Henry Morgan’s Panama Campaign

Henry Morgan assembled a large force of English, French and Dutch buccaneers in the Caribbean in 1670 and sailed against the Spanish approaches to Panama. After taking Fort San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres River, the expedition crossed the isthmus under severe conditions and defeated Spanish forces outside Panama City in January 1671.

The capture brought extensive looting and destruction, although the amount of treasure disappointed many participants. The raid became one of the most famous episodes of seventeenth-century Caribbean privateering and intensified diplomatic tensions because England and Spain had recently agreed a treaty.

John Steinbeck’s Cup of Gold loosely fictionalises Morgan’s rise and makes the desire to conquer Panama the centre of his ambition.