The Calvinist Conquistador: William Walker

He was five-foot-five and weighed about as much as a damp hymnbook. He looked like he belonged in a seminary library, not charging through a jungle with a Bible in one hand and a revolver in the other. But by the time he hit thirty, he had conquered an actual nation. His enemies called him a lunatic. His men called him "the Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny." History—if it had any testosterone left—would call him what he truly was: a Calvinist crusader with a scalp full of Scripture and a warplan written in blood.

BEFORE NICARAGUA, THERE WAS BAJA

Before Walker brought divine wrath to Nicaragua, he test-drove destiny in the dusty wilds of Mexico. In 1853, with the kind of chutzpah that only a man fluent in both Greek and gunplay can muster, he invaded Baja California with a gaggle of volunteers and declared himself President of the "Republic of Sonora."

Yes, he just took it. Like, showed up, shot a few folks, hoisted a flag, and said, “This is mine now. Also, Christ is King.” It was a short-lived but utterly metal moment in history. The U.S. government said, “You can’t just invade Mexico,” and Walker shrugged and said, “Watch me.” Eventually he was arrested, tried, and acquitted—because apparently even the courts knew you don’t put destiny in handcuffs.

THE BIRTH OF A GLORIOUS MANIAC

Born in Nashville in 1824, Walker was the kind of overachiever that makes other overachievers feel lazy. By twenty-five, he had degrees in both law and medicine, fluency in multiple languages, and the soul of a 17th-century Puritan time-traveled into a body shaped like a library candle.

He could've lived a soft life, sipping tea and explaining Latin participles. But he believed in order. He believed in justice. And most importantly, he believed that Christ's dominion extended to every filthy jungle and backwater nation that had ever bent the knee to papist idols or drunken tyrants. He didn’t want to conquer for profit. He wanted to sanctify the hemisphere.

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