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Sir Henry Morgan (Welsh: Harri Morgan; c. 1635 – 25 August 1688) was a Welsh privateer, plantation owner and, later, the lieutenant governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he and those under his command raided settlements and shipping on the Spanish Main, from which he profited. With the prize money and plunder from these raids, Morgan purchased three large sugar plantations in Jamaica.
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.[n 1] It is not known how he reached the West Indies or how he began his career as a privateer. He was probably a member of a group of raiders led by Sir Christopher Myngs in the late 1650s during the Anglo-Spanish War. Morgan became a close friend of Sir Thomas Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica; as diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of England and Spain worsened in 1667, Modyford gave Morgan a letter of marque, or licence, to attack and seize Spanish vessels. Morgan subsequently led raids on Puerto del Príncipe (now Camagüey in modern Cuba) and Porto Bello (now Portobelo in modern Panamá). In 1668, he sailed to Maracaibo, Venezuela, and Gibraltar, on Lake Maracaibo; he plundered both cities before destroying a Spanish squadron during his escape.
In 1671, Morgan and his men attacked Panama City, landing on the Caribbean coast and crossing the isthmus and its jungles before attacking the city, located on the Pacific coast. This took place after the signing of a peace treaty. To appease the Spanish, Morgan was arrested and summoned to London in 1672; despite this, he was received favourably in England and soon regained the favour of the government and King Charles II.
Morgan was appointed a Knight Bachelor in November 1674 and returned to the Colony of Jamaica shortly afterwards to serve as the territory's lieutenant governor. He served on the Assembly of Jamaica until 1683; on three occasions, he acted as governor in the absence of the post-holder. His reputation was later affected by a memoir by Alexandre Exquemelin, a former Flemish shipmate of Morgan, which accused him of torture and other offences, including during the raid on Panama City. Morgan won a libel suit against the book's English publishers, but Exquemelin's account influenced later portrayals of him. After his death in 1688, Morgan became the inspiration for pirate-themed works of fiction across a range of genres.
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