Sir Henry Morgan (c. 1635 - August 25, 1688) was a privateer of Welsh
birth, who made a name in the Caribbean as a leader of buccaneers and
roughnecks.

The eldest son of Robert Morgan, a squire of Llanrhymny in
Glamorganshire, the details of Morgan's early life are sketchy: he was
said to have been kidnapped as a boy in Bristol and sold as a slave in
Barbados, making his way to Jamaica but he is more likely to have been
the "Captain Morgan" who accompanied the expedition of John Morris and
Jackman when the Spanish settlements at Vildemos, Trujillo and Granada
were taken. In 1666 Morgan commanded a ship in Edward Mansfield's
expedition which seized the island of New Providence (Santa Catalina),
and when Mansfield was captured and killed by the Spanish shortly
afterwards, Morgan was chosen by the buccaneers as their admiral.

In 1668 he was commissioned by Sir Thomas Modyford, the governor of
Jamaica, to capture some Spanish prisoners in Cuba, in order to
discover details of the threatened attack on Jamaica. Collecting ten
ships with 500 men, Morgan landed on the island and captured and
sacked Puerto Principe, then went on to take the fortified and
well-garrisoned town of Puerto Bello, Panama. It is said that Morgan's
men used captured Jesuits as human shields in taking the third, most
difficult fortress. The governor of Panama, astonished at this daring
adventure, in vain attempted to drive out the invaders, and finally
Morgan consented to evacuate the place on the payment of a large
ransom. These exploits had considerably exceeded the terms of Morgan's
commission and had been accompanied by frightful cruelties and
excesses, but the governor of Jamaica endeavoured to cover the whole
under the necessity of allowing the English a free hand to attack the
Spanish whenever possible. In London the Admiralty publicly claimed
ignorance about this, whilst Morgan and his crew returned to their
base at Port Royal, Jamaica, to celebrate.
