Gregor MacGregor

Uncommon card · No. 136280

Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer and con man who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates. About 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–1823 to find only an untouched jungle in Honduras; more than half of them died. MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history. From the Clan Gregor, MacGregor was commissioned into the British Army in 1803 and participated in the Peninsular War before being discharged in 1810. He joined the republican side in the Venezuelan War of Independence in 1812, quickly became a general and, over the next four years, operated against the Spanish on behalf of both Venezuela and its neighbour New Granada. His successes included a difficult...

Read on Wikipedia · Image George Watson (†1837), Public domain