The word filibuster has a colorful etymology. It goes back to a Dutch word, vrijbuiter, which means “plunderer” or “robber,” the source also of the English word freebooter, or “pirate,” and a linguistic relative of English booty, or “spoils.” In Spanish, the Dutch term morphed into filibustero, and this term was later Anglicized as filibuster. Eventually, filibuster came to apply to the practice of congressional representatives “hijacking legislation” with lengthy speeches. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Filibusters, Freebooters, and Pirates”
Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Joseph in Richmond, Virginia.
Hi, Joseph in Richmond, Virginia.
Hey, Joseph. Welcome to the show.
Well, the idea of the filibuster is origin, and I did some research, and I got two conflicting things on it that one says it’s originating in French, the other in Dutch, and there are two such disparate languages that can’t imagine how that could be. And also the fact that it’s very undemocratic. It was used in the 1870s to help the Dixiecrats who were trying to fight desegregation tooth and nail. And here we have a minority who can rule the Senate with one person. I’ve had my senators on the line. I haven’t talked to them directly.
Joseph, Joseph, Away With Politics is a different show. We can’t help you with that part.
Well, well, anyway, I made sure they knew my point of view. And it is a very, very tenuous. That’s why we have the blockage in the Senate we have, because one person can block everything.
Now, what is the origin? Have you all found the origin of that word?
Well, you talked about hijacking legislation, basically. And if you’ve looked into the history of this word, then you know that it has to do with piracy, right?
Kind of lent itself to me, yes.
The earliest history of this word is kind of murky, but we do know that ultimately it goes back to the Dutch word freibouter, which means pirate. The word in Dutch, freibouter, it comes from the same root that gives us the English words free and booty, as in a pirate’s plunder.
I did not come across that.
Yeah, in fact, early on in English, we had the word freebooter, which meant a pirate or a privateer. Later on, Dutch colonists in the 16th century used the word freibouter to denote pirates that they ran into in the West Indies.
And this was picked up in Spanish as filibustero and in French as flibustier in the late 1700s. If you know your history, then you know that in the 1850s and 1860s, there were some rough characters, a lot of them from the United States who were heading south on expeditions to meddle in Central American affairs.
And we’re talking about mercenaries and people leading these private armies on these illegal expeditions, going into Central America and the Spanish West Indies to overthrow Spanish colonial rule and sort of take over these territories themselves.
And as you might suspect, these meddlers, these soldiers of fortune, were called filibusteros. Eventually, U.S. newspapers picked up this term and anglicized it, anglicized filibustero as filibuster.
And in 1853, the House was debating about whether to annex Cuba, and one of the representatives denounced that idea as piracy or a filibuster.
And as you noted, over time, filibusters have been used to do things like, you know, block civil rights legislation, including anti-lynching bills, things like that.
It sounds like piracy.
I mean, you could also argue that it’s protecting the rights of the minority group in Congress. But so it’s controversial that way.
But filibuster has its origins in the idea of piracy.
OK, that explains a lot.
Yeah, it’s very picturesque, wouldn’t you say?
Yes. Well, I thank you. You all have done a lot more digging than I did. But that’s your forte, so I’m so happy to have heard that.
That’s what we do.
It is indeed our metier.
Thank you, Joseph. We appreciate it. Take care now.
Thank you all for taking my call. I appreciate it.
Sure.
Bye-bye.
