Sir Henry Morgan

[Rupert Drake]

Born: 1635
Died: 1688
Place of Birth: Llanrumney
Famous For: 17th century buccaneer and adventurer
Trivia: Captain Morgan's name lives on as a brand of rum.
Biography:

A daring buccaneer of the 17th century who battled the Spanish for control of the Caribbean.

Some may call him a pirate, but Henry Morgan was flying the flag for the English Commonwealth to secure trade routes to the New World.

Thought to have been born in Llanrumney, then a village between Cardiff and Newport, little is known of his early life.

Morgan first came to prominence in 1655 as a soldier in a British expedition which captured Jamaica from the Spanish.

Further battles followed with the Dutch and again with the Spanish over Cuba, Morgan's leadership qualities coming to the fore.

But an attack on Panama in 1671 proved a personal setback as the city was burned down and looted in violation of a peace treaty between England and Spain.

Morgan was arrested and sent to London to face the consequences.

But as relations with Spain deteriorated, King Charles II forgave him, gave him a knighthood and sent him back to Jamaica.

He took over as deputy governor and later acting governor, winning praise for strengthening the island's fortifications against the Spanish threat.

Sir Henry saw out his days as a planter and respected member of the ruling class before he fell ill and died in 1688.

So was Sir Henry Morgan a swashbuckling adventurer or a bloodthirsty pirate?

Many believe the piratical tales were a creation of one of his crewmen, but Newport historian John Weston takes a more postive view.

"I prefer to think of him as more of a buccaneer," he says.

"His crew were a really rough, tough bunch - often coming from prisons and being escaped slaves.

"But Sir Henry didn't have any noticeable problems with leadership and seemed to be accepted by his crew."

"And of course he was acting for the British Commonwealth to try and allow British trade in the area - so he would have been immune from any crimes related to piracy."

Moment of Glory:
Capturing Jamaica from the Spanish and later returning to the island as deputy governor.

Source

Addition information:

Early life

Henry Morgan was reportedly the oldest son of Robert Morgan, a squire of Llanrumney in the Welsh county of Monmouthshire. Other sources suggest he was from Abergavenny within the same county. An entry in the 'Bristol Apprentice Books' showing 'Servants to Foreign Plantations': 9 February 1655, included "Henry Morgan of Abergavenny, Labourer, Bound to Timothy Tounsend of Bristol, Cutler, for three years, to serve in Barbadoras on the like Condiciouns".

There was no record of Morgan before 1665. He later said that he left school early, and was "more used to the pike than the book". Exquemelin says that he was indentured in Barbados. After Morgan sued the publishers for libel and was awarded £200, Exquemelin was forced to retract his statement. Subsequent editions of his book were amended.

Alexandre Exquemelin, Morgan's surgeon at Panama, said that Morgan came to Jamaica in 1658 as a young man, and raised himself to "fame and fortune by his valour". Recent versions of his life claim that, despite having had little experience as a sailor, Morgan sailed to the Caribbean to take part in the Western Design Cromwell's plan to invade Hispaniola. His first battle at Santo Domingo ended in a failed attempt to take the island. The fleet moved on to Jamaica, which the English force successfully invaded and occupied.

His uncle Edward Morgan was Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica after the Restoration of Charles II of England in 1660. Henry Morgan married his uncle's daughter Mary, a cousin. Morgan was reportedly the "Captain Morgan" who joined the fleet of Christopher Myngs in 1663. He was part of the expedition of John Morris and Jackman when they took the Spanish settlements at Vildemos (on the Tabasco river); Trujillo, (Honduras) and Granada.

In late 1665, Morgan commanded a ship in the old privateer Edward Mansfield's expedition sent by Sir Thomas Modyford, the governor of Jamaica. They seized the islands of Providencia and Santa Catalina Island, Colombia. When Mansfield was captured by the Spanish and executed shortly afterward, the privateers elected Morgan as their admiral.

Retirement

In 1683, Morgan was suspended from the Jamaican Council by the machinations of Governor Lynch. Also during this time, an account of Morgan's disreputable exploits was published by Alexandre Exquemelin, who once had been his confidante, probably as a barber-surgeon, in a Dutch volume entitled De Americaensche Zee-Roovers (History of the Buccaneers of America). Morgan took steps to discredit the book and successfully brought a libel suit against the book's publishers William Crooke and Thomas Malthus, securing a retraction and damages of two hundred English pounds. The book nonetheless contributed much to Morgan's reputed fame as a bloodthirsty pirate during the time he was in Newport.

When Thomas Lynch died in 1684, his friend Christopher Monck was appointed to the governorship and arranged the dismissal of Morgan's suspension from the Jamaican Council in 1688. Morgan's health had steadily declined since 1681. He was diagnosed with "dropsie", but may have contracted tuberculosis in London, and died on 25 August 1688. It is also possible that he may have had liver failure due to his heavy drinking. He is buried in Palisadoes cemetery, which sank beneath the sea after the 1692 earthquake.

Morgan had lived in an opportune time for privateers. He was able to successfully use the conflicts between England and her enemies both to support England and to enrich himself and his crews. With his death, the pirates who would follow would also use this same ploy, but with less successful results.



Discovery of ship

On August 4, 2011 archaeologists from Texas State University reported having found one of Morgan's ships off the coast of Panama. The dive was conducted off of the Lajas Reef; some sources are stating it was at the mouth of Panama's Chagres River, where a 52-by-22-foot section from the starboard side of a wooden ship's hull was found. The find is believed to be Morgan's flagship, Satisfaction.

Unopened cargo boxes and chests encrusted in coral were found, in addition to the section of hull.

The dives are being led by Texas State University underwater archaeologist Frederick Hanselmann and assisted by the U.S. National Park Service Submerged Resources Center and volunteer divers from Aquarius Reef Base, a joint operation of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and University of North Carolina Wilmington.

My most favourite "pirate" in the game

[maturin]

I think, Morgan was the only "pirate" who succeeded in the end (maybe even more than Drake), if you can say that. The tragic endings seem to be more characteristical for pirates... see Blackbeard, Jack Rackham...

[Dave the Knave]

[ExtraCrispy]

[Backlash]

Here is a link to a bit more information about the discovery of Morgans ship the "Satisfaction" which sunk when he and 470 other pirates set sail to capture a fort guarding Panama City but crashed into Lajas Reef in shallow water as mentioned under the section "Discovery of Ship" in the opening post: http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/captain-morgan-shipwreck-1849/