Knights of the Golden Circle

The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret society founded in 1854 by American George W. L. Bickley. Its objective was initially to expand the United States into Latin America, adding slave states and ensuring the permanent continuance of slavery. This later became a plan for the southern states to secede and then add Latin American territory. The 'golden circle' was a circle of 16 degrees radius (about 2400 miles) centered on Havana, and covering territories whose climate was suitable for large-scale plantation agriculture. It would have consisted of the Southern United States, Mexico (which was to be divided into 25 new slave states), Central America, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Caribbean South America and most other islands in the Caribbean.

The KGC's proposal grew out of previously unsuccessful proposals to annex Cuba (the Ostend Manifesto), parts of Central America (the Filibuster War), and all of Mexico (the All of Mexico Movement). In Cuba, the issue was complicated by the desire of many in the colony for independence from Spain. Mexico and Central America had no interest in being part of the United States. Initially, the KGC advocated that the United States should annex the new territories to increase the number of slavery states vastly, and thus the power of slaveholders.

In response to the increased anti-slavery agitation that followed the Dred Scott decision (1857), the Knights changed their position: the Southern United States should secede, forming their own confederation, and then invade and annex the other areas of the Golden Circle. The proposed new country's northern border would roughly coincide with the Mason–Dixon line, and within it were included such cities as Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Mexico City, and Panama City. In either case, the goal was to increase slavers' political and economic power irreversibly.

During the American Civil War, some Southern sympathizers in Northern states such as Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Iowa, joined the KGC, which was renamed first the Order of American Knights, and then, in a deliberate reference to the Sons of Liberty of the American Revolution, the Order of the Sons of Liberty.

The KGC has been called a "model" for the Ku Klux Klan. Although nominally secret societies, the actual existence of the Knights of the Golden Circle and the Order of the Sons of Liberty were never considered a secret.