Sir Henry Morgan's Gold of Panama - Lima Treasure

   
In the 17th century, Panama was packed with gold and silver that the Spanish had stolen from the Incas and as a consequence probably the richest settlement in the whole New World.

Although the settlement had always been a prefered aim of greedy pirates since the days of Sir Francis Drake, no pirate had ever been able to conquer this fortress. Attackers from the Pacific could easily be defeated and the thick jungle around the town was a good protection against raids, too.

However there was a man called Captain Henry Morgan who was superior to this defense.

In 1670, Morgan hired a fleet of 36 ships and almost 2000 men for the greatest raid on a Spanish colony ever. At the Caribbean side of Panama, Morgan and 1400 of his men left the ships to travel by foot to the Pacific side.

The long journey through the jungle took them 9 days. The Spanish got the news that a horde of pirates was on their way to Panama. The mayor had the cavalry and infantry sent to the boarder of the town. However it should soon turn out to have been a bad decision: The area where the battle was fought, was so dense and overgrown that the soldiers hardly could fight.

The Spanish withdrew, but set the town under fire before they left it. As soon as the flames where gone, Morgan and his men searched the whole town for treasure. Finally the pirates and 175 donkeys packed with tin-, gold- and silver coins plus lots of jewelry went back to their ships. This was the beginning of a secrets, that fascinates treasure hunters up to today.

The Lost Treasure

Although a huge amount of treasure was carried away by the donkies, the pirates had expected to find much more. This can be explained easily: As Morgan had attacked out of the jungle, at least one Spanish ship packed with treasures was able to leave the harbour.

A huge part of the treasure captured by the pirates seemed to have disapeared during the journey when they arived back on their ships.

Each man only got a share of 10 Pound which was very little money compared to their efforts. Morgan had cannons installed from the conquered Fort San Lorenzo on his ship. Now it was clear, it was Morgan who had kept the largest part of the treasure.

The English government for which Morgan was working was also to receive a share of the treasure. However the officials thought that Morgan had cheated on them. After his return to Jamaica, Morgan was arrested and taken back to England. Back in England he was accused of piracy.


But in opposite to Kidd, Morgan was very popular with the population and got free again. Finally he got back to the Caribean Sea as Vice Govenor of Jamaica. From now on he became the hoax of the English and Spanish pirates.

He died with 53 due to plenty of alcohol. Morgan never had said something about a buried treasure, but members of his former crew did. Today there are still people that think there must be a treasure buried somewhere between Panama and Jamaica.

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"... As Morgan had attacked out of the jungle, at least one Spanish ship packed with treasures was able to leave the harbour."

That ship was an old galleon named Nuestra Señora de la Trinidad. Morgan's attack came in January, 1671, shortly after the rest of the Spanish fleet had sailed south for Peru. The Trinidad was in port for the simple reason that she was too old to safely make the Peru trip with the rest of the fleet.

When news of Morgan's impending attack reached the City of Panama, the Spanish governor ordered the ballast removed from the Trinidad and had it replaced with ingots of silver and gold awaiting shipment to Spain. The Bishop of Panama persuaded the governor to allow portable church valuables to be loaded on, as well as a large number of nuns and clergy. The ship was hidden behind the Island of Taboga, about 12 miles off shore, to await the outcome of the battle.

Morgan's men took the City after a short but ferocious battle, then sent some of his men out to Taboga to see what they could find. What they found was a number of affluent homes that had copious wine cellars and promptly began celebrating their victory.

One way or another, the pirates became aware of the Trinidad on the seaward side of the island. But by then it was almost night, most of the pirates were in no condition to fight, and the ship was obviously in poor condition, heavily overloaded, and not capable of going anywhere very fast. They decided to wait until morning to attack, but in the morning the ship was gone and nobody has seen her since.

Why this history is virtually unknown in English circles boggles my mind. Many educated Panamanians know the story well, and there are lots of rumors about people who have found the treasure but for one reason or another have not been able to walk away with any of it.

The primary English language historical reference for this story is in Anderson, Dr. C.L.G., Old Panama and Castilla del Oro. Boston: The Page Co., 1911, which is available in some larger libraries and occasionally shows up on Amazon.com. But there is no explanation as to what happened to the ship, even though many of the people who were on board lived through the ordeal and returned to the City of Panama after the pirates had gone.

I spent a number of years in Panama, becoming fascinated by this story and read everything I could put my hands on to try to understand why the Trinidad could never be found. I set out to search for her myself, but quickly discovered that treasure hunting didn't mesh very well with trying to earn a living for my young family. In the end, I wrote and published an adventure novel that summarizes my own research and my explanation of how so many witnesses could have been involved but not know what ultimately happened. My eBook Lost Treasure of the Trinidad is available on Smashwords.com and all the eBook websites.

If my book helps you find the treasure, sending me a couple of gold ingots would be a nice gesture....

BTW, as LoganMatt's 2011 post on this subject is correct. Morgan lost his flagship Satisfaction and several other ships on reefs at the mouth of the Chagres River during the initial attack on Panama. The remains of these ships have recently been found and are being documented. Google Morgan's Ship Satisfaction and read all about it.


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Thanks! To find my book, go to Smashwords.com. In the Search field at the top right of the page enter Lost Treasure of the Trinidad, then click the Search button. The search will turn up only my book.  Just to the right of the book cover image, click on the title of the book. You will find a synopsis similar to what I posted here in thunter.com. Scroll down and you will see the formats of the book that are available. Note that you can download the first 20% of the book for free. If you don't have an eBook device (such as Kindle) you can select the PDF version and read it on your computer screen.

To buy the book you have to open an account of Smashwords. Click the format of the book that you want to purchase and it will lead you to where you can open an account. The regular price of the book is $4.99, but through September 30th you can by it for $2.99 by entering coupon code bt82s.

If you have any problems, please let me know. Again, thanks for your interest! Mark

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