One of the most legendary Golden-Era Pirates was Henry Morgan, and his most famous battle was his siege of Panama City. At the time Panama City was the second largest city in the Western Hemisphere.
Now historians think they have found six cannons off Captain Morgan’s flagship Satisfaction. Satisfaction sunk in 1671 after being run head-on into Lajas reef five days after Morgan burned Panama City to the ground.
By the time the pirate ships arrived, Panama City had already fallen to Captain Morgan’s advance team, which he sent over land. Still, the pirate armada was still a welcome site as they pulled into the mouth of the Rio Chagres; that is until the Satisfaction, and three other ships, ran up onto the shallow water reef Lajas. Much like the sinking off the ships, the burning of Panama City was a careless accident. However, when you burn the second largest city to the ground oops doesn’t seem to cut it, and a year later Captain Morgan was arrested in Jamaica and sent back to England to be tried for piracy.
Henry Morgan’s life reads like a Hollywood script, and just as no Hollywood hero’s life could end at the end of a noose, neither did Captain Morgan. This man born on a farm in Wales, shanghaied and sold into indentured servitude in Barbados, released years later penniless he turned to piracy. He excelled, and quickly became the most successful of the Golden Era Pirate Captains. At his trial he was treated as a romantic hero, and when England’s relations with Spain soured again Henry Morgan was sent back to Jamaica as Lieutenant Governor.
While this is not one of the Pirate ships that sank with chests overflowing treasure, fueling dreams of instant wealth. The Satisfaction’s cannons provide a tangible connection to a romanticized history that fuels the equally valuable dreams of the Golden Age of Piracy, and all the stories that make up the cultural history of paradise.
Click here to read more about Captain Morgan’s campaign against Panama City
Click here to read more about the discovery and raising of Satisfaction’s Cannons
Thomas Hume The schooner Thomas Hume, which was operating in the busy lumber industry hauling lumber from Muskegon to Chicago, went missing with six men aboard during a squall on Lake Michigan on May 21, 1891.
