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Updated: June 16, 2025
But by and by, after many reverses, the tide turned, and carried him with it from one success to another, without let or stay, to the bitter end. Cruising off Maracaibo, he captured a rich prize laden with a vast amount of plate and ready money, and there conceived the design of descending upon the powerful town of Maracaibo itself.
Captain Morgan takes the city of Maracaibo on the coast of Neuva Venezuela Piracies committed in those seas Ruin of three Spanish ships, set forth to hinder the robberies of the pirates.
Then followed a repetition of the scenes that had been enacted in Maracaibo for the past fifteen days, only here they remained for four horrible weeks, extorting money money! ever money! from the poor poverty-stricken, pest-ridden souls crowded into that fever hole of a town.
Between the years 1655 and 1671 alone, the corsairs had sacked eighteen cities, four towns and more than thirty-five villages Cumana once, Cumanagote twice, Maracaibo and Gibraltar twice, Rio de la Hacha five times, Santa Marta three times, Tolu eight times, Porto Bello once, Chagre twice, Panama once, Santa Catalina twice, Granada in Nicaragua twice, Campeache three times, St.
Everything plundered that could be taken, and then a ransom set upon the town itself. This time an honest, or an apparently honest, division was made of the spoils, which amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides merchandise and jewels. The next towns to suffer were poor Maracaibo and Gibraltar, now just beginning to recover from the desolation wrought by l'Olonoise.
The ridge which divides the waters between the gulf of Maracaibo and the Rio Magdalena is in the plain on the east of the Laguna Zapatoza.
The ransom was partly paid and partly promised, and Morgan and his men departed, carrying with them some hostages for the rest of the ransom due. When Morgan and his fleet arrived at Maracaibo, they found the town still deserted, but they also discovered that they were caught in the trap which they had feared, out of which they saw no way of escaping.
Among Morgan's performances was the capture of the town of Puerto del Principe in Cuba, and the cities of Porto Bello, Maracaibo and Gibraltar in South America.
As many of the inhabitants of the city as could do so escaped in boats to Gibraltar, which lies to the southward, on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, at the distance of some forty leagues or more. Then the pirates marched into the town, and what followed may be conceived. It was a holocaust of lust, of passion, and of blood such as even the Spanish West Indies had never seen before.
The gold was paid, and the cattle duly counted over, killed, and salted; but Morgan did not purpose to release his prisoners until his ship was safely past the fort. He told the Maracaibo citizens that they would not be sent ashore until the danger of the passage was removed. With this word he again set sail to attempt to pass the narrows.
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