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Being loath to leave the topic, however, I returned to my favorite source, Terrance Zepke. Near the conclusion of my well-worn copy of his Pirates of the Carolinas, Zepke provides a list of the top twenty most infamous pirates. We have already covered nine members of his list, i.e., Long Ben Avery, Calico Jack Rackham, William Kidd, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Black Bart Roberts, Charles Vane, Stede Bonnet, and last, but certainly not least, the notorious Blackbeard.
We shall now consider the other individuals on Zepke’s list.
Sir Henry Morgan, another one of my personal favorites, was active primarily during the second half of the Seventeenth Century. Although he was apparently well known as the King of all Pirates during his day, there are some authors who claim that he never was a pirate, merely a privateer. This claim would be heartily disputed by the hundreds or even thousands of Spanish colonists who suffered at his hands during this era. The title “King” is justified not only by his exploits, but also by the fact that he essentially served as the uncrowned king of Jamaica during the latter part of his career.
Like so many other pirates/privateers of his day, little is known about Morgan’s early life. Even the exact date and place of his birth have been subject to dispute. Historians say that he was born in 1635 in either Penkarne (Monmouth, England) or Llanrhymny (Glamorgan, Wales) into a Welsh farming family. He remained in relative obscurity until 1654-55, when he joined a large army of 8000-9000 troops authorized by Oliver Cromwell, commanded by General Venables, and sent to invade the Spanish in Barbados. (It is unclear whether Morgan was a volunteer or, as is more commonly believed, joined the army to escape his position as an indentured servant.)
In spite of the impressive size of his army and the support of a large naval force, Venables’ attack on the city of Santa Domingo was soundly defeated, and the surviving British troops were forced to flee. Venables forces next invaded the largely unpopulated and economically insignificant island of Jamaica, defeated its 200 Spanish defenders, and converted it into a new British colony. “Lord Protector” Cromwell, who had much greater expectations of his large and costly army, was not amused! When Venables and Admiral Penn returned to England, he had them imprisoned in the Tower of London as a “reward” for their services.
Meanwhile, Henry Morgan persisted in Jamaica, surviving both disease and the attacks of Spanish rebels, which, collectively, had a significant impact on the size of the occupying British force. In 1662 he was appointed a military officer and also received his commission as a privateer. Two years later he set sail for Central America with a small squadron of ships. He spent much of the next two years plundering three Spanish settlements: Villa Hermosa, Torjillo, and Gran Granada, the Nicaraguan silver mining capitol. In attacking these three settlements he undoubtedly/technically broke the terms of his letter of marque, since it is very unlikely that it made any provisions for the conquest of enemy cities, which was usually regarded as an act of piracy. He returned to Jamaica to find that his uncle, Sir Edward Morgan, had been appointed Commander of all British forces in the West Indies. Morgan, now a wealthy man because of his accumulated plunder, married his uncle’s daughter, Mary Elizabeth, in early 1665 and began investing heavily in local plantations. He also developed a close friendship with the Jamaican Governor, Thomas Modyford.
In 1666 Henry Morgan was named Colonel of the Port Royal (Jamaica) Militia. Upon the death of Edward Mansvelt or (Mansfield), Dutch leader of the pirate association known as the Brethren of the Coast, Morgan was elected by the association’s members to fill Mansvelt’s place. Thus, within a one-year period, Morgan became one of if not the most powerful military figure(s) in the West Indies.
The following year, Britain and Spain signed a non-aggression pact, which would have seemed to bring Morgan’s privateering/pirateering days to an end. However, Governor Modyford feared that the Spanish might be taking advantage of the lull in hostilities and secretly planning an invasion of Jamaica. Therefore, in January 1668 Modyford commanded Morgan “…to draw together the English privateers and take prisoners of the Spanish nation, whereby you may gain information of that enemy.” (See Angus Konstam’s The History of Pirates, p.78.)
Morgan assembled a fleet of roughly ten ships and 500 crewmembers, and then set sail for southern Cuba. Upon reaching Cuba he was joined by a band of French pirates from Tortuga. Realizing that his combined force was still too modest to launch a successful attack on Havana, he marched his men 30 miles inland and captured the smaller but affluent town of Puerto del Principe. It is rumored that Morgan, after overwhelming the town’s defenders, imprisoned the survivors in a local church where they were tortured until ransomed for 50,000 pieces-of-eight.
Disappointed by the size of the booty, the French buccaneers departed. Morgan, however, sailed his remaining fleet to the Isthmus of Panama and the city of Puerto Bello on its northern coast. Puerto Bello was a critical port, since it was the main departure point from which treasure ships sailed for Spain. Three major forts protected Puerto Bello, because of its obvious importance to the Spanish Empire. Morgan landed his crew outside of Puerto Bello and launched his attack by canoe under cover of darkness. The first two forts fell to Morgan’s vicious attacks on July 11-12, 1668. The third, Castle San Geronimo, put up a heated resistance until Morgan is rumored to have formed a human shield made up of nuns, other women, and old men in front of his forces for the final attack. Once the Port was under his control, he is also rumored to have repulsed a relief army of 3,000 troops sent by the Governor of Panama. He again ransomed the city and returned to Jamaica in August, 250,000 pieces-of-eight richer than when he left.
Although Henry Morgan had won the admiration of many Englishmen with his exploits against the Spanish, he had technically exceeded the terms of his privateering commission. Fortunately for Morgan, an Admiralty court convened in March of 1669 declared that his capture of Puerto Bello was legitimate. While his crew celebrated the decision (and squandered their shares of the booty) in the taverns of Port Royal, Morgan bought up more local plantations.
Late in April of 1669 Morgan and his fleet (of 8 ships and 650 men, according to Krzysztof Wilczynski) found themselves on Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. Even though Morgan had captured the partially deserted city of Maracaibo and extracted 20,000 pieces-of-eight from its residents to keep him from putting the city to the torch, he was unable to escape with his treasure. His Spanish adversary, Vice-Admiral Alonso del Campo y Espinosa, had three large men-of-war blocking the mouth of the Lake. The Vice-Admiral himself was holed up in a fortress whose cannon were trained on the water. On May 1 Morgan broke the military standoff by offering the Spanish an opportunity to surrender. When the Spaniards laughingly refused, he loaded his sloop with gunpowder, coated it with tar, and had twelve volunteers sail it into the midst of the Spanish fleet. It was set afire and exploded just as it reached the enemy’s fleet, destroying the main Spanish man-of-war and burning a second down to its hull. In the ensuing confusion, Morgan easily captured the remaining man-of-war.
Morgan is reputed to have recovered another 15,000 pieces-of-eight as well as gold bullion from the sunken men-of-war. After that, he turned his attention to the Vice-Admiral’s fortress. He sailed to the fortress and launched a number of long-boats filled with pirates toward the shore in apparent preparation for a night time land invasion. With darkness ensuing, observers within the fortress could not see that Morgan’s men lay flat in the longboats and returned to their ships. So deceived, the fort’s defenders turned their guns from leeward to landward to repel the anticipated attack. No longer in danger from the fortress, Morgan and his fleet then sailed out the mouth of the lake and returned to Jamaica. As usual, Morgan’s men drank while he invested.
A month after Morgan’s return to Jamaica, Governor Modyford was forced to announce that England and Spain were at peace. However, he soon concluded that a few small raids conducted by Spanish dissidents after the declaration of peace were sufficient justification for him to order a massive retaliation against the enemy he so distrusted. According to Konstam (p. 80), “…he gave Morgan ambiguous orders…allowing him ‘to doe and performe all matter of Exployts which may tend to the Preservation and Quiett of Jamayca.’” Morgan responded by proclaiming a general call to arms. In December of 1670, he and 1,800–2,000 English and French privateers/pirates set sail for Panama in a fleet of 33-36 ship s to initiate what Konstam characterizes as “…one of the largest battles fought in the Americas before the 18th century.”
Morgan and his men landed at the mouth of the Chagres river, quickly overran the fortress of San Lorenzo which had been erected to protect the waterway, canoed up the river and cut through a dense jungle to confront the Spanish in front of the city of Panama. While the defending forces were similar in size to Morgan’s army (estimates range from 400 less to 500 more), they offered little resistance to the attackers. Even the barrier created by a herd of 2,000 cattle strategically situated in front of the defenders seemed to be of no avail. After capturing the city, Morgan and his men were said to have “extracted” some 400,000 pieces-of-eight from its residents, raised the city, and returned to Jamaica.
The Spanish Crown wasted no time in putting pressure on the British to live up to the terms of their peace treaty. It was clear to all that Governor Modyford had exceeded his authority in activating Morgan and his fleet. By June Modyford was under arrest. He was sent to England and imprisoned for two years in the Tower of London. Morgan was also summoned to London where a similar fate may well have awaited him. However, he quickly made a number of powerful friends and charmed King Charles II, who, five years after Morgan initiated his attack on Panama, had Morgan knighted for his exploits.
Morgan, now Sir Henry, returned to Jamaica and lived the life of a wealthy sugar planter. He served for some time as the Lieutenant Governor, played an active role in ridding the area of pirates, and died on August 25, 1688 at the age of 53........................end
