Today Captain Morgan is one of the world’s most well-known buccaneers — not for the Welshman’s very real 17th-century exploits (of which there were many), but because of the spiced rum bottles that bear his name. History knows him as Sir Henry Morgan, lieutenant governor of Jamaica and arguably the most infamous buccaneer who ever lived. In the 17th and 18th centuries, buccaneers were a distinct flavor of privateer (sort of a legal pirate), usually bankrolled by the English, who harassed the Spanish Empire in the Caribbean.
Morgan first arrived in the Caribbean around 1654, and became captain of a privateer vessel eight years later. Soon, he was
plundering Spanish colonies in the Caribbean with support from the English crown. Morgan proved so adept at the trade that he amassed a great fortune, established sugar plantations in Jamaica, and by the decade’s end, had 36 ships and around 1,800 men under his command. Then, in 1671, Morgan attacked Spanish-held Panama City, not knowing that England had signed a treaty with Spain a year earlier. To appease the enraged Spanish, England arrested Morgan and sent him to London, but he received a hero’s welcome there, with King Charles II knighting him in 1674. Morgan soon returned to Jamaica, where he lived out the rest of his days. Even before his death in 1688, published stories detailed Morgan’s buccaneering career. Around 250 years later, in 1944, a distiller named Seagram’s bought a spiced rum recipe from a Jamaican pharmacy. The infamous Captain Morgan seemed a fitting namesake for the Caribbean-born liquor.
Media Release/InterestingFacts
