Privateers in Panamá City: The Consolidation of Colonial Spoils that Prompted Pirate Attacks

Sir Henry Morgan was a scourge to Spain and the power that it had presented to Latin America during the colonial era (1600-1810). Morgan was a privateer, a pirate whose allegiance to the English crown had deemed his actions legal in the English court. During the 1660s and 1670s, Morgan had led his crew of privateers, buccaneers, and pirates on countless battles and raids against Spanish controlled islands and cities to undermine their “weak” presence in the Americas. The crowning achievement of Morgan’s personal war against the Spanish was his raid of Panamá city in 1971. 

A crewmate of Morgan’s, Alexandre Exquemelin, documented the “sack” of the city by Morgan and his army. Morgan strategically commanded his men down the Chagres River to handle their main obstacle, the Spanish Fortress San Lorenzo. “De Americaenshe Zee-Roovers,” Exquemelin’s biography of the Morgan’s campaigns, details the bloody battle. The smell of gunpowder filled the air, the number of grenades thrown blotted out the sky, bodies lay in the street. The Spanish inhabitants sprawled from the city with what riches they could carry. The more experienced and better-equipped pirates devasted the Spanish military presence in Panamá City. The remaining wealth and slave population in the city belonged to Morgan, solely. 

Exquemelin’s description of the battle seems merely commonplace for the era, colonial powers waging war over riches, but one must consider the historical forces at work. The colonization of Panamá by Spain was the key to the extreme wealth that was consolidated in Panamá City. Panamá City was a rich trade hub and a jewel of the colonial Spanish crown. The established wealth of the city was built from slave labor and over half a century of colonization and was extremely enticing to Morgan and his crew of privateers. Exquemelin emphasizes the importance of Panamá as an integral hub for all Peruvian silver to pass through and that Morgan required 157 mule carts to remove all the loot from the city. Likewise, the takeover of this rich and important city would continue to undermine Spanish colonial rule over the American territories and assist the English Empire, which was in conflict with Spain during the period.

Works Cited:

Exquemelin, Alexandre “De Americaenshe Dee-Roovers.” The Library of Congress. Accessed February 10th, 2019. https://www.loc.gov/flash/pagebypage/buccaneers/index.html 

Gibbs, Joseph. “‘A Certain False, Malicious, Scandalous and Famous Libel’: Sir Henry Morgan’s Legal Action against a London Publisher of Alexandre Exquemelin, 1685.” International Journal of Maritime History 30, no. 1 (February 2018): 3–29. doi:10.1177/0843871417742270. 

“A Privateer in Panama.” King’s Collections : Online Exhibitions : A privateer in Panama. Accessed February 12, 2020. https://kingscollections.org/exhibitions/specialcollections/latin-america/rogues-and-rebels/morgan.

By Peyton O’Laughlin