The peace treaty had already been signed in Madrid. Henry Morgan did not know this, or perhaps did not care. In December 1670, the Welsh privateer assembled 1,400 men -- English, French, and Dutch volunteers -- at Tortuga island off Hispaniola and set course for the Isthmus of Panama. His target was Panama City, the richest port on the Pacific coast of the Americas, where Spanish treasure fleets loaded gold and silver bound for Seville. What followed was one of the most audacious military raids of the seventeenth century, and its consequences would reshape the politics of empire in the Caribbean.
Morgan operated in the murky space between piracy and state policy. Oliver Cromwell had declared war on Spain in 1654 and launched the Western Design -- an armada against Spain's Caribbean colonies. The main target, Santo Domingo, proved a humiliating failure, but the expedition succeeded in capturing Jamaica, which became England's base for harassing Spanish shipping. After Charles II's restoration in 1660, England and Spain were nominally at peace, but no treaty had been ratified for the Caribbean. The region remained in an effective state of war. Jamaica's governor, Thomas Modyford, commissioned privateers like Morgan to strike Spanish settlements, viewing the raids as both defensive and profitable. Morgan had already raided Portobelo in 1668 and Maracaibo in 1669. Panama City would be the culmination -- the deepest strike yet into the heart of Spanish colonial wealth.
Morgan's fleet first seized the island of Old Providence, using a ruse to convince the Spanish governor to surrender. From there, a vanguard stormed Fort San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres River in a bloody assault that cost both sides dearly. On January 19, 1671, Morgan and roughly 1,400 men began ascending the Chagres in seven small sailing vessels and thirty-six canoes. The journey to Panama City stretched some fifty miles through dense rainforest and swamps. Half the force traveled by river; the other half marched along the banks. Food ran out almost immediately. The Spanish had stripped the route bare, burning villages and granaries ahead of the advancing column. By the third day, the buccaneers were eating leather satchels and boiled shoe leather. Morgan's men pushed on through ambushes and starvation, driven by the promise of treasure at the far end of the isthmus.
On January 28, Morgan's starving army emerged from the jungle to find roughly 1,600 Spanish defenders drawn up on the plain of Mata Asnillos outside Panama City. The Spanish commander, Don Juan Perez de Guzman, deployed his infantry six men deep with cavalry on both flanks and herds of cattle behind the lines, planning to drive the animals into the buccaneers to break their formation. The tactic failed -- the cattle stampeded in the wrong direction, crashing back through the Spanish lines. Morgan's men, many of them hardened veterans of Caribbean warfare, advanced through withering fire and broke the Spanish formation. The battle lasted roughly two hours. The Spanish cavalry charged repeatedly but could not turn the tide. By afternoon, Morgan's force held the field, and Panama City lay open before them.
What happened next remains disputed. A catastrophic fire consumed Panama City, reducing one of the wealthiest urban centers in the Americas to ash and rubble. Whether the Spanish set the fires to deny the city to Morgan, or whether the buccaneers themselves ignited the blaze during looting, has never been conclusively settled. Morgan spent weeks in the ruins, extracting ransom, torturing prisoners for information about hidden wealth, and sweeping the islands of the Gulf of Panama for fleeing Spanish ships and citizens. The treasure ship Santisima Trinidad had sailed two days before his arrival, carrying much of the city's movable wealth. Morgan's men did seize considerable plunder from the islands of Perico, Taboga, and Taboguila, and ravaged the Pearl Islands, but the haul disappointed many of the buccaneers, who suspected their captain of holding back the lion's share.
News of the sack sent shockwaves through the Spanish Empire. The problem for England was timing: the Treaty of Madrid, signed months before the attack, had established peace between the two crowns. Morgan's destruction of Panama created a diplomatic crisis. He was recalled to London, but rather than face punishment, he was eventually knighted by Charles II and appointed Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica -- a reward that signaled England's true attitude toward Spanish colonial claims. The Spanish, for their part, were forced to recognize English colonies in the Americas for the first time. Panama City was never rebuilt on its original site. The ruins of the old city, known as Panama Viejo, still stand as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Morgan's flagship, the Satisfaction, sank off Lajas Reef during the expedition; the wreck was discovered by researchers from Texas State University in 2011.
The expedition route follows the Chagres River from Fort San Lorenzo on the Caribbean coast (9.28N, 79.97W) upriver through the isthmus to the ruins of Panama Viejo on the Pacific coast (9.007N, 79.485W). Fort San Lorenzo and Panama Viejo are both visible from altitude. The Chagres River corridor traces much of Morgan's route. Nearby airports include Tocumen International (MPTO) and Marcos A. Gelabert International (MPMG) in Panama City. Best viewed at 5,000-8,000 feet to trace the full route across the isthmus.