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The Real Pirates of the Caribbean

Khalid Elhassan January 7, 2020 32 min

28. The Real Captain Morgan

Sir Henry Morgan (1635 – 1688), familiar to many as the swashbuckling figure gracing bottles of Captain Morgan’s Rum, was one of history’s most successful pirates. A Welsh privateer who operated out of Port Royal, Jamaica, Morgan plundered and terrorized the Spanish Main and Spain’s Caribbean possessions in the 17th century. He grew rich off the plunder, went on to become Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, and retired to the life of a wealthy plantation owner.

Morgan first arrived in the Caribbean with a British expedition that seized Jamaica in 1655. By 1666, he was second in command of a fleet of buccaneers operating against Dutch colonies during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. A year later, Morgan was the buccaneers’ top commander, and he led them in capturing Puerto Principe in Cuba, and in storming and sacking the wealthy and well-fortified city of Portobelo in Panama.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.