Butterworth Stavely is a fictional character in
Mark Twain's 1879 story "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn". He is an American adventurer and
filibuster who instigates a ''
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
'' on the
Pitcairn Islands and has himself crowned "Emperor Butterworth I".
Twain based his story on one sentence in a naval report by
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
officer
Algernon de Horsey
Admiral Sir Algernon Frederick Rous de Horsey (25 July 1827 – 22 October 1922) was a Royal Navy officer, appointed aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria. He distinguished himself in Canada during the Fenian raids, and was thanked in Parliament for s ...
: "One stranger, an American, has settled on the island – a doubtful acquisition", which was probably referring to Peter Butler, a survivor of the 1875 ''Khandeish'' shipwreck. The story was probably also inspired by the life of American adventurer
Joshua Hill, who briefly ruled the Pitcairn Islands as a dictator in the 1830s.
In the story, Stavely rises to political power by exploiting the internal divisions and suspicions surrounding a lawsuit between
Thursday October Christian II and
Elizabeth Mills waged over a trespassing
chicken
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...
. His machinations lead to the impeachment of the
chief magistrate James Russell Nickoy, Stavely's election as magistrate, a ''coup d'état'' against the "galling English yoke", and his coronation as emperor.
Stavely's cynical manipulation of the easily corruptible islanders has been interpreted as an indictment of
U.S. colonialism and the
cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism (sometimes referred to as cultural colonialism) comprises the cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word "imperialism" often describes practices in which a social entity engages culture (including language, traditions, ...
of American missionaries.
See also
*
William Walker (filibuster)
William Walker (May 8, 1824September 12, 1860) was an American physician, lawyer, journalist, and mercenary. In the era of the expansion of the United States, driven by the doctrine of "manifest destiny", Walker organized unauthorized military ...
*
William A. Chanler
William Astor "Willie" Chanler (June 11, 1867 – March 4, 1934) was an American soldier, explorer, and politician who served as U.S. Representative from New York. He was a son of John Winthrop Chanler. After spending several years exploring Eas ...
References
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Fictional American people
Fictional emperors and empresses
Fictional mercenaries
Fictional pirates
Fictional Oceanian people
Literary characters introduced in 1879
Male characters in literature
Mark Twain characters
Pitcairn Islands politicians
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