Crabb, Henry A. (1827–1857)

Henry A. Crabb (b. 1827; d. 7 April 1857), filibuster. A schoolmate of William Walker, a fellow filibuster, in Nashville, Tennessee, Crabb journeyed to California during the Gold Rush. After settling in Stockton in 1849, he led a brief expedition of adventurers to Nicaragua in 1855. Crabb returned to California the next year and married Filomena Ainsa, who came from a prominent Sonora, Mexico, family. Then, in 1857, he organized the American and Arizona Mining and Emigration Company in a bold attempt to colonize part of Sonora. Crabb outfitted a group of men and marched into Mexico. Ambushed on 1 April 1857 by Mexican troops and besieged for six days, Crabb and fifty-nine of his men were captured and brutally executed to serve as a warning to Americans that Mexico was not open to further colonizing ventures.

See alsoFilibustering .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rufus Kay Wyllys, "Henry A. Crabb—A Tragedy of the Sonora Frontier," Pacific Historical Review 9, no. 2 (June 1940): 183-194.

Joe A. Stout, "Henry A. Crabb—Filibuster or Colonizer?" The American West 8, no. 3 (May 1971): 4-9.

Diana Lindsay, "Henry A. Crabb, Filibuster, and the San Diego Herald," Journal of San Diego History 19 (Winter 1973): 34-42.

Additional Bibliography

May, Robert E. Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Ruibal Corella, Juan Antonio. !Y Caborca se cubrió de gloria …!": La expedición filibustera de Henry Alexander Crabb a Sonora. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1976.

                                                  Iris H. W. Engstrand