Divers raise cannons belonging to pirate Henry Morgan

DIVERS have revealed they have recovered six historic cannons thought to have belonged to bloodthirsty pirate Henry Morgan.

The cannons were found in shallow waters surrounding Lajas Reef at the mouth of the Chagres River in Panama, where infamous privateer Captain Henry Morgan’s ships wrecked in 1671 while carrying Morgan and his men to raid Panama City.

The discovery provides the first tangible archaeological link to the activities of Morgan in Panama, whose raid led to the destruction of Panama City.

Amazingly, archaeologists have yet to find any direct evidence of Morgan’s men at the ruins of Panama Viejo, the city destroyed during Morgan’s raid, and have only uncovered one faint trace of the fire that devastated the old city in 1671.

The six iron cannons recovered from the reef are now undergoing study and preservation treatment by Panamanian researchers in cooperation with a team that has been studying the Chagres River with the permission of Panama’s Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INAC).

Raul Castro Zachrisson, Secretary General of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura said, “I am honored to be a part of this important historical find and look forward to a continuous working relationship with all the institutions and professionals involved in the conservation of our sub aquatic cultural and natural resources.”

Since 2008, an underwater archaeology team led by archaeologists James Delgado, Frederick Hanselmann, and Dominique Rissolo has surveyed, mapped, and documented submerged sites, shipwrecks, and the 500-years of maritime history that rests along the banks of the Rio Chagres.

The team announced the recovery of the cannons from a shallow reef damaged by treasure hunters, whose blasting and dredging had exposed the fragile iron cannons to possible damage and loss.

The size and shape of the cannons appear to be a close match with the characteristics of small iron cannon of the Seventeenth Century; a more definitive identification of the cannons will take place after they are treated and years of encrustation and corrosion are removed in the laboratory.

Frederick Hanselmann, Research Professor with the River Systems Institute and Center for Archaeological Studies atTexas State University said: “Very little is known archaeologically about English privateers, especially in regards to their activity in Panama. This represents a unique opportunity to fill in a gap in our knowledge of some very exciting and controversial human activity of that time period.”

Prior to plundering and burning the original site of Panama City in 1671, Morgan sent an advance party of 470 men in three ships with the task of storming the Spanish fort on the cliff overlooking the entrance to the Chagres River, the Castillo de San Lorenzo el Real de Chagres.

Five days after the capture, Morgan in his flagship Satisfaction and the rest of his privateer fleet arrived at the fort to find the British flag flying. The cheers from those on the cliff and those on board the ships soon turned to horror as Satisfaction ran head on into Lajas Reef, which lay in the path of the river covered by a mere few feet of water.

Three to four more ships followed the Morgan onto the reef. The ships were shattered and none was recovered. Morgan and his men paddled upriver and walked overland and finally sacked Panama City, returning to the Caribbean from the same route, abandoning the shipwrecks in their wake.

Coordinated by the Waitt Institute, a non-profit research organization based in La Jolla, California, which supports exploration, and in collaboration with the Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INAC), the results from the first-ever archaeological survey of the submerged cultural resources at the mouth of the Chagres River in 2008 yielded a vast array of archaeological artifacts from more than 500 years of maritime activity at the mouth of the river, including the cannons.

“The Rio Chagres was in many ways the original Panama Canal,” said Dr. James Delgado, past president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and now the Director of Maritime Heritage for the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"For five centuries, following in the wake of Panama’s indigenous peoples, Spanish explorers, English freebooters, traders, gold seeking Yankees enroute to California, soldiers and citizens have used the river as a highway that nearly crosses the isthmus. As these cannons demonstrate, those centuries of human activity have left a tangible trace in the archaeological record which is an important part of Panama’s cultural patrimony as being of international significance and interest.”

Dr. Dominique Rissolo, Executive Director of the Waitt Institute, which supported the project, added: "Panama’s maritime heritage is among the richest and most fascinating in all of the Americas, yet it has long been threatened by ‘modern-day Morgans’ in search of sunken treasures and trinkets."