COLLECTION NAME:
JCB Archive of Early American Images
Record
Accession number:
79-17
Record number:
79-17-1
JCB call number:
79-17
Image title:
His Highness Gregor Cazique of Poyais
Creator 1:
J.S. Rochard
Creator 1 role:
Painted by
Creator 2:
William Home Lizars
Creator 2 dates:
1788-1859
Creator 2 role:
Engraved by
Place image published:
[Edinburgh]
Image publisher:
[William Blackwood ... and T. Caddell]
Image date:
[1822]
Image function:
frontispiece
Technique:
engraving
Image dimension height:
11.4 cm.
Image dimension width:
9 cm.
Page dimension height:
21.1 cm.
Page dimension width:
12.2 cm.
Materials medium:
ink
Materials support:
paper
Description:
Portrait of Gregor McGregor in military attire and standing in front of a scene of battle. Below him is a version of the McGregor coat of arms supported by two native Americans.
Source creator:
Strangeways, Thomas
Source Title:
Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, including the territory of Poyais, descriptive of the country; with some information as to its production, the best mode of culture, & c. ... chiefly intended for the use of settlers.
Source place of publication:
Edinburgh
Source publisher:
Sold by William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and T. Cadell, Strand, London.
Source date:
1822
notes:
After the Central American states gained their independance from Spain in 1821, they were too weak to assert their control over the Indian tribes. Thus the Mosquito Indians (a group composed of native Americans and escaped slaves) were able to act on their own. They had long preferred the friendship of the British to that of the Spanish, and the British had laid claim to a large part of the Caribbean coast of Central America since the early eighteenth century. On April 29, 1820, a Mosquito king, George Frederick, made a grant of land to Gregor McGregor, a Scottish adventurer who had offered his services to Bolívar and the Spanish-American colonists of Colombia and Venezuela who fought to gain their independence from Spain. The territory was near the Black River and the Poyer Mountains of Honduras. McGregor returned to Scotland in 1820 to induce settlers to buy land in Poyais; he also issued banknotes on his non-existent bank. After the deaths of many settlers and McGregor's realization that no more money would be made from his scheme, he prevailed upon Venezuela to grant him a salary based on his former service. He died in Caracas in 1845. The artist may be Simon Jacques Rochard, French miniaturist, 1788-1872.
Time Period:
1801-1850
References:
Alfred Hasbrouck, Gregor McGregor and the Colonization of Poyais, between 1820 and 1824, The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Nov., 1927), pp. 438-459
Provenance/Donor:
Acquired in 1978.
Owner and copyright:
©John Carter Brown Library, Box 1894, Brown University, Providence, R.I. 02912
geographic area:
Spanish America
Subject Area:
Portraits
Subject headings:
McGregor, Gregor--Portraits
His Highness Gregor Cazique of Poyais
