Captain’s List — Sir Henry Morgan #1678
Corsair’s Profiles in Leadership Series
The captains of fiction and history have much to teach us. They are leaders who often serve in times of great challenge and turmoil. Articles in this series focus on an individual captain and utilizes their quotes, their writings, and their actions to inspire core leadership elements in all of us.
Captain Morgan
Profiles in this series often utilize fictional characters. We have profiled Jean Luc Picard, Jack Sparrow, and Harvey Bullock. While you may best know the iconic Captain Morgan from his Original Spiced Rum, he was very much a real man and extraordinary privateer.
He was one of the most successful and famous pirates of history. Yes, he was a pirate, too. His exploits along the Spanish Main were legendary and lucrative. He was knighted for his work as a privateer. He was a rock star in his own time and spent several years on the London party scene, ostensibly under house arrest. Pirate.
He may also be the worst sea captain you have ever heard of. Whether Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean had Henry Morgan in mind is unclear, but Morgan was not the sort of pirate who was out catching merchant ships as prizes. By all accounts, he was a poor sailor. Common lore states that on his return cruise from London, after his pirate acquittal, he was given the helm of the ship for just a short time. He ran it aground! Not on purpose.
Know your strengths and your opponents weaknesses
Captain Sir Henry Morgan knew his opponents well. The Spanish forces in the New World were concentrated in their treasure fleets. Local colonial garrisons were isolated and thin. Ransoms were lucrative. It was Spain’s biggest weakness.
For his part, Henry was master of the sack. That is not a sexual reference, think Bruce Smith and Reggie White, only with a touch of malnutrition, pointy swords, and British accents. Again, his escapades are legendary. He sacked towns straight out, through deceit, on reputation alone, and occasionally with some epic strategy. Henry had a strength and he knew it.
Success and leadership rely heavily on leveraging strength and exploiting weakness and inefficiency. The success of Captain Morgan could fill a textbook on how. Know your crew. Know your opponent. Know your surroundings. Then set your plans accordingly.
PR is always a good thing
Good or bad, PR can be very helpful. Enter Alexander Exquemelin, ship’s doctor turned famous author. Double Ex can be credited with much of Morgan’s fame. While sailing with The Captain on several of his raiding voyages along the coast of South America, Exquemelin wrote The Buccaneers of America.
Interestingly enough, Double Ex took much liberty in many of the details of his book. This included a fanciful backstory for Henry where he was wrongly portrayed as a former slave. Henry did what any half-drunk pirate in his situation would do… he sued. Knighted Rock Star.
Regardless of whether Henry personally agreed with all of Exquemelin’s facts and characterizations, he owned most his fame and later accolades to his former doctor. The reputation that Double Ex built for him, made him an overnight celebrity. It got him into some great parties and likely saved him from the gallows. Read more here -
In the end, Captain Sir Henry Morgan was a legendary privateeer. He leveraged the strength of his officers and crew, exploited the weaknesses of his opponents, and made the most of some high impact PR. He goes down in history as the protector of Jamaica, defiler of the Spanish Main, Knight of the Realm, and one of the most successful privateers. He managed to die of natural causes and leave a legacy that rather fittingly includes Rum! No pirate could have dreamed of much more.
If you enjoyed this article, please recommend it ❤. The next time you enjoy rum, remember the legendary pirate. But, you probably shouldn’t drink like one.
Corsair’s Profiles in Leadership, Captain’s List is an article format created by Corsair’s Publishing in conjunction with our parent company Corsair’s Ventures. This series seeks to focus the reader on core components of leadership by utilizing the larger-than-life and often fictitious stories of the great captains of history.
