Brethren of the Coast

Morgan the Pirate.

The funeral was well attended, as the governor had announced a twenty-four-hour amnesty, which meant rogues, scallywags, murderers and the like could pay their last respects if they felt like it, without fear of being arrested and jailed. And came they did: murderers, wealthy businessmen, bar owners, craftsmen, friends and acquaintances, prostitutes, common thugs, and high-ranking government officials. Some mourned his death; others smiled and wished it had occurred sooner. Some placed flowers, some spat.

The pallbearers bore the lead coffin to an ornate gun wagon. The wagon, pulled by a brace of horses, traveled to St. Peter’s Church, where the priest performed the mass. From there the coffin was taken to the Palisadoes Cemetery. The hole had already been dug, so the coffin was lowered on ropes, and then covered with the sandy soil.

The year was 1688.

The Palisadoes Cemetery was lush with tropical flora; the shades of green were dark and wet due to the high humidity. Many of the grave markers were wood, because it’s cheap. But the sun and the damp soon ravaged the wood, leaving bleached, cracked and hard-to-read signs for visitors. It didn’t matter much, though, because there were few visitors. Lots of new residents, but not many mourned over them. A few of the graves had stone markers shaped and engraved by artisans. These were the lucky ones. While they were alive, they had some money, and after they died there was enough of it left to pay for a decent headstone.

Palisadoes Cemetery is in Jamaica, near Port Royal. It’s still there. But the lead coffin is not, nor is the stone marker that presided over it. No one knows where it is for sure.

You see four years after it was lowered into its hole, on June 7th to be exact, the ground shook and split as if pounded by hammers wielded by the Titans of old. Buildings and foundations collapsed like they were made of paper, and the ground literally undulated in waves, like the ocean. It was an earthquake of immense power. Lasting for six minutes, it completely destroyed Jamaica. Hundreds died during the quake and thousands more in the Tsunami that followed. More died more slowly in the aftermath: from starvation, thirst, and disease.

Somewhere in those six minutes, the sandy soil belched mightily, a great geyser of a belch and spat out the lead coffin in a grand arc, dropping it into the waiting maw of the harbor of Port Royal. It sank like a rock. No one knows exactly where it sank, and it has never been found.

Of course, no one has felt driven to look very hard for it.

Fifty-three years earlier the body in the lead coffin had entered the world, belched out through the birth canal of his mother. His name was Henry Morgan, and he was a Welshman. His life was as cataclysmic and potent as any earthquake. And the aftershocks still affect contemporary society, culture and commerce.

Errol Flynn’s role in Captain Blood was a simulated rendering of Henry Morgan’s exploits. In this film, Morgan’s deeds of daring are actually abridged, as the truth was considered unbelievable. Another film, The Black Swan, followed suit.

Steve Reeves, the first marketable bodybuilder, played Morgan in a 1961 movie, Morgan the Pirate. The popular ‘reality’ television show, Survivor, in its ‘Pearl Islands’ episode, assigned the names Morgan and Drake to the tribes. In the same year another fictionalized version of Morgan’s life was produced, Pirates of Tortuga.

And in the wildly popular and financially triumphant trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean, featuring Johnny Depp, the ‘code,’ or unwritten system of conduct, of the pirates is supposedly based on Morgan’s code of ethics. It is completely specious.

The History Channel jumped on the bandwagon with its ‘documentary’ re-enactment True Caribbean Pirates, proving that nothing succeeds like success.

In his novel Cup of Gold, John Steinbeck wrote of Henry Morgan. Author Nicholas Monsarrat included Morgan in his historical-action-adventure novel The Master Mariner.

Morgan has even been gathered into the whimsical genre called manga-anime. In One Piece, created by Eichiro Oda, there is a character called Axe-Hand Morgan, who is a figment of Henry Morgan. And James Bond battles Morgan’s residue in Ian Fleming’s Live and Let Die.

And recently, again due to the success of Johnny Depp’s pirate movies, a slew of non-fiction books appeared, all supposedly covering Morgan’s life and feats of daring.

In the musical world, Bob Marley sang about Morgan. A west coast, faux Irish band Amadan sang about his death. The Celtic rock and roll group Tempest titled one of their songs “Captain Morgan.”

Not only film, literature and music, but big business has also cashed in on Morgan’s dynamic flamboyance. Morgan is an action figure. His figure may be purchased on eBay and Etsy. And of course, Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum is available wherever alcoholic beverages are sold. Although check the label, some bottles are products of Puerto Rico rather than Jamaica.

Morgan’s Revenge, a game for gamblers, is available for purchase. Finally, on the island of Roatan, of the Honduras chain of islands, you can book a room at The Hotel Henry Morgan.

The explanation for all this? Henry Morgan was one of those rare bigger-than-life individuals. One of those people who shimmer with bright colors, whose flamboyance bedazzles those who know them, whose dynamism leaves those around them gasping for breath. No one knows how or why he ended up in Jamaica. Probably because he was young, seeking an opportunity for wealth, and an undeniable adrenaline junkie. Adrenaline provided catharsis for Henry; it cleansed his emotions and satisfied his soul.

England, in its on-again-off-again war with Spain, utilized privateers, carrying letters of commission, as a practical method to expand its navy. Privateers were privately owned merchant vessels whose captains decided there was more profit in war than in hauling goods. So they added some cannons, recruited criminals and thugs for their crews, and set out to pillage and plunder Spanish ships and territories. And it was legal because of their sanction by King and country.

And most agreeably, for the King anyway, the King did not have to pay them or provide supplies and materiel.

Technically, then, they weren’t pirates. In practice, they were a combination of pirates and terrorists and private enterprise.

Through ruthlessness, cunning, force of arms and sheer bravado Morgan quickly rose from common seaman to Captain of his own privateer. In 1667, Morgan, at the request of the governor of Jamaica, sailed his fleet to Cuba, where he took and plundered the city of Puerto Principe. Dissatisfied with the booty gleaned from Puerto Principe, and anxious for more adventure, Morgan sailed his fleet to Portobelo in Panama, which he captured, pillaged and held hostage.

Soon thereafter, he took the city of Maracaibo in Venezuela. He captured and ransomed Santa Catalina, and then took the city of Panama, which he burned to the ground. In this last raid, Morgan’s pirates accused him of holding out on them. They claimed he hid jewels and pieces of eight from them.

In each of these attacks, Morgan and his pirates, called the Brethren of the Coast, defeated huge armies of Spanish soldiers by means of ingenuity and sheer viciousness. They gave no quarter and expected none in return. They tortured and killed without reluctance, using woodling, a knotted rope around the skull which is then tightened by twisting, and burning off fingers and toes, cutting off ears and lips, cooking them and then feeding them to their previous owners. The pirates did not consider this excessive, merely the accepted rules of combat.

The amount of wealth the Brethren extracted was enormous, reaching into the hundreds of millions of dollars in today’s currency. Morgan himself became a millionaire many times over.

Political machinations resulted in the arrest of Morgan for atrocities committed during his raid on Panama. He was transported to London, but because of the rapidly changing political climate was not imprisoned. In fact, King Charles II consulted with him about the Spanish and how to defeat them. In the end, Morgan was sent back to Jamaica as the Lieutenant Governor. His job now was to hunt down and hang his former pirate friends. He did this with the same gusto and inventive relentlessness as he did when he ‘went a ‘pirating.’

Morgan was a very practical man: he did what was necessary. Outwardly, he was also very loyal to King and country, and insisted that he was never a pirate because of the commissions he carried. But this was verbal camouflage, as Morgan rarely allowed himself the luxury of emotional commitments. Intractable lust for action, wealth and glory complemented his personality, which was ferocious, impulsive and reckless. First and foremost, Morgan loved only Morgan.

Again, the political climate changed. Morgan was replaced. Thomas Lynch took over as Governor of Jamaica. Morgan, perforce, retired. During this retirement, Morgan supervised his vast estate on Jamaica and drank. Retirement galled him. His heavy drinking led to health complications: dropsy, called edema in modern medicine. His limbs retained fluid and were swollen. His stomach became alarmingly distended, as if he were pregnant.

His physician advised him to stop drinking and rest. Morgan gave the advice no heed, believing himself to be indestructible. The ailments of other, lesser men did not concern him. He was Morgan.

In the end, Morgan consulted voodoo witch doctors, drank urine and exotic herbal brews in an attempt to regain his health. It didn’t work. He, too, was mortal.