The Prince of Poyais

Con artists have forged any number of things as part of their swindles:  paintings, letters, historical documents, etc.  Pretty penny-ante stuff.  You don’t often see grifters with the imagination and think-big spirit to forge an entire country.  But at least one did.

Gregor MacGregor was born in Stirlingshire, Scotland on December 24, 1786.  If not for his subsequent career, the only notable thing one could say about him is that his great-uncle was the legendary Rob Roy.  McGregor joined the British Army when he was only 16, but he resigned in 1810 following a dispute with one of his superiors.  

Soon after his resignation, the Venezuelan revolutionary General Francisco de Miranda came to London.  Thanks to his battles against the Spanish, the English took an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach, and received him warmly.  De Miranda’s hero’s welcome inspired MacGregor to restart his military career in Venezuela.  Who knows what adventure he might find in a romantic foreign land?

Upon MacGregor’s arrival in Venezuela in April 1812, de Miranda appointed him to the rank of colonel.  A more personal honor came when he married a cousin of Simon Bolivar, Dona Josefa Antonia Andrea Aristeguita y Lovera.

Despite this auspicious start, MacGregor’s fighting career had mixed success.  He also managed to get on the bad side of Simon Bolivar.  To put it bluntly, Bolivar threatened to hang his new relative-by-marriage if he ever got the chance.  When this vow reached MacGregor’s ears, he wisely concluded that Venezuela was a bit hot for him at the moment, and he relocated to Cape Gracias a Dios, on the Gulf of Honduras.

In April 1820, the leader of the Mosquito Coast, King George Frederic Augustus, granted MacGregor 12,500 square miles of territory in exchange for some rum and jewelry.  King George probably felt he had come out ahead in the deal: the land was ill-suited for farming of any kind, and was not called “Mosquito” for nothing.  To this day, the land, now part of modern Honduras, contains nothing but a small, abandoned old graveyard.  And, of course, mosquitoes.

So far, MacGregor’s life was an undistinguished one.  However, when he returned to London in 1821, he began to show the true Strange Company spirit.  He was now calling himself the “Cazique of Poyais.”  He explained that “Cazique” was equivalent to “Prince,” a title granted to him by Mosquito King George.  Daffy as all this sounded, Londoners accepted his claims without question, and treated him as visiting royalty.  He was even given a formal reception by the Lord Mayor of London.

MacGregor informed Londoners that he was there to attend the coronation of George IV as the official representative of the Poyer people.  He proudly displayed a printed proclamation which he claimed had been issued to the Poyers before he left, which read in part, “I now bid you farewell for a while…I trust that through the kindness of Almighty Providence, I shall be again enabled to return amongst you, and that then it will be my pleasing duty to hail you as affectionate friends, and yours to receive me as your faithful Cazique and Father.”

And MacGregor was just getting warmed up.  He invented a Poyais constitution, commercial and banking systems, and a whole rank of honors.  He opened offices in London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh which sold land certificates for Poyais and arranged transportation for anyone who wanted to relocate there.  He also wrote a 355 page guidebook, “Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, Including the Territory of Poyais,” describing his “kingdom” as a veritable paradise: mild climate, fertile soil, full of fish and game.  Poyais’ capital, “St. Joseph” was depicted as a prosperous, cultured city of 20,000 residents with a theater, opera house, and cathedral.  To Britishers who were having a hard time getting by in their native land, Poyais sounded like an enticing opportunity for better times.

MacGregor, using the revenues of the Government of Poyais as collateral, obtained a loan of 200,000 pounds from a London bank.  He used the Bank of Scotland’s official printer to create Bank of Poyais dollar notes, which he exchanged for pounds sterling or gold.

In 1821, about 250 eager settlers arrived on the Mosquito Coast.  Their reaction when they found out from the natives that no such land as Poyais even existed is better imagined than described.  Instead of the lush Eden promised to them by the “Cazique,” they were stranded in a harsh, disease-ridden dump.  The primitive living conditions caused yellow fever and malaria to decimate the camp.  One man killed himself.  Only about 50 of the settlers made it back to Britain alive.

MacGregor was brazen--or just stupid--enough to try the exact same scam in London a few years later, although, unsurprisingly, this time around he found few takers.  In 1826, a French court tried him and several of his associates for fraud, but remarkably enough, MacGregor was acquitted.  MacGregor continued trying to sell “Poyais” land certificates as late as 1837, but by then it was clear that this particular scheme was well and truly played out.  

After his wife died in 1838, MacGregor returned to Venezuela.  He was made a divisional general of the Venezuelan army, and given a pension.  He died in Caracas in 1845, a respected citizen lauded as a “valiant champion of independence.”  If he felt any twinge of conscience about all the destitution, misery and death he had caused, he showed no sign of it.  

Although one would expect that someone with MacGregor’s history would end his days facing the business end of a gun, he died peacefully in his bed, and was buried with full military honors in Caracas Cathedral, with the president and cabinet ministers attending the funeral.

It’s a funny old world.