Senor Nice (17 page)

Mule trains took plunder across the isthmus to Portobelo on the Atlantic coast, where galleons bound for Spain waited. Soon other merchant ships brought silks and spices from Spanish colonies in Asia for trans-shipment through this bullion pipeline. Old Panama became the metropolis of the Pacific.

After slaying most of the Indians, the Spanish imported
slaves from Africa. Some ran away to the jungle or to the still largely deserted Caribbean coast and set up still-surviving communities, such as that of Bocas del Toro, where tourism has evolved without a local authority plan or multi-million-dollar investment.

‘Do you just write about travel?’

‘No, I write about all sorts of things, mainly drugs. I used to be a marijuana smuggler. When I was released from prison, I wrote a book about my exploits.’

‘A drug smuggler? Fantastic! Do you have a copy of your book with you?’

I did. A firm believer in blatant self-promotion, I always carry copies of
Mr Nice
to donate to hotel libraries and give to likeable strangers I meet on my travels. I reached into my plastic bag of history books, guidebooks and tourist brochures and pulled out two copies of
Mr Nice
, one in English and one in Spanish.

‘Take your pick, Rosa. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m just going to get my laundry together and bring it down to reception.’

When I returned, Rosa was engrossed in the English version. Her black eyes fluttered at me as her body language changed from mildly curious to flirtatious.

‘So you have met General Manuel Noriega. He was not as bad as the gringos make out and did a lot for Panama. We do not subscribe to the propaganda that gringos invaded our country to stop the naughty general from selling cocaine to Uncle Sam. They did it to smash the Panamanian army and economy and remind us we are not really a country, just a canal. Were you as big a smuggler as he was? The DEA seemed to think you were.’

‘Nothing like. Noriega smuggled cocaine, I only did marijuana. I smuggled greater quantities than he did, but they were worth much less.’

‘I love cocaine.’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t take it. Do you have any?’

‘Not here, Howard. It’s too dangerous. You never know who is watching. I don’t like to take it outside Panama City. That’s where I live now most of the time. By the way, where are you heading after here?’

‘I was thinking I would visit Portobelo. We have a Portobello Road in London. I lived there during the 1960s, when it was the centre of London’s hippy community. Few people are aware of how it got its name, so I thought I would mention it in my travel piece.’

Until the 1870s the houses and shops of Notting Hill extended only to Elgin Crescent. Between there and the village of Kensal Green were corn fields, meadows and a few farm buildings. Portobello Road was a rough country track leading to Portobello Farm, which had been named in honour of Admiral Vernon’s capture of the city from the Spaniards in 1739.

‘Portobelo is a beautiful part of our Atlantic Caribbean coast, which is much gentler than the Pacific coast, where the tides are tremendous. But there is nothing in Portobelo now, just a few remnants of old forts. What the pirates didn’t destroy, the gringos did.’

‘Wasn’t Sir Francis Drake buried there? I’m sure I read something about his body being put into a lead coffin and dropped into the sea.’

‘Yes. Gringos are still trying to find it.’

‘I also understand that my hero, Henry Morgan, made a name for himself in Portobelo.’

‘Ah, Henry Morgan, the English pirate.’

‘Welsh, actually. Confusing the Welsh with the English is as bad as treating South America as North America. And Henry was much more than just a pirate.’

‘But he was bad, no?’

‘If you were a Spanish colonist, yes.’

*

Spain and Portugal, with the blessing of the pope, divided the New World between them. At the end of the sixteenth century, Sir Francis Drake, with his partly Welsh crew, circled the world, on his way capturing Spanish galleons, burning the odd Caribbean settlement, and relieving whoever he came across of their treasures. In the following century fear of Britain grew in the New World, as Barbados and Jamaica were colonised by British gamblers, touts, pimps and dissenters who had come to own land, not work it. Demand for labour increased, and the Dutch and Portuguese slave ships could not move black flesh fast enough to satisfy it. Felons were paroled out of British prisons, and vagrants and beggars were lifted from London’s streets to be sent to work in the plantations. In this way Britain could profit from the human freight it fed, clothed and hanged. The Dutch and French followed suit and Caribbean islands constantly changed hands in repeated bouts of naval warfare. Peace treaties between the European nations were made and broken; the need for able fighting sailors increased, as did the job security offered by piracy. Easy-to-forge letters of marque flew out of the competing countries’ naval bureaucracies.

The lure of freedom and wealth turned indentured servants into pirates, but for many their harsh seafaring lives yielded scant reward. With no loyalty to their countries, their shared adversity bonded them into an autonomous power. Headquartered on the usually French but sometimes Spanish possession of Île de la Tortue off the north-west coast of present-day Haiti, they lived by raiding Spanish treasure ships and capturing animals for their leather, cooking their meat over smoking (
boucan
) fires, so earning the name of buccaneers. In 1640 they formed the Brethren of the Coast.

To join this democratic fraternity, a man had to subscribe to the Custom of the Coast, which took precedence over national
laws and specified members’ wages and compensation for those maimed or wounded in service. A third of the Brethren of the Coast comprised fugitive black slaves, who had the same rights as white members in voting and sharing booty. The Brethren of the Coast was the first great international criminal organisation, the forerunner of Meyer Lansky’s International Crime Syndicate. Ethics more meaningful than blind patriotism and religious persuasion united the Brethren. No Brother stole from another. No Brother cheated another at gambling, hid knowledge of treasure or tried to get the better of any other Brother. Even crews of different ships on different raids would not swindle one another when declaring their spoils. Henry Morgan’s achievements as a Caribbean pirate soon came to the attention of the Brethren, who enrolled him as a member. In a few years he became their leader – the admiral of the Brethren of the Coast, the most powerful criminal in the world.

Henry Morgan had high cheekbones, a firm chin, sensual lips and smoky blue eyes. Commanding awe and respect through his deep-throated oratory, he walked like a tiger, swore like a trooper, spoke fluent French and kept his Welsh accent. He wore a scarlet bandana, matted his hair with marigold paste and was never without his pistol and cutlass. Women found him irresistible. He thrived on tropical heat and seemed to be immune to deadly fevers. Although a natural liar, Henry Morgan always kept his word.

‘The Spanish weren’t as bad to us indigenous Panamanians as they were to the people of the other South American colonies, although I think that is because they discovered no gold here. But I don’t approve of colonialists, whether Spanish, British or American. They are just criminals to me. Shit! Sorry, Howard, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m not intending to imply you are a criminal.’

‘I’m not a criminal any more, but I used to be, obviously.
And I have much respect for some criminal communities and their morals.’

‘The honour among thieves thing, you mean?’

‘Yes, stuff like that.’

‘But I don’t regard smuggling as a crime, Howard. Most people don’t.’

‘Henry Morgan didn’t regard ripping off the Spaniards’ plundered treasure as a crime.’

Morgan’s exploits had also impressed the British administrators of Jamaica, who gladly accepted his donations of plunder. In 1662 there was so much looted silver and gold in Jamaica the British government planned to set up a mint. The governor of Jamaica began to issue Morgan with letters of marque which allowed him to plunder cities as well as boats. Morgan thereupon attacked Puerto Principe, Cuba, which threatened Jamaica, and proposed attacking Portobelo, which after Havana and Cartagena was the most strongly fortified city in the Americas.

The Spanish colonists sold their treasure at crowded fairs, the biggest of which was at Portobelo. With the galleons on their way from Europe, traders at the fair were desperate to secure as much gold from Peru, pearls and tobacco from Venezuela, and emeralds from New Granada – Colombia – as they could. At the same time, the port’s merchants and gentry were accumulating funds to buy the European-made luxuries the fleet would bring from Spain. It was the logical time to strike. In June 1668 eight disreputable vessels carrying 400 desperate characters followed Morgan’s flagship out of Jamaica’s Port Royal across the Caribbean to a sheltered cove three miles south of Portobelo. Protecting the narrow entrance to the harbour were the strongest fortresses in the New World. Against incredible odds, Morgan attacked and won.

The fall of Portobelo was a disgrace. Its inhabitants could have defended the town had they armed themselves at once
instead of running to hide their valuables and money. Instead it was a rout. Morgan detailed squads to rush the monasteries and churches so the priests and nuns could not hide their treasures and with a flash of diabolical inspiration, decided to use them to storm the citadel. He knew the reverence Roman Catholics had for their clergy and shielded his attacking column with them. The pirates remained in Portobelo for two weeks, raiding, burning, torturing, raping and pillaging, and left behind them a ruined city, gutted of its valuables and defences. Henry Morgan had made the richest haul in history.

‘Have you ever tried marijuana from Panama? I can get you a little if you want.’

‘I would love some.’

‘Then let’s go and see my friend Living Stone. He lives nearby. You will love him, I know.’

Rosa and I took a boat to town. Apart from a few female Scandinavian backpackers and a couple of Canadian surfers abiding by their international dress code, the streets were full of locals. Everything and everyone seemed festive. Bocas del Toro is Panama’s rainiest province, accounting for its massive production of bananas – ‘green gold’ – and the consequent presence of Chiquita Brands International Inc., the United States’s giant banana corporation. West Indians migrated here to work on banana plantations; Graham Greene referred to it as ‘an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty’.

We walked along the beach to where an enormous black man was sleeping in a hammock. Although the ends of the hammock were strong and high enough to keep the man’s head and feet off the ground, the middle was no match for his weight. Most of him lay on the ground.

‘That’s Living Stone,’ said Rosa, seeing the smile on my face. ‘He loves it here. He is an extremely rich man who could have his holidays in any part of the world in a five-star hotel, but he prefers here.’

Living Stone woke up, rubbed his face and broke into a smile.

‘Hello, Rosa and Rosa’s friend. I am Living Stone.’

Rosa explained who I was and what I was doing in Panama. They spoke in the local dialect, Guari-Guari, Jamaican patois embellished with Spanish and indigenous Indian words. I went to get some drinks from a kiosk.

‘Hey, Howard, you look like Henry Morgan; no wonder you’re researching him. Are you going to look for his treasure? You might find you have a rightful claim. Let’s go for a walk.’

Henry Morgan’s next project after Portbelo was to sack Old Panama. The Spanish-controlled Pacific Ocean on one side and the fortifications and flooded plains dissuaded any wouldbe attackers who managed to cut their way through the thick jungle of the isthmus that separated the city from the Atlantic coast. It was considered impregnable; no sane man could even dream of the conquest of Old Panama.

Nevertheless, Henry Morgan’s messengers spread the word of potential riches: there would be gold, jewels, food, wine and women. Too shrewd to mention Old Panama for fear of alerting the Spanish, Henry Morgan asked those interested to assemble on the Île de la Tortue. Forty ships carrying 3,000 reckless men of all nationalities swarmed to the island rendezvous. European pirates and escaped slaves then waited along the coast in palm-thatched huts, canvas shelters and dingy tents waiting for their orders.

The route was via Santa Catalina and Providencia, Spanish-owned islands 500 miles to the north of the Colombian coast. Although originally colonized in the seventeenth century by English Puritans and Jamaican woodcutters, the islands now belong to Colombia and are a favoured intermediate point for cocaine smuggling from there to Jamaica.

Arriving on the isthmus, resistance to Morgan’s attack was initially negligible. He now planned to row up the Rio Chagres
in small boats and then march overland using Indian trails to Old Panama. The Chagres is a river which displays no respect for the regular business of rivers – that of getting to the ocean with as little bother as possible. Although its source is just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean, it meanders about and avoids any chance of a short cut. Thick jungle rolls to the river’s edge and suddenly stops like a frozen green wave. Both river and overland trips would be taxing and hazardous.

The buccaneers learned by interrogating prisoners that the Spaniards had known for three weeks about their imminent arrival. Ambushes lined the proposed route to Old Panama, and a formidable army was waiting for them outside the city.

Expecting to live off the country through which they would pass, Morgan and his men took no supplies and crowded into the inadequate number of canoes and rowing boats brought by the fleet. The trip was a nightmare of discouragement and hardship. The river was full of rapids, whirlpools and hidden sandbanks, which meant the overloaded boats were in constant danger of capsizing in the alligator-infested water. All day under the tropical sun the men cursed and sweated at their oars, tormented by hunger. Spotted giant cats watched the men with curiosity. Great snakes floated in the water, wary of the convoy, while clans of chattering monkeys dashed through the vines and treetops. The few villages they passed were desolate and empty; the Spaniards had burned or destroyed everything when they fled before the buccaneers’ approach and had cut trees and set them in the river to impede progress. Deserted farms and empty granaries taunted the starving buccaneers and Indian bowmen lay in ambush.