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.

References

* 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 {{lit-char-stub

See also

References