Republic of Money: in re Richardson

First post linked WS Farish family (Standard Oil, Bush cronies) with Confederate Jefferson Davis & the plantation economy:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hannah%20Bell/58



Gov. Bill Richardson just resigned from the O. admin:



I. WILLIAM RICHARDSON (1731) + JOSLIN

William = one of the incorporators of Princeton, Mass, & a "leading man" there. He held lease on over 4000 acres of land.

Merchant, "agiculturalist," & "tailor". Brother Nicholas was a trader in Haiti.



II. SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1760) + MYRICK

Samuel = "farmer". His brother William was a Boston silk merchant. Other family members involved in trade, wharfs, agriculture. A cousin owned a distillery & Boston's Bull Wharf & Summer St. Wharf, & all the real estate between.



III. PETER RICHARDSON (1798) + MEHITABLE SPENCER PRENTISS

Peter = "prominent Boston merchant" & landowner who "helped open up Arkansas & Texas". Head of the Boston Board of trade. Railroad connections.

Brother William went into business with cousin George (silk-trader's son) in West Indies trading, ships & Boston wharves. (Note: "Haiti/West Indies trading" = slaves or slave-produced goods).



IV. WILLIAM EVERETT RICHARDSON (1825) + VESTA HODSDON

William was treasurer of Boston's Central Wharf. Brother James was a merchant there. Brother Ed = customs official.

Brother George worked for Pepperell Mills (textiles)(there was evidently a family connection with this & several other Maine textile mills. A Richardson branch had moved to Maine & seemingly intermarried with the Pepperell Shattucks; brother Spencer worked there too at one point: also connections with Saco, Laconia & Bigelow Mills).

Brother Spencer Wells was a financier: Metropolitan National Bank, capital 6.3 million; Richardson, Hill & Co. Spencer had far-reaching interests. See note on Marsh Ranch, Contra Costa California, left bottom:

http://books.google.com/books?id=tBurAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA47&dq=spencer+richardson+mine

Partner Hill owned a steamship company, etc. Partner Adams was one of "the" presidential Adamses: financier of Northern Pacific, Niagara Falls Power, Edison Electric, agent for Deutsche Bank:

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19290527,00.html


Here's Spencer & other noteworthies incorporating a railroad in Sonora Mexico in 1882.

http://books.google.com/books?id=FFZR4HsasGUC&pg=PA11&dq=%22spencer+w+richardson%22+mexico&lr=


The family also had silver mining interests in Mexico:

http://books.google.com/books?id=hapIAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA786&dq=spencer+w+richardson+mexico


To put this in context, at the time:

"...leading financiers and industrialists of the United States
controlled 90 percent of Mexico’s coastlines and frontiers and 22
percent (100 million acres) of its surface through 162 individuals
and companies and private properties that included enormous oil,
timber and mineral interests...seventy percent of all corporate
enterprises and seventy percent of the active capital..."

http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/hawconf/2006/hart.doc.

Big capital was all over Mexico & Latin America, & funding conflict right & left.



V. WILLIAM BLANEY RICHARDSON (1868) + (1) ROSA OJEDA MEDERO

Gov. Richardson's grandpa.

He went to Latin/South America/Nicaragua as a naturalist, collecting for museums; the American Museum of Natural History, among others. While he was there acquired a wife & a coffee plantation.

(Note: Missionaries, explorers, & naturalists, esp. those connected with prominent families, sometimes had sidelines in intelligence-gathering & property-scouting. I don't know that Mr. R. did, but it wouldn't be unknown.)

Here's Mr. Richardson in Ecuador, investigating on "Silver Island" & the "Rio de Oro":

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ub9mAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA763&dq=%22william+b+richardson%22+nicaragua&lr=

He had many kids.

One married her cousin, son of banker Spencer. Son-in-law joined William B. in the Nicaraguan plantation business.

One child (Lucia) married Francisco Navarro, Vice President of the Republic of Nicaragua 1937-1947 under one of the Somozas, Somoza Garcia (who, incidentally, had family in Philadelphia & was related to Bautista.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasio_Somoza_Garc%C3%ADa

Lucia's son Ernesto (Tito) Navarro Richardson, Minister of Labor under Somoza Debayle, is now retired in the U.S.

(Somoza Debayle., incidentally, graduated from: St. Leo College Prep (Florida), La Salle Military Academy (Long Island), United States Military Academy.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasio_Somoza_Debayle

Lucia's grandson, Alejandro Fiallos Navarro (b. 1956), first cousin once removed of Bill Richardson = president of the Nicaraguan Port Authority. His brother Francisco = Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States in the early 1980s.

http://translate.google.com/translate?
hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2007/enero/28/notici
as/opinion/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%
3DRosaura%2BOjeda%2BMedero%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG



VI. WILLIAM BLANEY RICHARDSON (1891) + (2) MARIA LOPEZ-COLLADO

Bill's dad (Goddard Seminary, Tufts). He was a banker.

He worked for National City Bank, first setting up the Genoa, Italy, branch, then moving on to Mexico. He opened the Mexican branch of National City Bank in 1929 & ran it until his retirement in 1956. As one person put it: He didn't "work for" Citi, he *was* Citibank in Mexico.

WB married María Luisa López-Collada Márquez, from a "wealthy family," described both as being Mexican & Spanish, & had:



VII. GOV. WILLIAM BLAINE RICHARDSON

http://www.wargs.com/political/richardson.html



To give more context to WB's associations with Citi, & the previous chapter on Farish/Jefferson Davis (wife = daughter of Zach Taylor): Charles Stillman was another National City Bank agent.

"When Zachary Taylor invaded Texas...they set up a contract with an
American financier to supply, Halliburton-style, the American forces
with their supplies. And that individual, Charles Stillman, walked
away with millions of dollars in profits, which he promptly put into
the National City Bank of New York..."

http://www.houstonculture.org/hispanic/context.html

He worked with the founders of Texas's "King Ranch" (in which "Dinny" Phipps from the prior installment now has an interest).

Charles Stillman also smuggled Mexican cotton during the Civil War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stillman

Stillman's son James eventually took over. Under his tenure, National City bank shipped arms to Porfirio Diaz to overthrow the republic of Mexico.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stillman

This was the era that Richardson's grandpa was a plantation owner in Nicaragua & Richardson's cousins were buying Mexican silver mines.

Two Stillman daughters married Rockefellers; NCB = Rockefeller Bank.


When Lopez Portillo nationalized Mexico's banks in 1982, he didn't take Citi.

In 1998 Citi was the first US bank to acquire a Mexican one: the gov't had recapitalized it for $1 billion. Citi paid $195 million.

God Save The Bankers

:puke:

than in following the money, though.