So with that we're going to be looking at a portion of the book of Acts as we've been looking at acts and we're in chapter 12 And we're going to be looking today at the first six verses Acts chapter 12 Verses 1 through 6 and I think that this is a portion of scripture that we'll see Has practical implication to us believers even as we are here right now in the 21st century and as I normally do I'm going to read the passage from verse 1 to verse 6 to you and I'm going to share some some foundational things to Bring us up to speed to enter into our study here in chapter 12 And you'll see as we go through these verses that there are going to be verses that I'm going to stop and share some things Hopefully to help us to have some hope in insight into the God that we worship And so we'll begin reading here in Acts chapter 12 at verse 1 I'll read to verse 6 and we'll get into our study acts chapter 12 beginning at verse 1 reading to verse 6 Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church Then he killed James the brother of John with a sword and Because he saw that it pleased the Jews he proceeded further to seize Peter also now It was during the days of unleavened bread So when he had arrested him He put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him Intending to bring him before the people after Passover Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church Now when Herod was about to bring him out that night Peter was sleeping Bound with two chains between two soldiers and the guards before the door were keeping the prison So let me give you a An introduction to develop a foundation and it's going to be basically a couple stages And so bear with me as I do that So we'll begin by simply pointing out something that is obvious history is filled with stories of those who try to resist God Resistance to God began first with Satan He's also known in scripture as Lucifer has various names that that we know him by but in scripture He's also known as Lucifer. We know him best as Satan. We know him best as the devil, but again, he's known as Lucifer So in the book of Isaiah chapter 14 Isaiah speaks concerning rebellion his rebellion Isaiah 14 12 through 15 says how you have fallen from heaven. Oh Lucifer son of the dawn You have been cast down to the earth you who once laid low the nations you said in your heart I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God I will in sit enthroned on the mount of assembly on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high But you are brought down to the grave to the depths of the pit Lucifer had what is called the five eye wills You see that as I've read them to you just now in Isaiah 14 And what it is is Lucifer desired to steal from God the worship that belongs Only to him and he tried to become God and that's one reason he is referred to as Lucifer the word Lucifer is actually taken out of the the Latin translation it means morning star light-bearer or morning star, so What he was trying to do is he was trying to take the title of Christ for himself You see morning star is the title warned by Jesus in Revelation 22 16 It says I Jesus have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches He went on to say I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright and morning star So a morning star speaks of the first light that appears in the sky just before sunrise Why would Jesus be called the morning star the bright and morning star? Well, God created light and in the purest sense Jesus is the one who brings light in John 8 12 Jesus said I am the light of the world So in a very real sense Jesus is a true morning star He is the light bearer and Lucifer Rebelled and because he did that he was cast out of heaven and it seems as we read our scriptures that he Insided other angels to rebel along with him because in Revelation 12 verse 4 He is described as that the serpent He's a great dragon and it says his tail swept one third of the stars out of the sky and Flung them to the earth and and theologians will point out that this one third would represent Angels who rebelled along with him So when he came to earth he instigated rebellion in the Garden of Eden He tempted Eve to take up the fruit Adam partook of it with her and as a result We have what is called an Adamic nature the Adamic nature is what is also called the fallen nature and Fallen man with our fallen nature has rebelled against God ever since as a matter of fact our fallen nature is the core of our Being we have sinful natures and we're enemies of God Sometimes people think that you train people out of a fallen nature You cannot train them out of a fallen nature the nature has to be redeemed the people have to be born again And we look at kids and we say to ourselves how could they be so bad because we know they're like their mothers and that's the answer That's the Bible Now we have sinful natures because we received them from Adam in Romans 5 verse 12 it says therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and Death through sin so death spread to all men because all sinned so we Men we have what are called the Adamic nature as well as our wives or girls or ladies and and all of that But we all have a fallen nature Ephesians 2 verse 3 says all of us also lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and Following its desires and thoughts like the rest we were by nature objects of wrath So sadly those who fight against God in our society and it's been this way throughout history are often held up as heroes That you should emulate or be like Our political and cultural landscape is filled with the heroes who are actually Rebels against God The fact is it's always unwise to fight God Proverbs 21 30 says there's no wisdom no insight no plan that can succeed against the Lord In Daniel 435 it says all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth No one can restrain his hand or say to him. What have you done? So in this chapter chapter 12 We get a glimpse of a man who's fighting with God and this man's name is Herod a grip of the first Now he reigned from 37 to 44 ad. Let me give you a second part of the foundation So you know who we're speaking about here when it says in verse one at that time Herod the king stretched out his hand This portion of scripture occurred in 44 ad How do we know that because it's dated by the death of Herod? Herod a grip of the first was the grandson of one in Scripture known as Herod We also know him as Herod the great. It is Herod the great who is known for his work He was a builder. He was known for his work on the temple He was also the one responsible for killing the children when Jesus was born Herod a grip his father's name was Aristobulus who was a son of Herod the great Aristobulus was murdered by his own father and Herod a grippa was sent to Rome to live So in AD 37 Rome gave a grippa rule over northern Israel into Samaria Judea, which is to the south as well as across the river Jordan His father was an Edomite, which is a Jordanian today His mother's name was Maryam and she was Maccabean, which is Jewish So when he arrived at Jerusalem He acted as he was an observant Jew and so being seen as devout made him acceptable To the Jewish people and so this is a person. We're looking at right now He's a person that is in rebellion against God and we're gonna see what takes place here as we enter our study So it says in verse one chapter 12 About that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church He killed James the brother of John of the sword and because he saw that it pleased the Jews He proceeded further to seize Peter also and it was during the days of unleavened bread So at that time the believers in the church were going through great changes now. We've been seeing this as we've gone through acts There's already been long-standing opposition by Jewish religious leaders Persecution had erupted and when persecution had erupted many of them had begun to travel and spread and preach the gospel in different areas And as that took place Samaritans had come to faith in Jesus and when the Samaritans began to come to faith in Christ It could have caused some unrest Amongst the Jewish people because Jews as we know had no dealings with Samaritans now on top of that Gentiles had been brought into fellowship as believers and That caused believers in Jerusalem to question what was going on and they wanted to speak to the apostle Peter about that And we saw that we saw how Peter came and shared with them would have taken place So after speaking with Peter about it the majority had accepted it and even went so far as to glorify God So in spite of opposition and outright persecution the church as we see it up to this point continues to grow Now in Antioch Syria, which was 300 miles to the north from Jerusalem many had come to faith in Jesus We saw last time in chapter 11 verse 21 how it says a great number believed and turned to the Lord You know acts 1124 it says that through Barnabas many people were added to the Lord and then in verse 26 of chapter 11 For a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people So many people are coming to faith in Christ as this is taking place So there's no doubt that Herod had heard that Gentiles were joining the church and that was causing unrest He could also please the Sadducees now the Sadducees were opponents of the body of Christ It was the Sadducees who tried to keep the believers from preaching the gospel They even went so far as commanding us commanding them as believers not to preach But they kept doing so remember that they jailed the apostles for preaching and an angel had broken them out When they once again took them into custody They said to them in Acts 5 38 we gave you strict orders not to teach in this name Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood So there was a lot of opposition The people were getting upset over the fact that some maritans were being ministered to the people who are Hearing in the church that Gentiles were coming to faith were having difficulty. There's a lot of unrest that's taking place And so while this is happening happening Herod a grippa is working hard to maintain good relationship with the Jewish people So one way to receive favor was the persecution Christians, especially the leaders So he harassed the church. He killed James the brother of John Now Jesus had made it clear that martyrdom was something his people had to prepare for In Matthew chapter 10 verses 16 through 18 Jesus said behold i'm sending you out like sheep among wolves Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and be as innocent as doves But beware of men for they will hand you over to their councils and flog you in their synagogues on my account You will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them And to the Gentiles in John 16 verse 2 they will put you out of the synagogue.  They were striking them Sometimes they may have even broken up worship services They came in and disturbed them and they were making it very difficult for believers to live in peace And so that was taking place then that kind of thing takes place now It's nothing new I recently read that governments and major corporations often shut down the speech of christians In support of secularization Along with the Along with upholding the views of the lgbtq plus community and other minorities that disagree With the christian worldview. So we know that takes place now. We know that under covet and all of that There are restrictions and regulations. We have seen the that attempt to shut down the voice of the church That's nothing new But what is he doing? Well, it says in verse 2 he killed james The brother of john with the sword. So it got worse than simply the harassing now it's killing And he killed james He beheaded him. That's what it means that he he killed james with the sword. He beheaded him Now that gives us some insight by the way It reveals that it was under roman law that he was put to death For what would have been called a civil infraction If if it would have been a jewish method of of capital punishment, it would have been for blasphemy or heresy It would have been that he had been stoned to death. So this tells us that it was a civil infraction And so it says he killed james the brother of john with the sword now again, who's james? Now james was the brother of the apostle john. He was also jesus's cousin James was one of jesus's closest apostles along with theater john and andrew He was with jesus when jesus raised jeres's daughter from the dead as you see in mark 5 He also was with jesus on the mount of transfiguration where jesus was Transformed before him transfigured before them and they saw his glory as it's recorded in matthew 17 He was one of the three who went further into the garden with jesus and the night that jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane He also stands out for a nickname that jesus gave to him. He and his brother. He called them sons of thunder Now that's interesting. I've read different reasons why he may have been called son of thunder There are those who say well, he was called a son of thunder because prophets were known to speak in a way that was Thundering well, that may be so but he also probably had a temper And so this is a man. How do I know that? Well, I'll tell you why On one occasion jesus was going through a samaritan village He was going to go through it and he said james and john you remember the story to prepare but the people rejected Well in luke 954 when the disciples james and john saw this they asked lord Do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? that's a kind person now There have been times when somebody cuts me off in traffic Could you send fire from heaven and destroy them? You know not what spirit you're of but it shows you something of the temperament of these people Now one of the things that stands out about him is this his ambition Remember he and his brother had sought prominence in jesus's coming kingdom Lord what happened is the mother came and spoke to jesus and said i have something to ask you Would you grant that my sons may sit one on the right hand one on the left when you entered your kingdom you remember that And so jesus responded to that request. It's recorded in mac mark chapter 10 verses 38 and 39 by saying you do not know what you're asking Can you drink the cup? I will drink or be baptized with the baptism. I will undergo We can the brothers answered You will drink the cup that I drink jesus said you will be baptized with the baptism that I undergo So what happened? Well the fulfillment of this prophecy was james being the first apostle who was martyred In the case of john he was the last survivor Now it's interesting an apostle is martyred and nothing's really said about it More attention was given to steven's death than the death of james little said of his death But the one that matters took note of it and saw him 116 verse 15 precious in the side of the lord Is the death of his saints? And so he reaches out he begins by harassing some from the church He sees that nobody's responding So he kills james And then in verse 3 because he saw that it pleased the jew speaking of the jewish authorities and perhaps some of the population He proceeded further to seize peter also Now it was during the days of unleavened bread and so it begins to escalate it begins with harassment Then it begins with him beheading and now he reaches out for the other Apostle the apostle peter in order that he might be able to proceed further He's becoming bold in his persecution now He's arresting peter because it pleases jewish opponents. He he wasn't necessarily an activist against the church What he was is a politician He's wanting favor from the people as well as religious rulers Now i want to develop that thought for just a moment We wouldn't expect anything of him other than what he did scripture refers to us as temporary residents on planet earth This is something i want to talk about for a minute scripture refers to us as temporary residents on earth We ought not to be surprised when we're rejected. We ought not to be surprised when even government entities are in Our opponents of our faith. We shouldn't be surprised by that The apostle peter in chapter 2 verse 11 of first peter said this He said beloved i beg you as sojourners and pilgrims abstained from fleshly lusts which war against the soul Now peter was writing concerning the hostile attitude of unbelievers towards christians As he was writing this christians were being persecuted And so he's saying even though you are being persecuted Be careful with the way you act Guard your conduct They were being rejected. They were being slandered Remember last week. I was speaking to you. They were actually being Persecuted for being christians They suffered as christians and i mentioned to you that the word christian Beings the one who has owned by or possessed by christ And i was sharing with you that that was a slam It was a slur to be called a christian was to be called a slave And during that day when the lowest things you in their economy and society could be was a slave So in antioch they first called them christians not because they were identifying them because normally they were members of the way Or they were believers or or whatever there were different ways to speak of us But there they're using a nickname there. They're slandering them there They were persecuting and that's why the apostle peter said if you suffer as a christian Because it was something that was taking place at that time The government was against christians during the writing of first peter and nero was a fanatic antichrist And so during that day they were going after them to destroy him So he's saying believers are to remain strong by remembering who they are He said we are sojourners the word sojourner speaks of a temporary resident and a sojourner Is one without the rights of citizenship We are also called pilgrims the word pilgrim speaks of the person who is wandering the person who is traveling He doesn't have a home He's not at home in the country that he's in so peter was saying and this is important to think of right now Peter is saying christians have no permanent home on earth Our citizenship Is not here We are merely passing through We need to remember that because some of us seem to think that this is our permanent home We're passing through when I first got saved There were artists who liked to draw different things Kind of imprint us with ideas and one of them was a guy who'd taken a walk and you see his Foot walking out and he would it just it said just passing through We needed to remember that why because it's easy for us to get enslaved to the materialism and the culture of the age It's easy for us as believers to begin to become so Lukewarm in our faith that would just basically adapt to the things that are being done around us And so if those people are doing it and they go to church and they're still going to heaven. Why can't I do that? And so at one time when you got saved and you said i'm not going to smoke dope anymore. I'm not going to get drunk anymore I'm not going to go party anymore. I'm not going to sleep around anymore.   My life's going to be different people will know that Well, we used to be told crisis coming at any time So we were being prepared and we were awaiting him But he didn't come in a week. He didn't come in a month. He didn't come in a year We stopped going to churches often as we did. We stopped going to bible studies. We stopped serving We stopped doing those things before you know it. We've been infiltrated by the culture of the world And we become like the world and so we need to remember that there is mortal combat taking place We need to remember that the enemy is after us He's a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour And we need to be aware that we are citizens of heaven and not citizens of earth We're just passing through in Philippians 3 20. It says our citizenship is in heaven And we eagerly await a savior from there the Lord Jesus Christ That simply means we should not regard earth as our home. We have to be careful to travel light And not overpack So here's an illustration my wife's not here. Let me tell it to you Actually see she's here We're going to go for three days somewhere I can take a backpack And then Two big 60 pound luggage because we're going after all for three days And you've got to have all of this stuff in case, you know, so Marie had to learn to pack light You know guys a lot of guys. I know not every guy but a lot of guys we can just put we're only going to go for three days We can put just the bare necessities. We do that. We travel light If you're going somewhere, especially if it's going to take some effort on your partner calls for some sacrifice Say that you're going to go up into hills.  You're going to put it on your back if you can you're going to travel light But a lot of Christians don't A lot of Christians are carrying a lot of baggage They're carrying things with them. Well, I need this and I got to have that and I want this And what happens is we overpack And so if we're aware of the fact that we're passing through That means we're going to travel light That means we're going to be aware of the things that are around us And we're going to seek something more than the right here and right now We're going to be seeking first the kingdom of god now the fact is The loss for power Often drives politicians What at one time Might have been a noble desire to care for for people Can be can be transformed into a lifestyle Where you don't even remember the people Where you're not even aware of their needs And again, you know without trying to offend anybody. It's just the truth There are a lot of people who For example with the gasoline prices and things just just for general things are going on right now they uh Many of our politicians don't even drive themselves anywhere And the gasoline that's being put in the vehicles that drive them you're paying for i'm paying for it through our taxes So they're not pulling out their their card and paying for gas and at the end of the month having to pay that bill Up they don't have to do that And when they go out to eat, they're not thinking what can I afford today? I've got four kids and and my family and and my goodness when we look at the cost because marie and I will go every week To to grocery shop and all of that and you'll look at milk and it's going up and up and up Even milk itself or bread and you look at it and you say when they say it's going to cost you $110 to make a bologna sandwich you think my goodness That's a lot. You know what i'm talking about. It's true I mean you go and you put gas in the car and you just watch that thing just spinning and you're saying You know just three years ago. It was two seventy nine a gallon And now it's six something a gallon And and we know these things but but those who are quote-unquote representing us as servants to the people they don't They don't have an idea So they get in a big plane they fly wherever they want and they do what they say and they say Oh, i'm a person of of the people and all of that, but you have never even actually paid your own bill for your own meal You don't have a clue what's going on Politicians and i'm set to say there are godly politicians I'd like to meet one but there are i believe that there are who really do care But they're few and far between Because the lust for power Is that immense? And the inability to communicate and understand what somebody else goes through Is that they become almost invulnerable to those things and that's just a fact and we know that And so the lust for power often is the driving force Behind their decisions and first john 519 we know that we are of god The whole world lies in the power of the evil one So as believers we're careful to seek first the kingdom of god We do exercise our god given rights But we remain aware that we're rejected by the world In john 1633 these things i've spoken to you jesus said that in me You may have peace in the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world And so that's where our hope is Because there is an array of enemies spiritually Opponents of the gospel and it's been for for centuries Now by now the apostle peter who's being arrested again verse 4 when he had arrested him By now he's becoming familiar with jail I used to call him a jailbird Because this this is his third arrest in the book of acts. He was arrested in chapter 4 as well as chapter 5 So herod had arrested james and now he arrests the apostle peter To gain greater favor He arrested peter during the days of unleavened bread the scripture says now that's a week-long feast Immediately following Passover So there would be crowds that were gathered and the larger the crowd the better his image to the jewish people So verse 4 says when he had arrested him he put him in prison Delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him intending to bring him before the people after Passover So four squads each squad was composed of four soldiers So there were 16 guarding him And he was placed in prison to await his execution after Passover or what is commonly called today easter They normally would not execute anyone during a religious festival and so peters in jail notice verse 5 Peter was therefore kept in prison But constant prayer was offered to god for him by the church constant when it says constant prayer the word constant speaks of persistent and fervent prayer Peter was in prison, but constant prayer was offered So in instead of protesting the unfair treatment they took this to god The church knew only god had the power to set him free And with great agony they petitioned the lord for his safe rescue Now james 5 16 says the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much Now we've seen that prayer is one of the building blocks of the early church. They were devoted devoted to the word They were devoted to Fellowship to communion and to prayer that was the mark of the church in acts 242 And so the people had seen god answer prayer And so fervent prayer is being offered up on behalf of him now in chapter 4 We saw how the church reacted when opposition first began Remember how the Sadducees were upset that peter was preaching the resurrection So they arrested peter and john and forbade them from preaching But after release they went back to the companions and they reported all that had happened And when they began to report it prompted the people to pray In acts 4 25 and 26 they said why did the nation's rage and the people plot vain things The kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers were gathered together against the lord and against his christ And so they're quoting scripture. Why are the people raging? But they went on in acts 4 29 and 30 to ask god to look upon the threats They asked him to grant to your servants that with all boldness They may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal And that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant jesus Once again the church begins to pray fervently And they're praying on behalf of the apostle They're meeting in the house of mary the mother of mark And as this is taking place verse 6 says when herod was about to bring him out that night peter was sleeping Bound with two chains between two soldiers And the guards before the door Were keeping the prison He was bound with two chains But notice with me. He's asleep. He's sleeping between two soldiers There are also two guards that are posted at the door Now obviously herod was taking no chances that any sympathizers might break in and set him free But i want to develop something with you and this is pretty much the heart of what i wanted to say I want you to notice that peter was calm enough to sleep That reminds me Of how jesus was asleep during a storm on the lake In mark 4 he tells us how jesus was in a boat and a storm arose And the storm was bad enough to almost swamp the boat During the excitement Jesus was in the back of the boat and he was asleep The fact that he was asleep bothered his men And they woke him up and they said don't you care that we're perishing And in mark 4 39 and 40 Mark tells us he got up. He rebuked the wind. He said to the waves quiet be still Then the wind died down. It was completely calm and he said to his disciples Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? Why are you so afraid? We're sitting here soaked to the bone The waves were crashing over the the ship. We thought we were going down I mean the water is still dripping off of us even though the storm has gone the storm in our heart isn't Why are you saying to us why we were afraid? We were afraid because We were going to die I was sharing just the other day With the church i said And many of you already know the answer, but i said What is in the bible? What is the opposite? Of love Now in our culture if i said what is the opposite of love? What is it?  I'll say immediately i'll say the opposite of love is hate and the bible doesn't teach that What is the opposite of love? The opposite of love is fear Why because fear has torment and he fears has not been made perfect in love What is the opposite of love fear and what does satan use in our lives the most fear?    How come you aren't aware? How come you're not awake?  Why are you afraid? Why you have no faith? Why did you doubt? I had said we're going to go to the other side. I can rest while we do But you in the middle of the road you want to say he's not here You want to say he's not helping why because he didn't do it on my timetable because he didn't do it The way i said he he should because he's not moving to the way i think he should And that's where a lot of people fail in the walks is that they think god should do it the way he The way they want him to do it and so we say how come you didn't deliver me? I can tell you that the lord will work in his time It's always his time There are things That you've gone through That you wish you had never gone through now But i promise you in the future if you hold fast to the lord In the future you're gonna say i learned so much from those times That's where i learned I i said i could walk through the valley of the shadow of death Because i could quote the psalm But when i began to walk in that valley is when i discovered your rod and your staff they do comfort me I i that's when i realized you were going to take me by the rivers of still water That's what i knew you were going to take care of me That's where i knew that that that you were going to bless me and see a lot of times We're in the middle of the storm a lot of times when we're when we're being shackled Like peter is between two guards with two standing at the door saying you're not going to get out Instead of sleeping we're weeping instead of trusting we're fearing and and that's not true with him He simply slept why because he remembered what jesus said He trusted his word now remember he had gotten the message to trust god like it says in i i say at 263 where it says you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you You will keep him in complete peace whose mind is resting in you because he's confident in you The psalmist said in psalm three verse five i lie down in sleep i awake again for the lord sustains me And that's what you learn i can sleep in the midst of a storm i can sleep when i'm in a situation That i don't want to be in not because i am apathetic But because i know i can't do anything but i trust the one who can And that's how it works He trusted in god's promise What promise well jesus had made it clear He's going to grow to be an older man. How do we know that? How do you know that? john 21 verse 18 Jesus speaking to the apostle said this Most assuredly i say unto you When you were younger you girded yourself and walked where you wished But when you are old You will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish When you are old peter wasn't old So peter knew god is going to break him out God is a god who does jail breaks And is going to break him out And by the way through this experience He was later able to encourage believers He said in first peter five seven Casting all your care upon him why? Before he cares for you For he cares for you in a time When he wrote this when nero was wreaking havoc on the church When persecution was intense When people were suffering for being christians Peter was able to say cast your cares on you Why he cares for you? You see peter had been in jail before but he got an early release In acts 519 an angel of the lord opened the prison doors and brought him out And he knows god is able to set me free again When you feel like you're in a prison and sometimes emotionally we do I may be speaking to somebody right now who is in a prison literally When you're thinking you're in a prison God is able to take you out God is able to set you free And even if you remained in that prison he still sets you free Because it's not the walls that keep you in It's yourself And when you're free in christ you're free indeed So no matter where you are you're always free You need to remember that Peter knew He wasn't to die Jesus said you'll go to be an old man So he could trust his word Isn't that something we all have to do Is trust his word


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Hi there, this is Jessica Hagman at Alden Library, and today I'm on the second floor in the Academic Achievement Center, which is now on the second floor of Alden Library. It used to be on the first floor, and in just a moment, I'm going to turn you around so you can see Dr. Tamika Scott, who is the Director, is that the title? I'm sorry, my apologies, Assistant Dean, and leads this whole operation, of which there are a lot of parts you might not be aware, because there's a lot of things happening here. So we'll get a little tour of their area, and hopefully some more information about what happens here and how you might want to take advantage of those. Let me turn you around. Okay, Dr. Scott, Assistant Dean Scott, if you could kind of tell us where we are now and what happens in this area of the AAC. As part of the AAC, we consider this to be our CAP hub or lounge, as I call it, but it's here for our CAP students who are our TRIO Student Support Service students, and it's approximately 200 or so students in this area. And they use this space for just to hang out, as well as study groups, study tables. And right here, we actually have where our CAP re-printing is at. So this is the space that they use for that. And so you said they come here to do, like, studying and things like at these tables here, like study tables? Study tables, sometimes they just come to talk to the preventer, particularly where the preventers will be, or actually to get some work done on the computers, take advantage of the free funding services, or they just come to hang out in the space. And you said that people who are in CAP are already identified for the last part. They would have been told about that when they registered. They typically do an incoming process for incoming students, where we're making students who are a first-gen ratio of income, or students who have been identified with disability services. And those students are the students that we recruit to, and then we do a selection process through there to give them to maintain our 275 million participants. And you have peer mentors, too, who work. Are they, like, former, not former, but they're also CAP students? They're also CAP students who are more than likely a junior senior here at the institution, and academically successful and navigated the system. And you said they spend some time here to really talk to those students. So they spend their time here doing this kind of study, and they also impose their own study table times here as well, and then they encourage students to actually come into the space, and they just have some, like, a study buddy, or someone to have some conversation with about how things are going on campus, and questions to answer. They're sort of like one-stop shopping, so they have great conversations as well as doing some study. Awesome. Okay, so I'm just going to need to move over here a little bit. Can you tell me what other kind of things happen here aside from the CAP program? Yeah, so outside of the CAP program, we also offer our university college courses. So we have our 1,100 courses. This is our learning strategy course. We also have time management, and we have college study skills writing. I'm sorry, college study skills reading, and study skills, and that's the most evident of these two classrooms over here. Okay. So their sort of club office is right there as well. But they usually do their meetings out on this other part of the second floor, right? Yes. Okay. So this is like the hub that happens kind of all over this floor, wherever there's room. Yes, okay. Okay, I'm going to turn around and show people the desk. There will usually be a super friendly students, so you can't see them right now, but there is a student sitting here who will, if you're not sure where to go or to meet your tutor, you can stop here and they will help you with that. One thing that I didn't know when we were talking earlier was about the study skills coaching that's available to everyone. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Or sort of about some questions off on, as well as to provide some intentional ways to study to improve your grading or to make your grading a higher, or to improve your grading sense. So if you're stuck with time management, they can provide you with some strategies to manage your time a little bit more effectively. If it's something as it relates to just really understanding the best way to study for something, so those test takings skills are needed, they can help you navigate that process as well. I was just about a conversation of what it means to be a college student and how do you manage, from one phase, always receiving aids across to now, you start sort of balancing the transition from high school to college. It sort of happens in those college study skills. Is that a newer thing that's been happening? That's something that the Academic Achievement Center has been doing for a very long time. The partnership that we have with the Allen Center is what's new. Our intentional outreach to the rest of the campus community regarding coaching is something that is new. Although it's something we've always done in this space, we're being more intentional with sharing it with other entities on campus. So we're trying to build those collaborative networks to catch people who need the help. So we also heard from Tiffany who talked about tutoring, kind of more general tutoring. Could you give us a quick, does that work for students who need help with classes? Yes, so to advise there's so many students you should go to the AAC for tutoring. And a student will come down and they'll say, I need help with a class. And if we are traveling with a class, then it's just a matter of connecting them with a tutor to track, and then they can register and sign up for a class themselves. If it's a class that we don't offer, then we refer the student directly to waiting to then go out and find either a tutor or find a resource so that students don't need to be successful. So tutoring can happen in a variety of ways. We have a set of classes that we typically offer just based off of what has been the culture of the university where we've seen students try it in. And then we also have classes that may not have been on our radar and then can be coming in and forwarding that, and then we can go into some research to find out if it was a class that we should offer to students. Okay. And then so supplemental instruction was for specific classes like chemistry and math. Do we have that in those classes? Yes. So supplemental instruction is a little bit different than our tutoring in the sense of Amanda is looking directly at classes that have the high DWF rate to them. And so those are the classes that then we build supplemental instruction to support. So you cannot be doing well in one class, but it's not one of those that we have seen based off the research to show that it is a high-level supplemental course and that might not be a class that we offer. So with supplemental instruction is also an improved setting whereas peer tutoring is typically done. Okay. And then for supplemental instruction it's pretty much it helps you throughout the semester. So it's different to come to peer tutoring and it might be one time. Supplement instruction you're going to go across the academic semester receiving information to help you understand and digest the information that you're receiving in the classroom. So literally, I mean his name is literally supplemental instruction. It's meant to be almost like another class for people who want or need the help with those really hard classes. More educational conversation, more reflection to understand materials so that you can apply the material in order to be successful in that course. So just hearing everyone talk about the work that you would hear and I hear you saying word intentional a lot. It's really clear how much work goes into planning and making these services available. So thank you, of course, for doing that. Is there anything else we should know about the AC sign off? Sure, yeah, that would be great. Yeah, that would be awesome. Oh, right, because we're doing construction right now, but that's okay. I do want to turn around quick and show what this looks like for people who are coming in. So if you come in second floor, so over there is like the library help desk and then I'm going to turn around and show you what this looks like. So if you, there's a sign that is almost always there, I think, thank you. And then so this is that you can't really see like the extent of what's here, which is what's so hard, but this whole area is the endless struggle of buildings like this, right? And so this is the, this is a mean, tell me what happens here during the day. This right here is where they will do coaching and have other meetings within the AC and then after five, if a student or student group wants to use the space, they can reserve the space the same way they would reserve any other classroom space in the library. And we always tell students that if this is empty and we're not using it, come to our fund desk and ask can you use the space and we'll let you use it. It's a nice size room, but yeah. We did some photos of the tutors in there last semester. Those turned out pretty well for tutoring week. Okay, so we are heading back through the second floor. There's the elevators to my left. Some leftover whiteboards from this summer, or the semester. I love the whiteboards in here. And so we have some nice new carpet. You can't smell it, but it smells like new carpet.  Yes, so this is literally where, so from this side over here through this side, this is where you're going to get your peer tutoring as well as your math and science tutoring. The sign for says writing zone. Beyond that point you'll have tables and chairs very similar to this, but that is where the writing center does their tutoring. Okay, I've gotten questions about that. Sometimes people are there trying to find their tutor. So writing center is behind the writing center zone, so the tables behind there. So we can zoom in a bit. That's where you're looking for the writing center. And then the rest of this would be peer tutoring and the math and science center. And it goes from this as well as this open space that's over here. So it's quite large. It's just hard to tell because it's not easily designated. Which is pretty much how everything goes here. But there are restrooms back here. If you haven't been on the second floor for a while, you should know that there are a whole new set of men's women's restroom and a single user restroom, which makes the second floor much more pleasant. And also it's just nice to have those. And the lockers are best. There's still some lockers back here, so. Okay, is there anything else you think we should know before we sign off? No, besides the fact that we are, we're revamping now that we're on the second floor and we have very exciting staff that is looking forward to helping students be successful in their journey here. Alright, thanks so much for going live with us. And I'm looking forward to sharing more of what you do in the future. Alright, let me end this.


In 1843, a series of slave uprisings took place in Cuba. Slave revolts were hardly unheard of in the Spanish colony, but they seemed to be getting worse. On March 26th, a slave uprising took place on one of the largest sugar plantations on the island, in which three white employees were killed and the plantation was ransacked. The revolt spread to a neighboring plantation and then to another, creating a wave of destruction by the revolting slaves. In Cuba, slaves were forced to work on the railroad, and the owners of the Cardenas Yukaro line – please forgive me if I'm mispronouncing anything, that is probably going to be common place in this in the next episode – the owners of that line worried that their slaves might join the revolt, so they took 200 of their slaves to Cardenas and locked them inside a wood building, which their slaves ended up escaping from and doing exactly what their owners were afraid of. They joined the rebellion. The Spanish authorities, aided by white citizens who feared the revolutionary violence of slaves, were able to drive the revolting slaves into the hills. 25 white people were killed in the uprising, but more than half of the nearly 1,000 slaves who participated in the revolt were killed, mostly by being hanged from trees in the woods. In the next few months, slave rebels continued to conduct guerrilla-style raids on various plantations to free slaves. Both the slave-owning and non-slave-honing Europeans were terrified of insurrection. The worst uprising of the year, or probably of any year in Cuba, occurred on November 5th. The slaves of one sugar estate rebelled and went to a neighboring estate where previous insurrectionists were still in shackles as punishment for their own rebellion. Six whites were killed, and several others were injured, and the uprising spread from plantation to plantation in the surrounding area. Finally, the small band of about 300 slaves were ambushed by Spanish troops, and after a battle that lasted several hours, the survivors fled. The European population in Cuba was now terrified of slave revolt, even more so than they had been before. They saw Spain as an increasingly weak European power, no longer able to effectively suppress rebellious slaves. And furthermore, people started to suspect that Britain was pressuring Spain to emancipate the slaves in the Spanish colonies, and a conspiracy theory started to circulate that a British consul named David Turnbull was encouraging slave mutiny. One Cuban slave won her freedom by testifying that the conspiracy was real. In 1844, the Military Commission of Mentanzis claimed to have uncovered a well-organized conspiracy to free the Cuban slaves driven by the British abolitionists. Turnbull was implicated in the conspiracy, and although he was an abolitionist, it is by no means clear that he was part of any actual conspiracy to generate slave rebellion or even that such a conspiracy actually existed. However, while historians debate the issue, and this is something I have not read heavily into so don't put too much weight into my explanation, there is at least some evidence that Turnbull had promised to provide rebel slaves with arms and ammunition. But whether the conspiracy is true or not isn't important for our purposes in studying the sexual crisis in the United States in the 1850s, what is important is that in the wake of the conspiracy, which became known as la escalera conspiracy, and increasing number of Cuba's wealthy plantation owners and other Europeans and Creoles started to support US annexation of Cuba, the United States, they believed, was less likely to emancipate slaves than Spain. The belief that Spain was under British pressure to free its slaves and was preparing to do so was unfounded, but the belief was real, and the US was also more capable of suppressing slave revolt. At least this is what Cuban slave owners believed. In the United States, many Southerners also supported the annexation of Cuba, including President Polk, who authorized his minister to Spain to offer $100 million for the island. Though this offer was rejected, and Spain's foreign minister responded that Spain would rather see Cuba sunk into the ocean than to sell it to the US. But the hopes of the US acquiring Cuba survived, and would continue to survive until the Spanish American War of course. But in 1848, a man named Narciso Lopez arrived in the United States with the hopes of finding volunteers to help him liberate Cuba from Spain. Lopez almost certainly could not have cared less about US annexation of the island, but the hopes of Cuban annexation motivated US citizens to support him. Many volunteers simply wanted adventure and glory. Further support was driven by expansionist desires, including John O'Sullivan, the man who coined the term Manifest Destiny, and had been urging Polk to acquire Cuba. But among Southerners, much of his support came from the desire to create a new slave territory that, in the case of Cuba, was large enough to possibly result in the introduction of not one, but two or more new slave states. I'm Chris Calton, and this is the Mises Institute podcast, Historical Controversies. We've pretty much covered the sectional crisis up to the beginnings of John Brown's plan to raid Harper's Ferry. But before we get to that fascinating bit of history, I want to back up a bit and cover some aspects of this history that are often overlooked. And that's the filibustering episodes that took place in the 1850s and were supported, in part, by Southerners hoping to achieve an expansion of slavery in the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America. Now, first, it's worth briefly defining a filibuster in the 19th century since. These were private military expeditions into other countries or territories. After 1818, such expeditions were a violation of the neutrality law. But the enforcement of this law was weak at best. Most importantly, filibustering was not an activity driven by any kind of pro or anti-slavery north or south beliefs. There were some filibusters such as Texas expeditions into Mexico that were conducted in attempts to reclaim fugitive slaves. But for the most part, the various filibusters were motivated by expansionist desires and the simple search for adventure. The filibusters of the 1850s then are a tough topic to tackle because they don't really fit cleanly into the antebellum history. Historian David Potter once warned against treating the entire antebellum period as a prelude to the Civil War, which is fair. But on the other hand, it's hard to separate any U.S. event of the 1850s from the sectional crisis. So many historians have omitted the filibusters of the 1850s altogether. The only broad history of the antebellum in Civil War years that I know of that has included the filibusters is James McPherson's The Battlecry of Freedom, which devotes a few pages to it. But McPherson's overview, though accurate, is a bit of an oversimplification. And you almost get the impression that the filibusters were motivated by pro-slavery zealots. This was not the case, and I want to be clear on that so there isn't any confusion. The two filibusters I'm going to talk about over the next few episodes are the expeditions led by Narciso Lopez and William Walker. Neither of these guys were overly concerned with slavery one way or the other. But when they were seeking support for their campaigns, pro-slavery Southerners saw these expeditions as possible opportunities to expand slavery for southern political gain. And this is what makes them worth including in this series. By the end of the decade, a southern group called the Knights of the Golden Circle would form that had explicitly pro-slavery expansionist filibustering goals. But they would end up acting more as advocates for secession and serving as something of a paramilitary group during the Civil War. But the filibustering activities of Lopez and Walker seem to have paved the way to their formation. So with this very brief introduction, the next two episodes are going to be devoted to Cuba. Narciso Lopez was born in Venezuelan in 1797. In 1813, Simon Bolivar led the independence movement and the ensuing war brought about the destruction of the Lopez family plantation. So Narciso's father moved the family to Caracas not long before Bolivar faced defeat during the Battle of La Puerta. In 1814, Narciso and his father were in the town of Valencia conducting business when word came of Bolivar's defeat during the Battle of La Puerta. Valencia was a rebel stronghold and Bolivar's messengers were pleading for the town to defend itself from the coming royal troops. They promised that Bolivar would bring reinforcements so the town shouldn't surrender. But Bolivar actually fled to Nugrenada. And when the town resisted the invasion, thanking Bolivar was going to come and help them, Narciso Lopez's father was killed along with 86 other people massacred at the hands of the Spanish troops. Valencia fell to the Spanish army. But during the resistance, the 15 year old Narciso picked up a rifle. Somebody had dropped and rallied the resistance, essentially taking unofficial lead in the doomed struggle. He was nearly killed himself, but he was able to escape. He hid out in the town for a while. But he decided that the only way to stay safe was to actually enlist in the army if you can't beat him, join him, kind of thinking, I guess. So the young Narciso didn't really care about Spain, but he didn't really care about Bolivar after the betrayal at Valencia either. If we fast forward to the year 1823, Bolivar had returned to Venezuela and he and his men defeated the royalists there. At this time, Lopez was a colonel in the Spanish army. But with Bolivar's victory, he and the men under his command left for Cuba. In Cuba, still in 1823, he married a woman whose brother was a wealthy Creole planner who had been educated in the United States and agitated for liberal reform as a member of the club de la Habana. Lopez joined the reform movement and resigned his post in the Spanish army. A few years later, he and his wife moved to Spain where they lived for six years. But after King Ferdinand's death and insurrection evolved into a civil war, Lopez joined the fight, commanding a 3,000-man cavalry unit and he earned himself a general ship in the Spanish military by the end of the war. But this and other personal failures caused him marital problems and he and his wife separated by 1836. They didn't technically divorce because they were Roman Catholics, so they just separated. So by 1840, Lopez returned to Cuba. In Cuba, he enjoyed various government positions until in 1843, Lopez's friends in high places, his former military commander, who gave him his cozy government jobs, fell out of power and Lopez was given the boot along with them. So he tried a handful of business ventures and he wasn't successful at any of them. So frustrated with his personal failures as a businessman, Lopez started to resent the Spanish governance of Cuba and he started to think about revolution. He started to hatch a conspiracy. Lopez bought an abandoned iron mine near Cienfuegos. He made friends with the horsemen there in the hopes of turning them into a Cuban cavalry since he had experience as a cavalry commander. He traveled frequently, searching for peasants. He might be able to convert into revolutionary fighters. Most importantly, in 1848, he met a novelist named Cirillo Villarete and with him were many members of Club de la Habana. Lopez had heard rumors of a plan concocted by the club to recruit a general from the US Army to lead an invasion of Cuba. And the members of the club confirmed the rumors to Lopez, recognizing him as an ally. The next day, the club members introduced Lopez to the US consul, who told Lopez the US couldn't assist in the revolt because President Polk was committed to neutrality. But the club convinced Lopez to delay his planned revolt for two weeks until they heard back from William Jenkins Worth. The US general they were hoping would lead the invasion. The club had sent an agent offer worth three million dollars to recruit an army of five thousand men for the invasion. The results of Lopez's meeting with the club was to compromise rather than help his revolt. The US consul sent word to Polk Secretary of State James Buchanan about the planned revolt. And around the same time, John O'Sullivan, Americans leading champion of territorial expansion, was urging the president to support such an invasion. But Polk was determined to acquire Cuba through peaceful negotiations. Polk figured he could use the information about the planned revolt as leverage to convince Spain to sell Cuba. He sent letters informing of the revolt to Spain and the leaders of the country were grateful. But Polk's man in Madrid, Romulus Saunders, spoke no Spanish. And this was the man in charge of the negotiations. Through a translator, Saunders hinted that if Spain didn't sell the US Cuba that if a revolt were to occur, the US might not be able to stay neutral. In other words, he made a veiled threat of war, completely screwing up the negotiations and angering Spanish officials. But Polk's letter was already in Spanish hands and the letter from Washington was followed up by another leak brought about by the mother of one of the conspirators named Jose Isnaga, who was worried about her son's safety after he told her about the plan. So she told her husband and her husband told his attorney and his attorney advised him to tell the Spanish government. So with this information, one conspirator was arrested and Narciso Lopez, as the leader of the conspiracy, was ordered to appear before the Cienfuegos governor. Instead, Lopez fled to the US. Since he didn't show up for his trial, he was tried in absentia and the Spanish officials sentenced him to death. This seemed like a meaningless sentence for a man they did not have in custody. But many years later, as we will see at the end of the next episode, this sentence would catch up with Lopez in a very unexpected way. In the United States, Lopez started recruiting from Cuba. The club de la Habana was still working to overthrow Spanish rule in Cuba. And they sent a man named Ambrosio Gonzalez to the United States to continue trying to recruit General Wirth, who had backed out of their previous plan under the orders of President Paul. So Gonzalez went to New Orleans. He actually had to travel as a stowaway because he couldn't get a passport. So Lopez was working from New York and Gonzalez was traveling from New Orleans. But the two met each other in Washington, D.C. After Wirth turned down Gonzalez's offer, the club turned to Lopez promising to fund his expedition to the tune of $60,000. And Gonzalez became Lopez's adjudant general and translator since Lopez didn't speak English himself. While in D.C., the pair started talking to southern politicians. John C. Calhoun, who years earlier had opposed annexation of the Yucatan, a Mexican state, was more interested in Cuba. And when talking to Gonzalez, the senator said of Cuba, quote, two or more southern states could be carved out of it and added, you have my best wishes. But whatever the results as the pair when ripe falls by the law of gravity into the lap of the husband, Vin, so will Cuba eventually drop into the lap of the union. The south ought to flock down there in open boats. The moment they hear the toxin, end quote, a toxin, since that word isn't very common anymore, was a signaling bell spelled T-O-C-S-I-N if you're not familiar with that word. But Calhoun was speaking metaphorically, of course. The pair also met privately with Jefferson Davis, where they offered him $100,000 to lead the invasion of Cuba. Davis had Cuban friends he had met during the Mexican-American war, and they encouraged President Polk to support Lopez. But Davis declined the invitation to lead the expedition, saying, quote, the only man I could indicate to you just now is one in whom I have implicit confidence, Robert E. Lee, end quote. Like Davis, Lee was intrigued by the offer, but he believed that his duty to the United States precluded him from accepting. So he politely declined and wished the pair well. The southern political and military leaders were interested in Cuba, and they would have liked to see the filibusters succeed so the U.S. could annex the island, but the men in positions of power were unwilling to brazenly defy the U.S. neutrality law of 1818, essentially. So the pair went back to New York, where they made one important ally, John O. Sullivan, the leading propagandist for manifest destiny. O'Sullivan was a Democrat who had thrown his lot in with the barn burners, which, if you remember from a previous episode, was the free soil wing of the Democrat Party. But he was an expansionist above all else. And his justification for annexing Cuba was that he didn't technically count it as an expansion of slavery because slavery already existed on the island. Lopez was entirely unaware that O'Sullivan had been involved in revealing the previous conspiracy to the president, helping to foil a plan by giving the information to Spain. Although Sullivan in his corner, Lopez now had an outlet to advertise his campaign to help find recruits, which kind of put him in an odd situation because he was a secret and illegal conspirator. But it depended on public advertisement to gain funds and volunteers. So the secret conspiracy became not so secret. And the advertising helped bring Lopez recruits. According to one newspaper report of a pro Lopez rally, his supporters were made up, quote, chiefly of the hardfisted working class, fired with a contagious enthusiasm that seems spreading all over the land, end quote. So at this point, it is worth noting, even though Lopez had some well wishers among the southern politicians who had an interest in seeing additional slave states, the Lopez expedition was quite clearly not motivated by anything related to slavery or the sectional crisis. In fact, historian Tom Chaffin in his book on Lopez remarks about how remarkable it was that Lopez was able to create a group that consisted of both northerners and southerners and avoided the sectional divide altogether. But this was still prior to the compromise of 1850. So Chaffin may be overstating how remarkable this feat was. More importantly for the moment was that O'Sullivan's advertisement of the conspiracy while helping to bring in support and volunteers also made it impossible for the new president, Zachary Taylor, to ignore. Polk did not support the filibuster, preferring to seek Cuban annexation through diplomacy with Spain, but he was an expansionist Democrat who was not overly concerned with enforcement of the neutrality law. Taylor, a wig, was more willing to take action. Shortly prior to Lopez's first attempted evading Cuba, the filibusters became bedfellows with the southern nationalists. Lopez had decided that northerners were too timid and slow to act, so he went to New Orleans to find better recruits among the quote, bold west and chivalric south. There they met General John Henderson, who Lopez and Gonzalez had previously met in Washington, and Henderson introduced them to John Quipman. Quipman was a leading Mississippi secessionist. He advocated Mississippi secession a decade before the state would actually do so. Quipman renewed Lopez's hopes of finding a U.S. military leader to command his forces in the Cuban invasion. He led a regiment to Texas to help the Republic gain independence from Mexico in 1836, winning him the adoration of both Texas and Mississippi. When Lopez and Gonzalez met with him, he was a few months into his second term as governor of Mississippi. His first term as governor taking place just prior to his entering the Texas War for Independence, so they weren't consecutive terms. Meeting with him in the governor's mansion in Jackson, Lopez offered Quipman one million dollars to lead his troops. Lopez didn't actually have a million dollars, but the sum was to be paid in Cuban land holdings following the successful conquest. So Quipman seemed to very seriously consider the offer. In a private letter he wrote after the meeting, he seemed to express a desire to have taken Lopez up on the offer. But he had a duty to Mississippi, so he declined and offered instead to lead a second assault if Lopez's initial invasion showed success. In the meantime, he agreed to raise money for Lopez's cause. Now, all this is worth mentioning to illustrate a few things about the sectional dispute in slavery. Lopez was quietly supported by several southern political leaders because there was a political interest in expanding slavery. The two new slave states Calhoun envisioned would mean four additional pro-slavery senators, as well as a number of new pro-slavery representatives in the House that the South had the most trouble gaining control of. So slavery was distinctly a political issue. But Southerners, even southern slave owners, did not uniformly agree that Cuban annexation was a good thing. Many southern planters opposed the acquisition of Cuba. Extending slavery in the west was far more agreeable to southern planters as a whole than adding Cuba for various reasons. One was that Cuba actually represented competition for predominantly Louisiana planners and Texas planners to a lesser degree. Cuba was a sugar producing island. Most of the south focused on King Cotton, of course, but the upper south was better suited for tobacco. But Louisiana predominantly grew sugar. Cuba was more suited for sugar than Louisiana, though. And in a small bit of irony and something that is often not mentioned, Louisiana planners actually benefited from the economic protection of the sugar tariff. Sugar tariffs and in modern times, import quotas, have the longest history of agricultural protectionism in our country. People like to point out the tariff opposition in the south, and it is certainly true that northern politicians supported higher tariffs than the south. The distinction made is between protectionist tariffs and revenue raising tariffs. But this is purely a rhetorical distinction. There was never any clear definition as to what made a tariff one kind or the other. And economically, there is no difference, of course. The Louisiana planners enjoyed the economic protection of the sugar tariff. Cuban planters enjoyed soil that could produce about twice the sugar per acre and acquiring Cuba would threaten the protection of Louisiana planters. So for the most part, Louisiana did not agitate much over the tariff, never fighting to lower the sugar tariff, and only advocating an increase in the sugar tariff following the recession of 1857, which was still in the future at this point. But it's clear that Louisiana planters recognize the tariff as a protectionist measure that they benefited from. One planter, Alexander Porter, said, quote, the duty on sugar is a question of life and death with us in Louisiana. But other southerners saw no problem with sugar competition. In South Carolina, where rice planting was common, a planter named R. F. W. Alston complained of the tariff saying that, quote, the present tariff, being the one from 1842, operates very unfavorably to us by levying high duties on such articles as would best suit for shipment to the state in lieu of remittances. For example, the rice shipped to Cuba would partly be paid for by the return cargos of sugar, but for the almost prohibitory duty on sugar, end quote. So the tariff on sugar was a matter of dispute in the South as most southerners opposed it as they did any protective tariff, but the Louisiana planters, and to a lesser degree the Texas planters, enjoyed it enough to make them softer on the Cuba question as a whole. But other southerners worried that the acquisition of Cuba would actually hurt the institution of slavery, because upper South slave states would flock to Cuba, rendering places like Virginia and Maryland free states. So the slave question was at the forefront of a lot of Southern minds when thinking about Cuba and the filibusters, but they didn't necessarily agree as to how Cuba's annexation would affect the institution of slavery. These factors end up having little effect on the filibusters themselves, other than hampering Lopez's ability to recruit in the South, but they are instructive in helping us to understand the sectional controversy that was taking place in the country. And they make it easy to recognize why some historians ignore the filibuster role in the sectional controversy, while other historians seem to overstate it. Southern slave interests were simply divided on the matter. But when Lopez and his crew went to New Orleans, they found a city full of expansionists, with a tradition of filibustering in places like Mexico in previous years. So Lopez did enjoy more eager support in the South than he'd found in the North. His support was stronger among the city's merchants, though, than it was among the planters. The merchants stood to gain more from free trade with Cuba as a potential export market than the sugar planters who enjoyed the economic protectionism. In the city, Lopez found two Mexican war veterans, Colonel Chatham Roberto Wheat and Colonel W.J. Bunch to help recruit volunteers for his filibuster army. General John Henderson also paid $16,000 for a ship named the Creole to transport the men from New Orleans to Cuba. Lopez also got a hold of two other ships, the Georgiana and the Susan Loud. The editor of a paper called The Delta, used contacts he had in the Democrat party to obtain a stock of arms and ammunition from the Louisiana State Arsenal to help equip the filibusters. Lopez also found plenty of people willing to purchase bonds he was issuing, which would prove profitable in the event that Cuba was successfully conquered. Lopez had been issuing bonds for a while, but it was in New Orleans that he finally found a lively market for them. His bonds were pledged against public lands and property in Cuba, so his plan was to redeem them and lands taken from the government, but not private planters whose support he expected to have once his invasion was underway. From bond sales, Lopez raised somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000, nearly half of which came from John Henderson alone, who was turning out to be Lopez's greatest American supporter. But all the publicity in New Orleans worked against Lopez at least as much as it helped him. Spain had an extensive espionage network in the United States, and New Orleans had a sizable Hispanic population, so Spanish spies relayed information back to the Spanish consul in the city, who kept the Spanish government informed of Lopez's activities. In response, Spain funded some U.S. newspapers that published anti-Philibuster pieces to counter the pro-Philibuster newspaper articles and advertisements that helped Lopez recruit. More importantly, they also sent thousands of new troops to Cuba to help stop the coming invasion. Finally, at 9 p.m. on April 25th, 1850, Lopez, Gonzales, and Henderson, along with their volunteers, started to load into the three ships. The tickets that were provided to the recruits to board the ships claimed that the destination was Chagras, a stopover in Panama that travelers to California passed through during the gold rush. But of course, this was simply misdirection as the real destination was the southern Mexican state of Yucatán in the peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico, and the fake tickets were meant to throw off U.S. federal troops who might attempt to enforce the neutrality act as well as possible Spanish forces. Some of the recruits, though they knew what the expedition was really about, thought that Chagras was the genuine destination, and they only signed up to get a free ride to Chagras so they could travel to California more cheaply. Between these and a handful of other recruits who got cold feet, the filibusters lost about 42 men to desertion and 21 more to illness. So when they left Yucatán for Cuba, Lopez had roughly 500 men, all of whom loaded onto the Creole now to head to Cuba. They departed on May 17th. The crew approached Cardenas Cuba at about 10 o'clock at night on May 18th, and they distributed weapons to the men under the light of a full moon, which one soldier noted was so bright you could almost read by it. Privates were issued muskets while the officers were given a saber and a Jennings rifle, one of the early repeating rifles that wasn't very successful commercially but was a very new piece of technology at this point. Two-thirds of the men were also given bowy knives and revolvers. At 2.30 a.m., the Creole grounded on a sandbar about 20 yards from the Cardenas Pier. For the next 30 minutes, the men struggled to move the steamer until finally the first mate named Colander Faisu, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, grabbed a rope, dived into the base, swam to the dock and tied up the ship. The men disembarked. One regiment followed the railroad tracks into the city planning to take possession of the locomotives. The rest of the men moved toward the city's garrison which contained about 400 Spanish army regulars. The leader of this group, Theodore O'Hara, took captives on the way into the city and demanded they give directions to the garrison, but the captives were too terrified to speak. Lopez, leading another regiment, caught up with them and led the way instead. As the filibusters approached to the garrison on the north side of the city, a sentinel spotted them and yelled out for them to stop asking who they were. O'Hara answered, friends and Lopez. Then fighting broke out. In the gunfire, O'Hara took a bullet and was left lying out in the street bleeding while one group of the filibusters hung back to protect him. The rest of them, now taking orders from Major John Hawkins, ran toward the garrison as they faced a hell of bullets from the Spanish troops firing through three iron barred windows set into the stone walls. But the filibusters had superior numbers in this battle and the Spanish soldiers retreated to the house of the Lieutenant Governor on the other side of the city plaza. The filibuster army took the plaza and then stormed the governor's residence. While some of the remaining troops continued to fire on the filibusters, Lopez charged in amidst the hell of bullets in an attempt to speak to the Spaniards inside the garrison. The fighting continued for three hours. Finally at dawn, the filibusters successfully broke down the garrison's door. When Lopez's men rushed in, the Spanish soldiers threw down their weapons and surrendered. On the other side of the plaza, the Lieutenant Governor was taken prisoner, but the men inside his house continued to fire, so Lopez set fire to the building. While the building went up in flames, the roof collapsed on the second story, but the soldiers inside continued to fire their weapons from one corner of the house that wasn't burning. They killed several more of Lopez's men until 15 filibusters broke in through the rear entrance of the home and started to bayonet the soldiers inside, killing several of them until the rest finally waved a white flag at around 8 a.m. The fire didn't destroy the entire two-story house, and after the battle, Lopez and his men raised their flag over the building to mark their victory. They had more than 40 prisoners, including the Lieutenant Governor and three other high-ranking officials. Lopez's men estimated that they had six to eight men killed and 12 to 15 wounded, with the wounded including Gonzales, O'Hara, and Wheat. Lopez established his headquarters inside the captured garrison, and he appealed to the prisoner soldiers hoping to get them to join his cause in liberating Cuba. Part of Lopez's plan rested on the idea that Cuban citizens would join his rebellion once they saw the revolution was underway. After John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, people compared him to the filibusters, and there are certainly some parallels here, as Brown was expecting slaves to rise up and join his raid, and Lopez expected Cuban citizens to join his invasion. Both men would be disappointed. Lopez ordered his men not to loot the town, which they mostly obeyed except to take food and alcohol. The men got drunk. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Pickett's regiment succeeded in taking the train station outside of Cardenas, which they hoped would prevent word of the invasion from leaking out to the rest of the island, as there was no telegraph line in Cuba yet. The city seemed to have been secured. What they didn't realize was that before the invasion even began, watchmen on the city's dock saw the Creole approach and immediately notified the Lieutenant Governor. This gave him time to relay orders to the neighboring city to alert the Spanish officials. So by 10 a.m. on May 19th, Spanish officials in Matanzas were already fully informed of the invasion of Cardenas. So while Lopez and his men were drinking and sleeping in a city they thought was secured, Spanish forces were assembling to retaliate. Lopez learned that the Spaniards were getting ready to attack, so at 2 p.m. he ordered his men to start boarding their ship, hoping they could get out of the city before the counter attack and sail instead to the village of Mantua. Lopez, keep in mind, was very familiar with the area from his years living in Cuba. He believed that Mantua was full of people who would join his revolt while the Spanish reinforcements were wasting their time in the abandoned Cardenas. But even before this happened, about 200 Spanish infantrymen and 100 Lancers arrived at Cardenas and were simply camped right outside the city, which the filibusters were completely unaware of. While most of the filibusters were loading into the ship, about 175 filibusters remained in the city when the 100 Spanish Lancers attacked, riding into the city on their horses. Now this was a transition period in military tactics which would later come into play in the American Civil War as well, because rifles were very effective against cavalry because of their superior range. So as the Lancers rode in their horses were shot out from under them and they were driven back. All in all, another 8 or 10 filibusters were killed and maybe 20 or so were wounded. According to Richardson Hardy's description of the skirmish, quote, 70 or 80 of the Spanish lay killed and wounded, their maddened horses dragging and trampling them to death, end quote. At 9 p.m. this regiment became the last to board the Creole and they loaded up while being fired on by more Spanish troops stationed on the pier. The filibusters kept their prisoners with them so the ship was cramped while the exhausted men tried to rest. But with extra weight on the ship they ran aground in the shallow waters outside of Cardenas. Now the filibusters were sitting ducks on a crowded ship that wouldn't move. So they started throwing everything they could off the ship, hoping to set it loose. Eventually this meant tossing their weapons and ammunition as well, but the ship remained stuck. Finally about a hundred of the men evacuated in small boats and paddled to a small island a quarter mile away and with the rising tide the Creole was finally free. Out of the shallow waters the men who evacuated were picked up and the prisoners were released on the island instead. Lopez gave the prisoners a few silver dollars each as he let them go basically demonstrating to them that he was supposed to be their liberator not their conqueror. Lopez still wanted to go to Mantua which was quite a bit west of Cardenas. But mob rule had taken over on the ship and the men argued over where the second landing should be. Finally it was decided that they didn't have enough coal to get them very far and they decided to sell for Key West. About 30 miles off the coast of Florida though Lopez spotted through his spyglass a Spanish man of war named the Pizarro. This ship had been searching for the filibusters in the Gulf of Mexico for weeks and the ship appeared to be moving in the wrong direction so they didn't seem to be aware of the Creole's presence. This changed when the two ships were within four or five miles of each other and the Pizarro quickly turned around and started chasing the Creole. The filibusters began shoveling what coal they had left into the furnace to try to outrun the Spanish ship. When the Creole was eight or ten miles off the coast of Florida the Pizarro had caught up to within about two miles of them. The filibusters could see Key West's lighthouse in the distance and they continued shoveling coal into the furnace to reach Florida before the Spaniards caught them. They ran out of coal and started throwing in any substitutes they could think of like clothing and raw bacon trying to keep moving and at 1 p.m. on May 21st islanders on a small archipelago just off the coast of Florida spotted the Creole racing toward them. The ship ran into the port and the islanders welcomed them and cheering their arrival. Firmly on U.S. soil the captain of the Pizarro was unwilling to fire his ship's cannons even though by the time the Creole docked the Spanish ship was only a quarter mile behind them. Lopez's men disembarked, they were exhausted, they were sunburnt, but they trudged along the island's coast to the U.S. Army barracks a half mile away as they walked the Pizarro sat threateningly off shore. The filibusters disbanded and the army took possession of the Creole. The Pizarro hovered off the coast of the island for two more days before finally taking off. Lopez and many other filibusters were suspicious that the Spanish ship was only feigning their departure hoping to capture the filibusters when they were back in international waters. Even though Lopez believed this was the case he couldn't stay on the island forever so he boarded a U.S. mail ship called the Isabel that was headed for Charleston South Carolina. Several others including Gonzales stayed in Key West to recover but they eventually made their way out of Florida narrowly escaping capture. Their relief was even more profound after they got hold of newspapers reporting of the execution by firing squad of five of their men they had mistakenly left behind in Cuba. Lopez's initial attempt at liberating Cuba had been a failure but after narrowly escaping capture he was determined to try again. The final attempt at liberating Cuba from Spanish rule will be the topic of the next episode. For more content like this visit mesis.org