The Pro-Slavery People Want to Seem Like They're the Good Guys

The fact that Nicaragua was now effectively a slave state would also help to draw in more southern white volunteers. He had notices printed up and distributed in several southern American cities, including New Orleans. The pro-slavery folks did not like to think of themselves as violently enforcing a nightmarish regime of racial apartheid. Back in the US, reactions to Walker's conquest varied, largely by region. Even in the abolitionist North, he had a lot of fans. Plays were written about him and performed in places like Manhattan. One 1856 Playbill from the Purdy National Theater declared him the hope of freedom.