Morgan, Henry (c. 1635–1688)

Henry Morgan (b. c. 1635; d. 25 August 1688), the most famous buccaneer of the West Indies from the mid- to late seventeenth century. A bold and brilliant tactician, Henry Morgan, a Welshman, assumed the leadership of the Port Royal, Jamaica, buccaneers after 1665. He first came to the New World, to Barbados, as an indentured servant (c. 1655–1660). Later, Morgan escaped and joined the buccaneers, becoming a prominent leader by his late twenties. A heavy drinker, Morgan acquired wealth and land, was knighted, and after his buccaneering activities ended became lieutenant governor of Jamaica and helped suppress buccaneering.

Morgan's fame reached its height in the late 1660s and early 1670s. In 1668 the governor of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Modyford, commissioned him to carry out a reconnaissance mission in Cuba and then to attack Porto Bello with four hundred buccaneers. After arriving in Cuba, Morgan moved on toward Porto Bello, on the Isthmus of Panama. Although the port was well fortified, with 300 men defending it, Morgan successfully surprised the Spanish by entering at night from a swampy, forested area behind it. In killing the 300 defenders he solidified his reputation for brutality. His followers pillaged and debauched the town.

Instead of moving on to attack Cartagena, Colombia, the center of Spanish naval power, Morgan chose to assault Maracaibo, Venezuela, instead. The booty there was minimal, as the town had been pillaged only a year earlier. Upon leaving, however, he encountered three Spanish ships carrying silver, which he and his men plundered and destroyed or beached.

Morgan mounted his third, final, and biggest expedition, which was also commissioned by Governor Modyford, in 1670. With 1,500 men, one third of whom were Frenchmen from Tortuga, Morgan sacked Santa Marta and Río Hacha, Colombia, and Porto Bello. In December 1670 he marched across the isthmus to attack Panama, where he tortured and murdered most of the inhabitants and destroyed the city.

Following the Treaty of Madrid (1670) peace agreement between England and Spain, the two Jamaican governors, Lord John Vaughan and the Earl of Carlisle, employed Morgan in 1674 as their lieutenant governor, giving him the responsibility of suppressing buccaneers. The lack of military support meant that it was not until 1685, with the arrival of a new naval squadron, that Morgan was able to achieve much success in his effort to combat buccaneering. Morgan died three years later. Despite his later efforts against the buccaneers, in his earlier career, Morgan had carried out a reign of terror and brutality hitherto unsurpassed in the Caribbean.

See alsoBuccaneers and Privateers; Piracy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Père P. F. X. Charlevoix, Histoire de L'Isle Espagnole ou de S. Domingue, 2 vols. (1731, repr. 1943).

A. D. Exquemelin, The Buccaneers of America (1678, repr. 1972).

C. H. Haring, The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century (1910).

Nellis Maynard Crouse, The French Struggle for the West Indies, 1665–1713 (1943).

J. H. Parry et al., A Short History of the West Indies, 4th ed. (1987).

Dudley Pope, The Buccaneer King: The Biography of Sir Henry Morgan, 1635–1688 (1978).

Additional Bibliography

Breverton, Terry. Admiral Sir Henry Morgan: "King of the Buccaneers." Gretna, LA: Pelican, 2005.

Lane, Kris E. Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500–1750. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998.

Petrovich, Sandra Marie. Henry Morgan's Raid on Panama: Geopolitics and Colonial Ramifications, 1669–1674. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 2001.

                                   Blake D. Pattridge