|
Henry Morgan was born around 1635
to a good family in the county of Monmouth in
Wales. Little was known of his parents,
although two of his uncles were distinguished
soldiers. They were Major General Sir Thomas
Morgan and Colonel Edward Morgan, who was
briefly Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica and was
written to have died leading an expedition to
Curaçao.
The first details of Henry's life
as a pirate were of him joining the
expeditionary forces under General Venables and
Admiral Penn.
In 1654, these forces were
dispatched from Britain with the aim of
capturing Hispaniola. This mission failed, and
the forces decided to attack Jamaica next, which
was defended at the time by only a few Spanish
soldiers. General Venables and Admiral Penn
successfully captured the island of Jamaica,
which henceforth became a British settlement and
base for operations of the Royal Navy and for
privateers. Records show that Henry was given
commissions by the Governor of Jamaica to
captain a ship.
In 1663, he led a raid which
resulted in the sacking of Villahermosa and the
plundering of Gran Granada in Nicaragua.
In 1665, Captain Henry Morgan
returned to Jamaica with the reputation of a
formidable military leader. When Edward
Mansfield, the current leader of the privateers,
was put to death by the Spaniards in Havana,
Captain Morgan seemed to be the natural
successor.
At the age of 32, Henry Morgan
was entitled "Admiral of the Brethren of the
Coast", which was a loose association of
privateers and pirates who came to be known as
buccaneers.
In July of 1668, Admiral Morgan
led an amazingly ruthless and strategic attack
upon Portobello. It was written that he even
pulled the mayor, several women and old men, and
some friars and nuns from a church in order to
use them as a human shield so that his men could
advance the castle without casualty. Once the
town and its occupants were secured, Morgan's
men spent the rest of the day looting and
drinking. Morgan then proceeded to fill the
captured harbor and its perimeter with warships
and some 200 buccaneers armed to the teeth. He
threatened the President of Panama that he would
burn Portobello down to the ground if a ransom
of 350,000 pesos was not met.
On August 3, Morgan and his crew
left for Jamaica with a ransom of silver and
gold pesos, silver bars and plates, and looted
valuables worth about 250,000 pesos.
They arrived in Port Royal to a hero's welcome.
It was written that for the next few weeks, the
town was a scene of orgies of drinking,
gambling, and womanizing, as the buccaneers blew
their booty in the local taverns and
whorehouses.
In October 1668, Morgan announced
his plans to raid Isla Vaca, located on the
southwest coast of Hispaniola. The warship
Oxford and French buccaneers from Tortuga
assisted Morgan with the successful attack.
In January of 1669, Morgan went
after Cartagena, the treasure port on the
Spanish Main. Unfortunately though, at some
point during the drunken celebration of victory,
gunpowder on board was set alight and Henry's
ship was blown apart. Morgan, who was said to
have lived a charmed life, was one of only ten
men to survive this disaster. The mission to
attack Cartagena was scratched and Morgan then
set his sights on Maracaibo, located on the cost
of Venezuela. Through shrewd military deception
Morgan was able to get one over on the Spanish
West Indian fleet, which was led by Admiral Don
Alonzo de Campos y Espinosa. When Morgan
returned to Jamaica, he was informed that Lord
Arlington had dispatched a letter to Governor
Sir Thomas Modyford stating that all hostilities
with Spain must cease. Henry Morgan then
decided to purchase 836 acres in the parish of
Clarendon, an area still called Morgan's Valley
today, and settle down. Shortly thereafter,
Spain officially declared war on Jamaica. A
Council of Jamaica was assembled and agreed that
a commission be granted to Henry Morgan to be
Admiral and Commander in Chief of all of the
ships of war belonging to this harbour and
authorized his assembling a fleet to attack,
seize and destroy all the enemy's vessels that
shall come within his reach. Admiral Henry
Morgan officially received his commission on
August 1, 1670.
A Council of War was held on
December 12, 1670 and agreed that Panama was to
be the target of the next raid.
The battle for Panama only cost
Morgan 15 men, while Spain lost over 500 of the
black slaves inhabiting the land. After looting
and plundering the land for a booty of about £
30,000 Morgan burned the town, leaving only a
handful of stone buildings standing.
In a letter he wrote to Modyford,
Morgan summarized the capture as "thus was
consumed the famous and ancient city of Panama,
the greatest mart for silver and gold in the
whole world".
Morgan returned to Jamaica along
with some of his men who decided to join crews
of trading sloops and fishing boats, or just
settle down to life ashore. The Council of
Jamaica met again on June 10, 1671 and publicly
thanked Admiral Henry Morgan. However, in order
to appease the Queen of Spain for the
destruction of Panama, Modyford and Morgan were
both arrested. After spending two years in
London, Morgan was granted knighthood by King
Charles II and returned to Jamaica with an
appointed post of Lieutenant Governor, serving
under the new governor, Lord Vaughan at the
start of the year 1674. Vaughan was soon
recalled as governor and replaced by Sir Henry
Morgan. By this time, Morgan now owned several
thousand acres on the island of Jamaica, some of
which were used as sugar plantations.
Although Morgan was married to
Dame Mary Elizabeth for over twenty years, no
children were ever conceived. There were no
descriptions of Henry's appearance except late
in his life, around his fifties, when Dr. Hans
Sloane attended to his health. Sloane depicted
Henry as lean and sallow-colored, with eyes a
little yellowish and belly jutting out. All of
which were accumulated effects of tropical
fevers, dropsy, and alcoholism.
When Morgan died at his estate in
Jamaica on August 25, 1688, the Duke of
Albemarle ordered a state funeral. The crew of
the Assistance fired a twenty-two gun salute,
which was echoed by the guns of the warship
Drake. The gunfire was followed by all the
merchant ships at anchor and moored along the
wharves firing their guns in a deafening barrage
of explosions. This surely was a remarkably
fitting send-off for the brilliant and
courageous commander of the buccaneers! |
