Henry Morgan and the Buccaneers

C.E. Hamshere describes how the famous Pirate-Governor of Jamaica helped to bring to an end Spanish control of the Caribbean Sea.

Of certain periods of History that have suffered from the distortions of romanticism, "perhaps none has been treated worse than those years of the seventeenth century in which the Buccaneers flourished in the Caribbean Sea. While Charles Kingsley painted them as Robin Hoods of the sea, others have included them in the sordid story of common piracy. Now the ever-expanding tourist trade has added its lurid labels, inviting people to visit Jamaica, the island where Henry Morgan ruled as Pirate-Governor. There are even plans to rebuild Port Royal as it was in its heyday—as a tourist attraction. Yet it is quite wrong to dismiss the Buccaneers as common sea-robbers, or to defame the name of Sir Henry Morgan by calling him a pirate.

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