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Showing results 1 – 10 of 10
Essay
The United States and the Caribbean, 1877–1920
Between 1877 and 1920, the United States’ relationship with the Caribbean region underwent a...
Essay
The Filibuster King: The Strange Career of William Walker, the Most Dangerous International Criminal of the Nineteenth Century
On November 8, 1855, on the central plaza of the Nicaraguan city of Granada, a line of riflemen shot General Ponciano Corral, the senior general of the Conservative government....
Glossary Term – Event
Nicaragua became US protectorate
Nicaragua became a protectorate of the United States when, to protect American interests in the country, President Taft approved sending a contingent of American marines to the country to deter revolution.
Glossary Term – Event
Bryan-Chamorro Treaty
The Bryan-Chamorro Treaty between Nicaragua and the United States was ratified. In exchange for three million dollars, Nicaragua granted the US exclusive rights to build a canal and naval base in that country.
Glossary Term – Event
Boland Amendment
Congress passed the Boland Amendment, which prohibited American assistance in training, equipping, or advising the anti-Communist rebel Contras in Nicaragua. A second and third Boland Amendment passed in 1983 and 1984 closed loopholes in Boland, which allowed for humanitarian aid and further limited US government support for the Contras.
Glossary Term – Event
Iran-Contra hearings
Members of the CIA and the National Security Council, including several top-level Reagan advisers, were tried and found guilty of violating the Boland Amendment and other federal laws in order to support and arm the anti-Communist rebel Contras in Nicaragua without Congress’s knowledge. Though Reagan claimed no direct involvement in a secret plan to arm the Contras using profits made from arms sold to Iran, the Iran-Contra affair blemished the President’s administration.
Glossary Term – Organization
Contras
The contras were a counterrevolutionary force aligned against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, which had overthrown the previous dictatorial government in 1979. The contras received training and funds from the American CIA under Reagan’s administration in the early 1980s, even though Congress had banned such aid with the 1984 Boland Amendment. The National Security Council diverted money and support to the contras through secret weapons’ sales to Iran. The Iran-Contra Affair was uncovered in 1986 and a public outcry ensued. Several high-...
Interactive
Filibusters in Nicaragua
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William Walker may be largely forgotten today, but to Americans in the 1850s, he was a major celebrity, one of many so-called filibusters who would swoop into Central American countries to conquer and spread the ideals of American-style democracy—exploits neatly summed up by the often-used phrase of the era, “manifest destiny.”
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