why the United States Government officially apologized to native Hawaiians for annexing their country a century or so later.
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