Gregor MacGregor
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Poyais was a fictional Central American country and the creation of its supposed cazique Gregor MacGregor who in the 1820s used it to entice investment and even colonization.
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Cazique of Poyais
Gregor MacGregor came from Latin America to London in 1820 and pronounced that he had been created cazique (or prince) of the principality of Poyais, independent region on the Bay of Honduras. Native chief King George Frederick of the Mosquito Shore and Nation had given him the territory of Poyais, 12,500 mile² (32,400 km²) of fertile land with untapped resources, a small number of settlers of British origin, and cooperative natives eager to please. He had created the beginnings of a country with civil service, army and democratic government. Now he needed settlers and investment and had come back to Britain to give his countrymen the opportunity.
At the time, British merchants were all too eager to enter the South American market that Spain had denied from them. The region had already become more promising in the wake of wars of South American independence, when the new governments of Colombia, Chile and Peru had issued bonds in London Royal Exchange to raise money.
London high society welcomed the colorful figure of MacGregor and he and his Spanish-American wife Josefa received many invitations. The Lord Mayor of London Christopher Magnay even organized an official reception in London Guildhall. MacGregor claimed descent of clan MacGregor and that Rob Roy MacGregor had been his direct ancestor. He enhanced his allure by telling about his exploits in the Peninsular War and later in the service of Francisco de Miranda, Simón Bolívar and South American independence — tales which were rather embellished.
MacGregor was also introduced to Major William John Richardson and by the winter of 1821 he had made Richardson legate of Poyais. He had also moved to Oak Hall in Richardson's estate in Essex, as befit his station as a prince. An office for the Legation of the Territory of Poyais was opened at Dowgate Hill in the City. MacGregor enhanced his popularity with elaborate banquets in Oak Hall and invited dignitaries like foreign ambassadors, government ministers and senior military officers.
MacGregor also claimed that one of his ancestors was a rare survivor of the Darien Scheme, a failed Scottish attempt of colonization in Panama in 1690's. In order to compensate for this, he said, he had decided to draw most of the settlers from Scotland. For this purpose, he established offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
In Edinburgh, MacGregor began to sell land rights for 3 shillings and threepence per acre (£40.15/km²). Note that the worker's weekly wage at the time was about £1, which meant that the price was very generous. The price steadily rose to 4 shillings (£0.20). Many people willing to have a new start in the new land signed on with their families. On October 23 1822 MacGregor raised a loan with the total of £200,000 in behalf of the Poyais government. It was in the form of 2000 bearer bonds worth £100 each,
Also in 1822 MacGregor published a 350 page guidebook entitled Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, including the Territory of Poyais, descriptive of the country, supposedly written by one Captain Thomas Strangeways. It described the Poyais with glowing terms and mainly concentrated on how much profit one could get from the country's ample resources. Poyais was told to be very anglophile region with already existing infrastructure, untapped gold and silver mines and large amounts of fertile soil ready to be settled. The region was even free of tropical diseases. The book also claimed that British settlers had founded the capital of Poyais, St Joseph, in the 1730's.
Eager settlers
The Legation of Poyais chartered a ship called Honduras Packet, whose crew MacGregor already knew, and five London merchants received contracts to provision the ship with food and ammunition. Its cargo also included a chest full of "Poyais Dollars", poyaisian currency MacGregor had had printed in Scotland. Many of the settlers had changed their pounds to Poyais dollars.
On September 10 1822 the Honduras Packet departed from the Port of London with 70 would-be-settlers aboard. They included doctors, lawyers and a banker who had been promised appropriate positions in the Poyais civil service. Some had also purchased officer commissions in the Poyaisian army.
On January 22 1823 another ship, the Kennersley Castle, left Leith Habror in Scotland for Poyais with 200 would-be-settlers. The ship also carried enough provisions for a year. It arrived in the appropriate place March 20 and spent two days looking for a port. Eventually the newcomers found the settlers who had sailed on the Honduras Packet.
What the settlers had found was an untouched jungle, some natives and couple of American hermits who had made their homes there. "St Joseph" consisted of only couple of ruins of a previous attempt at settlement abandoned on the previous century. There was no settlement of any kind. The Honduras Packet had been swept away by a storm.
When some of the laborers begun to build at least rudimentary shelter for themselves, the officers and civil servants decided to try to find a way out. Lieutenant-colonel Hector Hall, would-be-governor of Poyais, had left to look for the Honduras Packet or another ship to take them back to Britain.
The would-be-settlers begun to argue with each other and some of them, who had expected better accommodation, refused to do anything. The Kennersley Castle sailed away. Tropical diseases also begun to take their toll. One settler committed suicide.
In April, the Mexican Eagle, an official ship from Belize with the chief magistrate on board, accidentally found the settlers. Chief magistrate Bennet listened to their story and told them that there was no such place as Poyais. He agreed to take them to Belize. A couple of days later Colonel Hall returned with King George Frederic and announced that the King had effectively revoked the land grant because MacGregor had assumed sovereignty. The Mexican Eagle took first sixty settlers to Belize. The rest were evacuated later.
Many settlers were weakened on their short sea voyage and many of them later died in hospitals in Belize. The total of 180 of the 250 would-be settlers had perished during the ordeal.
Edward Codd, Superintendent for Belize, sent a warning to London where naval vessels were sent to call back five ships of would-be-settlers that had departed after the Kennersley Castle. Those survivors who did not decide to settle on Belize or move elsewhere in Americas sailed on the Ocean on August 1 1823 to London. More people died during that journey and less than 50 came back alive to Britain.
72 days later the Ocean docked in London. The next day, city papers published the whole story.
However, regardless of the experiences of the survivors, some of them refused to believe that MacGregor would have been the main culprit. One of them, James Hastie, who had lost two of his children to tropical diseases, wrote and published a book Narrative of a Voyage in the Ship Kennersley Castle from Leith Roads to Poyais. He blamed Sir Gregor's advisers and publicists for spreading the false information. A group of survivors signed a declaration of their belief that had Sir Gregor gone with them, things would have turned out differently. Major Richardson sued the papers for libel and defended MacGregor against the charges of fraud.
MacGregor himself, however, had already left for Paris in October.
Poyaisian scheme in France
MacGregor had already contacted trading organization Compagnie de la Nouvelle Neustrie and commissioned it to further the affairs of Poayis in France.
In March 1825 MacGregor summoned from London Gustavus Butler Hippisley, an acquaintance from the army, on the pretext of discussing his appointment as a representative of Poyais in Colombia. Hippisley was to write about the Poayis affair in France in Acts of Oppression Committed under the Administration of m. de Villele, Prime minister of Charles X, in the years 1825-6.
MacGregor claimed to Hippisley that he needed the help of French government to obtain a formal renunciation of any (nonexistent) claims Spain might have to Poyais and that he had met with French Prime Minister Count de Villele. MacGregor and la Nouvelle Noustrie, already had plans to send French emigrants to Poyais. Hippisley wrote back to London, castigating the journalists who had called MacGregor "penniless adventurer".
In August, MacGregor published a new constitution of Poyais; he had changed it into a republic with himself as the head of state. On August 18 1825 he issued a £300.00 loan with 2,5% interest through the London bank of Thomas Jenkins & Company. The bond was probably never issued. At the same time, la Nouvelle Noustrie recruited settlers with the requirement that they buy FFr100 worth of the company shares.
When the French passport officials noticed that a number of people had obtained passports in order to voyage to a country they had never heard of, they seized the la Nouvelle Neustrie vessel in Le Havre. Some of the would-be-emigrants realized that something was not right and demanded investigation of the affairs of the la Nouvelle Neustrie and Sir Gregor. Hippisley was arrested but MacGregor was nowhere to be found.
Hippisley and MacGregor's secretary Thomas Irving were held in custody in La Force prison when the police investigation was going on. Lehuby, one of the directors of La Nouvelle Noustrie fled to Belgium. MacGregor went into hiding until he was brought into the prison December 7, two months after the first arrests. He proceeded to comfort his associates and in January 1826 made a proclamation to Central American states - it was written in French and primarily meant to affect French opinion. The accused were later moved to Bicetre prison.
The trial begun April 6 1826. MacGregor, Hippisley, Irving and Lehuby (in absentia) were accused of fraud by means of the Poyais emigration program. Their lawyer Merilhou, put the blame on Lehuby and prosecutor was ready to withdraw the charges if the men were deported from France. Initially the court agreed but judges changed their mind when Belgians agreed to extradite Lehuby. Lawyer Merilhou was later summoned as a witness for the prosecution.
The new trial begun July 10 1826 and last for four days. Merilhou's replacement Berville eloquently put the blame on anybody else but MacGregor. MacGregor was acquitted and Hippisley and Irving were released. Lehuby was convicted for 13 months for making false promises.
Lesser Poyais schemes
In 1826 MacGregor returned to London, where the furore over his affairs had died down. Shortly after his arrival he was arrested and taken to Tothill Fields prison in Westminster on charges now unknown. He was released in less than a week.
MacGregor proceeded with the modified schemes. This time he claimed that (non-existent) natives had elected him as the head of state and became just "Cacigue of the Republic of Poyais" and opened a new office at 23 Threadneedle Street in the City, without any diplomatic trappings and in much a smaller scale than before. He issued a loan worth £800.000 as 20-year bonds with Thomas Jenkins & Company as brokers. The scheme was announced in the summer 1827.
However, investors were now more careful and somebody circulated a handbill that warned against investing in "Poyais humbug". MacGregor had to pass the most of the unsold certificates to a consortium of speculators with an undisclosed sum. He had made only a little money.
Further Poyais schemes were equally successful. 1828 MacGregor tried to sell land from Poyais at the price of 5 shillings per acre. In 1830 Robert Charles Frederic, brother and successor of King George Frederic, begun to offer for sale the same territories to lumber companies. These certificates competed with those of MacGregor. When older investors demanded their interest, he could only pay with more certificates to the value of the interest payments he owed. Others begun to use the same trick too - two men named Upton opened a rival "Poyaisian office"" and offered land debentures for sale.
In 1831 MacGregor promoted a "Poyaisian New Three per cent Consolidated Stock" as "the President of the Poyaisian Republic". In 1834 he was living in Scotland and had to issue a new series of land certificates as payment for unredeemed securities. 1836 he wrote a new constitution for the Poyaisian Republic. The last record of any Poyais scheme is on 1837, when he tried to sell some land certificates.
In 1839 Gregor MacGregor moved to Venezuela where he had requested and received a pension as a general who had fought for independence. He died on December 4 1845.
Books
- David Sinclair: The Land that Never Was (2003)