Down a Rabbit Hole

The Story is in the Research

I come across all kinds of interesting tidbits while researching background material for my books. Some are just facts and figures, others lead me down rabbit holes. Once in a while, as in Across the Isthmus, I find the story in the research.

My current work in progress is the next installment of the Tides of Fortune series. Two years ago, I left the gang sailing out of San Fransisco Bay under duress. My intention with this book was to bring them back to the Caribbean. Taking them around Cape Horn would have been fun, but I didn’t feel I could do it justice without visiting the area. I prefer to use locations that I am familiar with in my stories and Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia, while on my bucket list seemed to unique an area to do it justice.

The time period for the book is the mid 1850s. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one searching for a faster route to the Atlantic. The narrow isthmuses across Nicaragua and Panama had attracted attention as possible sites for a canal. I haven’t visited either country, but have spent time in Costa Rica and felt comfortable writing about the area. Now I had to decide which one to use, which is where the rabbit hole opened up.

We all know that Panama won, but Nicaragua had the more interesting history.

Cornelius Vanderbilt had been given the rights to build a canal across Nicaragua. Though the canal was never built, utilizing the San Juan River, Lake Nicaragua, and a stage coach run between between the lake and Pacific Ocean, his Accessory Transit Company carried two thousand passengers a month.

Another American, William Walker upset his plans with his successful filibuster. Walker and three hundred men, under contract with the rebel Democrats, took over the country with the intent of making it a slave state of the United States. His rule over the country, recognized by then president Franklin Pierce, ended less than two years later when troops backed by Vanderbilt took control of the country.

Those of us that follow politics are familiar with the term filibuster as a political procedure to prolong debate in the Senate. There is an other definition that I came across while researching the book.

A filibuster (from the Spanish filibustero), also known as a freebooter, is someone who engages in an unauthorized military expedition into a foreign country or territory to foster or support a political revolution or secession.

Walker left from San Fransisco at about the same time as the Tides gang did. A meeting was inevitable and was the missing link in the story.