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HERITAGE


Paradise lost


In 1823 Sir Gregor MacGregor tried to pull off a quite extraordinary scam, an act of callous selfi shness that cost the lives of 200 innocent men, women and children


WORDS TIM SIDDONS O


n 27 April 1823 an Edinburgh cobbler lay ill and despondent in his small, bamboo hut in a jungle clearing on the


Mosquito Coast. He sat up, loaded his horse pistol ‘to the muzzle’, and shot himself in the head. The doctor who had been treating him wrote in his diary that he had ‘literally blown himself to pieces’. Three months earlier he had left Leith docks


on a ship, along with 200 jubilant men, women and children, to what he believed was a new life as the offi cial shoemaker to a South American princess. However, the dream soon became a nightmare. Instead of arriving in the promised land, the would-be settlers found themselves in a tract of inhospitable jungle, a tropical, disease-ridden hell – victims of one of the most elaborate and vicious hoaxes in history. In the summer of 1821 London society was


wowed by the arrival of a Scottish hero of the Venezuelan struggle for independence and the Napoleonic wars. Claiming to be the Chief of Clan Gregor and a direct descendent of Rob Roy, Sir Gregor MacGregor cut an impressive fi gure. Along with his wife, Josepha, a beauti- ful and articulate Spanish-American who was a relative of the South American revolution-


60 WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK


‘The dream soon became a nightmare, one of the most vicious hoaxes in history’


ary Simon Bolivar, they soon became the most sought-after dinner guests in town. MacGregor’s connections with Bolivar and


General Francisco de Miranda, both lauded for their attempts to loosen Spain’s grip on South America, allowed him to be introduced to the right people in London. MacGregor had risen to Brigadier General under Miranda. He also apparently served under the Duke of Welling- ton in the Peninsular War, and also fought against Spain along the coast of Florida. MacGregor was keen to discuss his posi-


Above: St Joseph, the capital of Poyais, was said to be a place of ‘broad, tree-lined boulevards’. Right: Gregor MacGregor claimed to be the Prince of Poyais on South America’s Mosquito Coast.


tion as His Highness Gregor, Cazique – the equivalent of prince – of Poyais, on the Bay of Honduras, in South America. Apparently the land, which comprised 12,500 square miles, was granted to him by the anglophile King George Frederick of the Mosquito Coast Shore and nation – he even had a handwritten land grant to prove it. As MacGregor explained, the country already had a democratic government, a rudimentary civil service and the makings of a small army, and his purpose for visiting Britain was to recruit offi cials for the govern- ment and to encourage immigration by people with the skills to exploit the country’s riches. MacGregor also claimed to be motivated by


RIGHT - NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND


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