Henry Morgan

Provided by Wikipedia
Sir Henry Morgan born Harri Morgan (; – 25 August 1688) was a Welsh privateer, plantation owner, and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he raided settlements and shipping on the Spanish Main, becoming wealthy as he did so. With the prize money from the raids, he purchased three large sugar plantations on the island.

Much of Morgan's early life is unknown. He was born in an area of Monmouthshire that is now part of the city of Cardiff. A possible birthplace is Llanrumney, which is now in the city of Cardiff but was historically in Monmouthshire.|group=n}} It is not known how he made his way to the West Indies, or how the Welshman began his career as a privateer. He was probably a member of a group of raiders led by Sir Christopher Myngs in the early 1660s during the Anglo-Spanish War. Morgan became a close friend of Sir Thomas Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica. When diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of England and Spain worsened in 1667, Modyford gave Morgan a letter of marque, a licence to attack and seize Spanish vessels. Morgan subsequently conducted successful and highly lucrative raids on Puerto del Príncipe (now Camagüey in modern Cuba) and Porto Bello (now Portobelo in modern Panama). In 1668, he sailed for Maracaibo and Gibraltar on Lake Maracaibo in modern-day Venezuela; he plundered both cities before destroying a large Spanish squadron as he escaped. In 1671, Morgan attacked Panama City, landing on the Caribbean coast and traversing the isthmus before he attacked the city on the Pacific coast. This occurred after the signing of a peace treaty, and to appease the Spanish, Morgan was arrested and summoned to London in 1672, but the Welshman was popularly celebrated as a hero, and soon recovered the favor of the government and King Charles II.

Morgan was appointed a Knight Bachelor in November 1674 and returned to the Colony of Jamaica shortly afterward to serve as the territory's Lieutenant Governor. He served on the Assembly of Jamaica until 1683 and on three occasions acted as Governor in the absence of the current post-holder. His reputation was marred by a scurrilous memoir by Alexandre Exquemelin, a former Flemish shipmate of Morgan's, accusing him of widespread torture and other offences. Morgan won a libel suit against the book's English publishers, but Exquemelin's portrayal has unfairly colored history's view of Morgan as a scoundrel. His life was further romanticised after his 1688 death, and he became the inspiration for pirate-themed works of fiction across a range of genres.