Henry Morgan and the pirates: Genesis of corruption in Jamaica
- MICHAEL BURKE
- Jun 13
- 6 min read
I have purposely waited until the 333rd anniversary of the Great Port Royal earthquake of 1692 to compare the manner in which Michael Manley as Prime Minister responded to the allegations of corruption in his government in 1979, and the way in which Andrew Holness as Prime Minister is handling such allegations in 2025.
The significance of the anniversary of the 1692 earthquake at Port Royal, the headquarters of piracy that came four years after the death of the criminal pirate Henry Morgan in 1688, is that corruption in Jamaica has been rooted in the conversion of the pirates to the aristocracy in Jamaica.
The pirates came here as bondsmen or prisoners to work on the tobacco and later sugar estates, after the English conquered Jamaica in 1655. Their bondage was for six years but many of them never returned to the British Isles. Instead, they hunted down the wild hogs in the Blue Mountains, cooked them over a wooden frame called a boucan and therefore got the name of boo-caneers which evolved into buccaneers. Then, they plundered ships and made the then island of Port Royal into their headquarters, which became "the richest and wickedest city on earth".
By 1670 no trade could take place between the Caribbean and Europe, because if the pirates. So a meeting was called in Spain, where they hammered out the Treaty of Madrid.
The conditions of that treaty were that England was to stop pirating and Spain was to stop trying to recapture their territories such as Jamaica.
To get Henry Morgan to stop piracy after pleading with him, Morgan was arrested and carried to the Tower of London. But being the only person who could control the pirates, he was released from the Tower of London and brought back to Jamaica as governor of Jamaica with a mandate to stop piracy.
And how did Morgan do that? He did that by selling land cheaply to the pirates and they became the estate owners, the slave owners and the aristocracy.
 Up to the year 1944, only those who had land paid a certain amount of taxes could vote. So it meant that the pirates and their descendants, were actually in charge of Jamaica from that time until political independence in 1962 and beyond.
The continuation of corruption manifested itself in several ways and one way was Jamaica College. As far as I know, the school that is known as Jamaica College is the only school in Jamaica that took 74 years to begin. Its founder Charles Drax died in 1721, but the school did not start until 1795, because a large estate owner in this country by the name of Peter Beckford made claims on the endowment and the matter was in court for many years.
Peter Beckford founded Beckford and Smith's High School which was later sold to the Anglican Church and renamed St. Jago High School, which explains why St. Jago is older than Jamaica College. The remnants of the money was passed to the Administrator general who set up a school in the old St. Ann's Bay Courthouse. The name of the school as well as the location changed four or five times until it landed at Hope in St. Andrew, its present location. The school was first known as Vestry free school and then Drax free school. Then it was Drax High School then Jamaica High School and then eventually Jamaica College.
But the manner in which William Beckford was able to grab some of the money and set up a school called Beckford and Smiths, showed that corruption continued after Henry Morgan died. The fleeing of the residents of Port Royal to and area known as Colonel Barry's Hog Crawle was the start of the parish that would be called Kingston.
The stealing of African slaves who were Catholics due to the Ecomienda System from a boat on the high seas and brought into St. Mary, Jamaica is another manifestation that piracy continued. At the time the Catholic Church was banned in Jamaica and the slaves kept an underground Church as Castle Mines In St. Mary. After the Catholic Church was restored in Jamaica, land at Preston Hill St. Mary was donated to the Catholics where a Catholic Church still stands today.
And so the corruption continued of which there are many other instances that one could mention.
It was not surprising therefore that with the coming of Universal Adult Suffrage in 1944 that corruption would continue in Jamaica, especially as there was no concerted effort to stamp out corruption. It was not surprising that we had legislators who went to prison for corruption as early as 1950.
Norman Washington Manley became Chief Minister of Jamaica 70 years ago in 1955, succeeding Alexander Bustamante who lost the election in 1955. Norman Manley who, like Bustamante, is a national hero of Jamaica, was sufficiently a man of integrity that he dismissed one of his ministers of government Alan Coombs the minister of communications and works, because he gave a contract to his brother-in-law. In a country with a deep history of corruption coming from Henry Morgan and pirates, that act made Norman Manley even less popular.
And Michael Manley son of Norman Manley, was sufficiently a man of integrity that on becoming leader of the opposition in 1969, he moved a resolution for there to be an integrity committee of the entire house, and it was passed by the ruling Jamaica Labour Party government led by Hugh Lawson Shearer as prime minister.
Michael Manley came to power in 1972, and won a second term in 1976. Towards the end of his second term, there were allegations of corruption coming from the then opposition led by Edward Seaga.
Michael Manley called a commission of inquiry, and appointed the then Chief Justice Kenneth Smith For reasons that he later gave. Kenneth Smith had at least unto occasions ruled against the People's National Party in two court cases. When Kenneth Smith was a resident magistrate he ruled against the PNP that Western St Mary won by the JLP's Talbert Forrest in the February 1967 general election be overturned.
And in 1974 as Chief Justice ruled that Douglas Manley the brother of Michael Manley was not elected in 1972 but his rival Arthur Williams of the JLP was in fact elected. The facts of that case were that at the end of the preliminary count Arthur Williams (snr) had won by ninety five Arthur Williams (snr) had won by 35 votes and that about 125 of Williams votes were tampered with to give Douglas Manley a 95 vote majority.
The Chief Justice ruled that the votes were tampered with and Arthur Williams had won.
And that was Michael Manley's reason to select Kenneth Smith to be the commissioner of inquiry. And for those who criticize the result when Kenneth Smith said that he found no instances of corruption in the Michael Manley government? Manley explained he called Kenneth Smith because after all "he boxed the prime minister's brother out of Parliament".
However in 1976, Douglas Manley turned the tables on Williams by defeating him by more than 2200 votes. Douglas Manley did not run in 1980 but ran in 1989, won again and finally retired in 1993.
Compare that today when Dennis Chung has who has voiced his opinion that Andrew Holness did nothing wrong in terms of having 28 bank accounts, has been appointed to head a Commission of Enquiry into corruption in the Andrew Holness led administration.
Given the record of corruption in this country that started with the pirates some 350 years ago when Henry Morgan sold land to pirates, and 333 years ago to a larger extent when the residents with a pirate history fled Port Royal and came into what is now called Kingston (which also means that today is 333 years since Kingston was established), it is my opinion that we should look to the Caribbean Court of Justice for commissioner. And I hold this view although Jamaica is not a part of the CCJ.
In this way, there would be no doubt about impartiality and also to ensure that our judiciary is protected, because one cannot be charged with contempt for criticizing the commissioner of inquiry. So if instead of local judges outside of Jamaica are appointed, it protects the local judges not so appointed from being brought into contempt and disrepute.