Gregor MacGregor and Poyais: The War Hero Who Invented a Country

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Gregor MacGregor was buried with full state honors in a national cathedral in 1845. He had also invented a country, sold its bonds and land in London, and sent hundreds of settlers to a jungle where more than half of them died. This episode asks how one man could be both. Born in 1786 into a Scottish clan whose very surname had once been banned, he bought an army commission at 16, married an heiress, and fixated on rank and uniforms. In Venezuela he earned real glory, leading a 34 day fighting retreat in 1816 that won him promotion from Simon Bolivar.

That reputation made the later lie believable. After abandoning his own troops more than once, MacGregor obtained eight million acres on the Mosquito Coast in 1820 in exchange for rum and jewelry, and returned to London as Cazique of Poyais. He supplied a three chamber parliament, a currency, an embassy, and a 355 page guidebook describing a capital with an opera house. With British government bonds paying 3 percent, his 6 percent Poyais loan found eager buyers, and Scottish families traded their savings for land that did not exist.

• At Porto Bello in 1819, MacGregor leapt from a window during a surprise Spanish attack and paddled to his ship on a log, leaving his men behind. Bolivar ordered him hanged if he returned.
• Settlers arrived to find no port, no roads, and no city. Malaria and yellow fever spread before a British official from a neighboring colony found them.
• Some survivors signed public declarations defending MacGregor, blaming his subordinates instead.
• Arrested in France after citizens applied for passports to a country officials had never heard of, he was acquitted in 1826 by blaming a partner who had fled.
• In 1838 he returned to Venezuela, was reinstated as a general with a pension, and lived out his life in Caracas.