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William Walker was a pious and dangerously deluded man who cultivated his image as carefully as any contemporary television evangelist. In an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to conquer the Mexican state of Sonora, Walker had bestowed on himself the title of colonel. After his invasion of Nicaragua, he promoted himself to generalissimo, and later el presidente. Born in Nashville, the eldest son of a banker who had immigrated from Scotland, William Walker was the archetypical southern gentleman and aristocrat. He loved to put on airs. He did not drink or smoke or use profanity, and he considered purity of thought and deed as the first and finest duty of a Christian. William Walker was a practitioner of that unique blend of lunacy and hypocrisy that characterized the antebellum South. What attracted many of the wealthier Islanders to Walker, however, was his outspoken opinions on race and slavery: he referred to slavery as “the divine institution.” In Walker’s twisted view God put the black man on earth to “secure liberty and order” for the white race, which in turn was obliged to “bestow comfort and Christianity” on blacks. As proof of this, Walker pointed out that God allowed Africa to “lie idle until the discovery of America gave a chance of utilizing the raw material of slavery.” Walker believed that fighting for the institution of slavery was his destiny. Some Texans saw Walker for what he was. “Walker is not a liberator,” wrote the editor of the Quitman Free Press, “he’s a slaver.” But many more saw him as man of extraordinary vision.
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Gary Cartwright (Galveston: A History of the Island (Chisholm Trail Series Book 18))