Granada Sacked
In a letter dated 1 March 1666, Governor Sir Thomas Modyford wrote to the Duke of Albemarle detailing Morgan’s exploits during this voyage. In late 1663 Morgan had left Jamaica with a fleet of five ships and more than 200 men, sailing past Cuba towards the Yucatán Peninsula.
Rounding the peninsula they sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, hugging the shoreline. For more than 150 miles, the little fleet cruised along the ragged, rough coast filled with reefs, shoals and bays, searching for the appropriate river to take them inland.
Every action gives new encouragement to attempt the Spaniard, finding them in all places very weak and very wealthy. Two or three hundred privateers lately on the coast of Cuba, being denied provisions for money, marched 42 miles into the country, took and fired the town of Santo Spirito, routed a body of 200 horse, carried their prisoners to their ships, and for their ransom had 300 fat beeves [cattle] sent down. Many of their blacks would not go back, but stay with our men, and are willingly kept for guides.1
Using sounding lines to test the depths of the waters the ships sailed into the Bay of Campeche and finally anchored in the mouth of the Grijala River. This was the river that would take them to their objective. Before they could continue they needed water, food and, above all, information. From the anchored ships they disembarked 107 men and slowly rowed 3 miles inland along the river, where they came to the small village of Frontera. Unsure of the reception they would receive from the local inhabitants they were surprised to find the Indians hated the Spanish and were more than happy to help these English privateers attack Spanish towns further down the river.
Their objective was to attack Villa de Mosa, or Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco province, which had been founded by the Spaniards in 1596 and was some 40 miles inland.2 But the four captains wanted the element of surprise on their side, which meant that rowing down the river to the town was out of the question; they could not take the chance of being spotted by any Spanish settlements, guards or lookouts along the river who could then raise the alarm before they reached the town. Nor could they simply walk along the riverbank and hide in the woods as they approached for the banks were thick with jungle and swamps. The only way to reach the town was to march inland, avoiding the swamps and jungle. The buccaneers set off ‘and guided by Indians marched with 107 men, 300 miles to avoid discovery to Vildemos, which they took and plundered.’ The town’s defences were poor but without the benefit of the Indians guiding them over the 300-mile journey, beyond the swamps, beyond any Spanish farms or settlements so as to avoid detection, they could not have achieved what they did. Indeed, the Spanish were complacent and believed they were safe from any attack. After all, the closest English territory to them was several hundred miles away in Jamaica.
They were wrong.
The four captains burst into the town square, taking the Spaniards completely by surprise. Shots broke the still quiet air and the Spanish, overwhelmed, quickly acquiesced. The buccaneers searched every house and building, gathering whatever plunder they could find, as well a few hundred prisoners.
The alarm must have been raised as the buccaneers plundered the town for when they headed back to their ships they would have been dismayed by what they found.
But on returning to the mouth of the river they found that their ships had been taken by the Spaniards, who soon after attacked them with ships and 300 men. The Spaniards were beaten off without loss of a man.3
With their ships taken by the Spanish there was no way of escape as the Spanish soldiers attacked. They could go back up the river to the town but by this time the alarm had been raised and no doubt the Spanish would be rushing as many men to the river as they could. There was nothing for it but to stand and fight.
It was to be a one-sided skirmish. The buccaneers had superior muskets and musketry, and better experience. One by one, the Spanish soldiers fell from the firepower of the buccaneers until they retreated and sailed away.4 Morgan now faced the problem of not having any ships with which he could continue his voyage. Modyford takes up the account in his letter:
They then fitted up two barques and four canoes, took Rio Garta with thirty men and stormed a breastwork there killing fifteen and taking the rest prisoners, crossed the Bay of Honduras, watering at the Isle of Rattan, took the town of Truxillo and a vessel in the road, and came to the Mosquitos, where the Indians are hostile to the Spaniards, and nine of them willingly came with them. They then anchored in Monkey Bay near Nicaragua River, up which they went in canoes, passing three falls, for a distance of 37 leagues, where began the entrance to a fair laguna or lake, judged to be 50 leagues by 30, of sweet water, full of excellent fish with its banks full of brave pastures and savannahs covered with horses and cattle, where they had as good beef and mutton as any in England. Riding by day under keys and islands and rowing all night, on the fifth night by the advice of their Indian guide, they landed near the city of Gran Granada.5
Centuries before, Columbus had taken the same route and he reported that during the rainy season the mist, the sky and the water would merge together in one colour, making navigation difficult and the horizon all but impossible to distinguish. Columbus’s progress along this coast had been slow. Morgan’s wasn’t, and as they arrived in the mouth of the San Juan River, the four captains prepared to row ashore and meet the Indians.6
Once again, the Indians proved to be invaluable as their hatred for the Spanish was intense enough for them to readily agree to help the English buccaneers. They told the four captains that the river fed into Lake Nicaragua and at the far end of this giant lake lay Granada, a grand city with two colleges and seven churches and monasteries. The city was said to be impregnable. The captains—Morgan, Jackman, Morris and Marteen—would show that it was not.
Hiding by day under keys and islands and rowing all night, on the fifth night by the advice of their Indian guide, they landed near the city of Gran Granada, marched undiscovered into the centre of the city, fired a volley, overturned eighteen great guns in the Parada Place, took the sergeant major’s house, wherein were all their arms and ammunition, secured in the Great Church 300 of the best men prisoners, ‘abundance of which were churchmen’, plundered for sixteen hours, discharged the prisoners, sunk all the boats, and so came away. This town is twice bigger than Portsmouth, with seven churches and a very fair cathedral, besides divers[e] colleges and monasteries, all built of freestone, as also are most of their houses. They have six companies of horse and foot besides Indians and slaves in abundance.7
The Spanish were completely unprepared for the buccaneers. They’d heard the stories of the buccaneers and pirates from the English settlements but, like the people of Villahermosa, they believed they were safe, hundreds of miles from any English enemy. Yet, quite suddenly, the stories had turned into reality as the heavily armed buccaneers marched into the town with hundreds of Indians who joined in the plundering.
Prisoners were rounded up and locked into the Great Church as the plundering continued. Many Indians wanted to execute the prisoners there and then, especially the religious leaders who had ruled so harshly over them. However, once Morgan and his fellow captains explained that the English were not going to stay and rule in the town, the Indians reluctantly agreed to spare the lives of the prisoners. But rather than staying in the city and enduring the wrath of the Spanish, most of the Indians moved into the mountains while others returned with the buccaneers aboard Marteen’s ship.
More than 3,000 Spanish fled the city as the invaders took everything of value they could find: gold, silver plate, jewels, coins—anything they could get their hands on. While plundering, Morgan ensured the Spanish guns were either destroyed or also taken and all their vessels sunk.
At the end of the lagoon they took a vessel of 100 tons, and an island as large as Barbadoes called Lida, with a fine neat town which they plundered. The air here is very cool and wholesome, producing as the inhabitants told them all sorts of European grains, herbs, and fruits in great plenty, that five leagues from the head of the lagoon is a port town on the South Sea called Realleyo, where the King [of Spain] has ships built for trading between Panama and Peru, and that there is a better passage to the lake by Bluefields river to the north-east, and another to the south-east through Costa Rica, almost to Portobello, a country inhabited by Creolians, mulattos, and Indians, whom the Spaniards dare not trust with arms.8
The plundering of Granada was an audacious act and set the stage for future attacks on the Spanish by the English buccaneers operating out of Jamaica. Indeed, it was the most ambitious and startling venture of the time in the West Indies.9 For a start, Morgan had sailed over hundreds of miles in waters where few detailed maps existed. Sailing entirely into the unknown, he’d no idea how the Indians would have received them, or if they would have been hostile to the English. As it turned out he was able to build alliances with them using the information and intelligence they provided as the backbone for his raids and attacks on the Spanish. Even though he lost his original ships, he’d improvised and used lesser vessels to continue the voyage. The vast majority of his men came back to Jamaica with him safely, and much richer. Staying away from the heavily fortified main centres of Spanish military might—Havana, Cartagena and Panama—the buccaneers had plundered throughout the vast area of Central America and the West Indies, attacking the vulnerable and poorly defended towns and villages. They had no navigation systems, no satellite systems, no onboard computers and no powerful engines to rely on. They lived off the land, as we can see from Modyford’s letter, shooting cattle and catching fish at the mouth of the Nicaragua River.10
Throughout the voyage they’d encountered Indians hostile to the Spanish and the Spanish Empire. Indeed, during the plundering of Granada, the Indians told them of Spanish towns and cities of great wealth beyond Granada that Modyford outlined in his letter to the Duke of Albemarle:
The Indians are driven to rebellion by cruelty and there is no reconciling them. They told them also of a city called Legovia, where there are many sheep with excellent fine wool. By comparing this relation with maps and histories it appears that this country is in the middle of the Spanish dominions in America, dividing Peru from Mexico, both lying very convenient to infest by sea, but being environed with impassable hills, rocks, and mountains, very difficult if not impossible to be attacked by land. The wealth of the place is such that the first plunder will pay the adventure, being well supplied with commodities and food and free from vermin; the assistance of the Indian and negro slaves if well handled will be very considerable; the Creolians will not be long obstinate, when they feel the freedom and ease of His Majesty’s Government; 2,000 men, some say 500, may easily conquer all this quarter; the Spaniards in their large dominions being so far asunder they are the easier subdued. This place can be reached in eight or ten days’ sail; the proper time to attempt is between March and August, the rest being rainy months when the rivers are high and the strength of their streams not to be stemmed. Has represented this matter to His Grace, being convinced that if ever the reason of state at home require any attempt on the Spanish Indies, this is the properest place and most probable to lay a foundation for the conquest of the whole.11
When the four captains returned to Port Royal, Modyford faced a dilemma. Morgan and his fellow captains had left Jamaica with old letters of marque signed by Governor Windsor, Modyford’s predecessor, so technically they were in the right. The four captains and their crews sailed into Port Royal as wealthy men. Modyford realized he had to walk a thin line. He couldn’t take away their riches because he couldn’t afford to alienate them. Instead, he could encourage them to use their wealth to buy land in Jamaica and turn towards agriculture.
He wrote to Lord Albemarle, telling him of the riches available in the Spanish territories of Central America and warning of the French build-up of forces at Tortuga. Modyford then approved another expedition, this time to Dutch Curaçao, which would be led by the experienced privateer Edward Mansfield.12