Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rafter

Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Rafter (1790- 1825+?)

Brave lad... All deserving of Eternal Glory.

Brother of William, he lived to tell the tale that the «Mosquito Swamp King confidence trickster« Mac Gregor pulled on the British during the 1820's, the Cacique of Poyais and His Majesty The Inca of New Granada fraud schemes Mac Gregor pulled throughout the years, to no avail, since London society was oblivious to his book. Also the sad story about the abandonment of the the troops led by his brother William, at Porto Bello, Panama and 6 months later, Brig. Gen. Thomas Eyre and a force of 110 men at Rio Hacha, Colombia. Rafter had been in other invasions with Mac Gregor, namely the Floridas where they had occupied the Island of Amelia for about 3 months in 1817, and then had been forced to break through a Spanish blockade their way out to Nassau.

Mac Gregor after abandoning Ltn-Col. William Rafter and his platoon at Porto Bello, bombastically announced his intention to liberate New Granada, but then hesitated. The lack of action, rations or pay for weeks prompted most of the British volunteers to head for home. Mac Gregor's force, which had comprised 900 men at its peak (including officers), had dwindled to no more than 250 by the time he had directed the Amelia and two other vessels to Rio Hacha on September 29th, 1819.

Despite Rafter's book (1), London society remained largely oblivious of Mac Gregor's failures over the past few years, but remembered successes such as his march to Barcelona; similarly his association with the "Die-Hards (the elite regiment he had served under during the Napoleonic Wars, name that was given to the 57th Foot Squadron after he had left ) was recalled, but his dubious early discharge was not. In this climate of a constantly shifting Latin America, where governments rose, fell, and adopted new names from year to year, it did not seem so implausible that there might be a country called Poyais or that a decorated general like Mac Gregor might be its leader. The Cazique became "a great adornment for the dinner tables and ballrooms of sophisticated London", a columnist of the time wrote—rumors abounded that he was partially descended from indigenous royalty. His exotic appeal was enhanced by the arrival of the striking "Princess of Poyais", Josefa (his wife), who had given birth to a girl named Josefa Anna Gregoria at Mac Gregor's sister's home in Ireland. The Mac Gregors received countless social invitations, including an official reception at Guildhall from the Lord Mayor of London.

In hind sight, Michael was trying to warn people of Mac Gregors' perilously scandalous hoaxes, before they became "dangerous and cruel" ones, as what did happen with the "Cacique de Poyais" Scheme (1822-1823), both in England, Scotland and later in France.

(1) Back in London in June 1820, Michael Rafter published his highly censorious account of MacGregor's adventures, Memoirs of Gregor Mac Gregor, dedicating the book to his brother Colonel William Rafter and the troops abandoned at Porto Bello and Rio Hacha. In his summary Rafter speculated that following the latter episode Mac Gregor was "politically, though not naturally dead"—"to suppose", he wrote, "that any person could be induced again to join him in his desperate projects, would be to conceive a degree of madness and folly of which human nature, however fallen, is incapable".

Humans, he did not reflect, are the only creatures capable of making the same mistakes over and over again.

text by Pedro L. Baldo D. April 26th, 2019.