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Topic: Poyais

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	Gregor MacGregor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Poyais was a fictional Central American country and the creation of its supposed cazique Gregor MacGregor who in the 1820s used it to entice investment and even colonization.
		Native chief King George Frederick of the Mosquito Shore and Nation had given him the territory of Poyais, 12,500 mileÂ² (32,400 kmÂ²) of fertile land with untapped resources, a small number of settlers of British origin, and cooperative natives eager to please.
		An office for the Legation of the Territory of Poyais was opened at Dowgate Hill in the City.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Gregor_MacGregor (2055 words)

	Gregor MacGregor - Open Encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Poyais was 1820's fraudulent Central American country and creation of its supposed cazique Gregor MacGregor who used it to entice investment and even colonization.
		Poyais was told to be very anglophile region with already existing infrastructure, untapped gold and silver mines and large amounts of fertile soil ready to be settled.
		On September 10 1822 the Honduras Packet departed from the Port of London with 70 would-be-settlers aboard.
	open-encyclopedia.com /Poyais (2028 words)

	Scotland on Sunday - The Review - The land that never was (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		The place was called Poyais, and, according to advertisements authorised by its government, it was "a free and independent state situated on the mountainous side of the Bay of Honduras; three or four daysâ sail from Jamaica; 30 hours from the British Settlement of Belize...
		Poyais was apparently blessed with fertile land, abundant timber and other natural resources, a mild and healthy climate, and friendly natives with a high regard for the British, who had once maintained a small, unofficial colony there.
		Like all the Poyais settlers, Colonel Hall had been duped by MacGregor, and when he returned to Black River - having failed to obtain help - he made it clear to his companions in misfortune that they were on their own.
	scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com /thereview.cfm?id=127712003 (2263 words)

	Poyais (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Native chief King George Frederick of the Mosquito Shore and Nation had given himthe territory of Poyais, 12,500 square miles of fertile land with untapped resources, small amount of settlers of British originand cooperative natives eager to please.
		Poyais was told to bevery anglophile region with already existing infrastructure, untappedgold and silver mines and large amounts of fertile soil ready to be settled.
		However, investors were now more careful and somebody circulated a handbill that warned against investing in "Poyais humbug".MacGregor had to pass the most of the unsold certificates to a consortium of speculators with an undisclosed sum.
	www.therfcc.org /poyais-178233.html (1944 words)

	David Sinclair - An interview with author
		The Poyais deception, and the many other frauds and confidence tricks we can think of, illustrate both how easy it is to exploit that faith and the dangers of people believing what they want to believe, rather than considering what might or might not be true, in pursuit of their dreams.
		What places Poyais firmly in its period is the fact that large parts of the world remained unexplored or little known, and it was not unusual for "new" territories suddenly to be brought to the attention of people living thousands of miles away.
		Poyais was a country no one had heard of, with no economic history, and yet, according to MacGregor, it was home to rich merchants, a sophisticated banking and monetary system, and a capital city whose architecture might rival Paris or London.
	www.bookbrowse.com /author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=967 (1723 words)

	Cabinet Magazine Online - New Foundlands
		Granting himself the title “His Highness Gregor, Cazique of Poyais,” MacGregor traveled to Britain in 1821 and was received with all the hoopla that accompanies a visiting head of state.
		Poyais land offices were set up in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, and he even managed to charm the London Stock exchange into advancing him a 200,000 pound loan for investment in the new state.
		The Territory of Poyais displayed many of the themes that would appear in micro-nations for the next century-and-a-half: Firstly, that the love of money is usually a significant incentive in a micro-nation’s foundation.
	www.cabinetmagazine.org /issues/18/newfoundlands.php (2976 words)

	The Land That Never Was: Sir Gregor Macgregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in History (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Descriptions of Poyais made it especially attractive for the times; there was speculation that a canal would be dug to unite the Atlantic and Pacific, and the region was going to be a new world economic center.
		The Cazique (Prince) of Poyais himself was in London and Paris in the 1820's, and he and his wife were was greeted by the rich and powerful, and bankers and investors were eager to befriend him by making money from his country.
		The title brought with it thousands of square miles in the Territory of Poyais, and as Cazique, he was required by the King to govern the territory in the interests of its native inhabitants.
	www.enotalone.com /books/0306813092.html (1679 words)

	He promised them paradise, sent them to hell É yet died a hero. After 200 years, the incredible story can be told ...
		Poyais, they had been told, was Òone of the most healthy and beautiful spots in the worldÓ.
		He subsequently took part in a variety of South American raids, all of which were characterised by arrogance Ð in one venture to Haiti he stole a ship and renamed it El MacGregor Ð and the fact they ended in ignominy.
		One of his ancestors had been lucky to escape with his life after participatingÊinÊtheÊdisastrous Darien empire-building scheme of the 1690s, which was estimated to have wiped out half of the capital available in Scotland and killed two-thirds of the settlers who travelled to the Isthmus of Panama intent on a new life.
	www.sundayherald.com /30748 (1386 words)

	Micronation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		By far the most successful of these was the Territory of Poyais, invented by Scottish adventurer and South American independence hero Gregor MacGregor in the early 19th Century.
		MacGregor's appointed diplomatic representatives were even received at the Court of St. James's, and thousands of investors subsequently parted with hundreds of thousands of pounds (equivalent to many millions today) in exchange for Poyaisian bonds, land grants, and official government appointments and commissions.
		The hoax was exposed when several shiploads of immigrants arrived at "Poyais" to find a fetid, uninhabited swamp instead of the thriving European-style metropolis that MacGregor's guidebooks and maps had led them to expect.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Micronation (3717 words)

	Clan Gregor History - Amelia Island
		Poyais was extravagantly described as a land of cathedrals, public buildings and banks, with all the other trappings of a civilised nation.
		Gauger, a banker from the City of London who was excited at the prospect of becoming the first manager of the Bank of Poyais, and a Scottish shoemaker equally entranced at the thought that he was to be the Official Shoemaker to the Princess of Poyais.
		The great, prosperous nation of Poyais had all been an elaborate illusion, a heartless fraud committed on men and women from hard-working backgrounds who had dared to hope for a better life in the Americas.
	www.clangregor.org /Poyais (1672 words)

	Gregor MacGregor Cazique Of Poyais Eager Settlers (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Poyais was told to be very anglophile region with already existing infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of interconnected structural elements that provide the framework for supporting the entire structure.
		For instance, software engineering tools are sometimes described as part of the infrast, untapped gold and silver mines and large amounts of fertile soil ready to be settled.
		Technically the Port of London consists of all the tidal portion of the River Thames from Margate on the south coast, and Clacton-on-Sea on the north, through to Teddington, a with 70 would-be-settlers aboard.
	www.masterliness.com /a/Poyais.htm (2348 words)

	Askaroo : Poyais (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Poyais was a fictional Central American country and the creation of its supposed
		Poyais was told to bevery anglophile region with
		Poyais and that he had met with French Prime Minister Count de Villele.
	www.askaroo.com /info/Poyais.html (1563 words)

	Gregor_MacGregor (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Gregor MacGregor came from Latin America to London in 1820 and pronounced that he had been created ''cazique'' (or prince) of the ''' principality of Poyais''', independent region on the Bay of Honduras.
		On August 18 1825 he issued a ï¿½300.00 loan with 2,5% interest through the London bank of Thomas Jenkins & Company.
		He issued a loan worth ï¿½800.000 as 20-year bonds with Thomas Jenkins & Company as broker s.
	copernicus.subdomain.de /Poyais (2050 words)

	Book history sale (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		If either Poyais or Sir Gregor's impressive credentials were unfamiliar, the potential settlers might have picked up Thomas Strangeways's Sketch of the Mosquito Shore (a reference, according to accounts of the day, to a cluster of small nearshore islands and rock formations--not to bugs), published that same year.
		Investors were impressed not only by the promise of easy wealth but by the romance of a tropical paradise where they could plant the flag of Anglo-Saxon culture in the heart of Spanish territory.
		It was only after the sea-weary travelers from the two voyages had been summarily dumped on the beach, and the chartered ships had disappeared over the horizon, that the luckless immigrants turned around and saw what they had bought.
	sale.998guide.com /book-history-sale (620 words)

	The Scotsman - S2 Weekend - Scam - or a jungle bungle? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Gregor MacGregor was now, he said, the elected cacique of an unexploited, healthy and immensely fertile area of the Mosquito Coast named Poyais.
		He was especially keen that his fellow Scots avail themselves of the opportunity in part-compensation for their traumatic national disgrace at the Gulf of Darien, a couple of days down the coast from Poyais, 130 years earlier.
		He certainly boosted the paradise of Poyais in terms that would be unacceptable to the Advertising Standards Authority, but the Georgians were notoriously lax in such matters.
	thescotsman.scotsman.com /s2.cfm?id=184022003 (794 words)

	Radio National Breakfast
		In 1823, ship after ship set sail from Scotland and England, full of hundreds of enthusiastic would-be settlers, hungry to begin new lives in the promised land of Poyais.
		Poyais was in the heart of Central America, a land of rich resources - gold, magnificent timbers, medicinal plants, and spices - all ready for the taking.
		It boasted an ideal climate and a 'peaceful and industrious' indigenous population, who were keen for colonisation.
	www.abc.net.au /rn/talks/brkfast/stories/s1133709.htm (121 words)

	poyais (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Poyais, the name he had chosen for âhis countryâ.
		The Poyais settlers were no more gullible than any other people, before or...
		This earthly paradise was called the Territory of Poyais, and it was described as 'a free and independent state situated on the mountainous side of the Bay...
	poyais.networklive.org (290 words)

	A visit to Poyais by Brian Easton \| New Zealand Listener
		Its writer, David Sinclair, is a reputable English financial journalist with non-fiction books to his credit (notably The Pound: A Biography), but belongs to a profession that often has a hankering for fiction.
		The issue was possible because there was a Latin American speculative bubble, in which the newly formed countries of the time were issuing bonds on generous terms.
		Subscribers lost their money, but Poyais bonds are unique in the London financial market's history for being issued by a non-existent country.
	www.listener.co.nz /printable,279.sm (520 words)

	Robin Kirk
		Among the elements he used to convince investors was a 350-page guidebook, maps, labor contracts (he "hired" clerks and doctors and shopkeepers and farmers and lawyers and a banker and even a manager for the nonexistent theater), testimonials from people who claimed to have spent time there and even Poyaisian "land offices" in British towns.
		All told, 180 settlers and their children died, either in the missing Poyais or after they were evacuated to Belize.
		Later, the name Poyais became synonymous with greed, gullibility and fraud, used by wits in plays and books that both skewered and celebrated MacGregor's exploits.
	www.robinkirk.com /book-reviews.html (3792 words)

	Greetings from Poyais, wish it were here / 19th century con man bilks investors in made-up Central American paradise
		Poyais -- a paradise by any other name would smell as sweet.
		The glitch: Poyais was a fiction, the brainchild-turned-hell-spawn of Gregor MacGregor -- fantasist, confidence trickster, dandy and bon vivant with a taste for titles and palms itching for lucre.
		It is a tale as pungent as the spices of Poyais, if only there was a Poyais.
	www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/18/RVGL6463UM1.DTL (877 words)

	Persevere :: Leith Community Portal (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		The bond, signed by a man claiming to be the country's President, General MacGregor, would invest the speculative capital of the purchaser in this new country and its capital city, St Joseph.
		In 1823 General Sir Gregor MacGregor, self-proclaimed Cazique of Poyais, visited Britain to encourage Scottish emigration to what he described as a thriving population who had found their fortune on the streets of St Joseph and in the gold mines of the balmy country that surrounded it.
		One Scot swapped his sterling for Poyaisian dollars, bought some bonds in the country (like the one shown here) and boarded ship in Leith with a promise that he was to become the director of the St Joseph Opera House.
	persevere.lineages.co.uk /content/view/2047/2 (511 words)

	The Years of British presence
		By the end of the sixteen century The San Juan River (as the Desaguadero was subsequently named) was frequently used as a Spanish trade route between Nombre de Dios, Panama, and the Nicaraguan lake plain.
		At the mouth of The Black River, where the first contingent of colonists landed (they never ventured beyond the coast, although the lands in The Poyais grant extended far to the interior), there were no houses or church, as they had been promised awaited them - only unbroken forest to the water's edge.
		The Poyais currency was bogus and not acceptable, and there was no money to meet these payments nor to buy food from the indians.
	www.manfut.org /cronologia/british.html (7085 words)

	Audacious brassy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Brassy they had been attracted by promises of a land mild in climate rich in natural resources, of a capital city and government on the European model when they would feel at home, and easy wealth with only moderate effort.
		Brassy in the opening section of the book, Sinclair introduces us to some of MacGregor's victims as they set sail with high hopes only to find a jungle nightmare on their arrival at their new "home." When things seem to be at their worst for the group, Sinclair leaves them to tell MacGregor's tale.
		Brassy sinclair follows MacGregor back to London, where he launches the Poyais scheme, playing on the explosion of interest in South America as a untapped market and resource.
	www.nevarts.com /audacious (1886 words)

	A rogue and his domain - The Washington Times: Non-Fiction Review (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		He had paid his army in self-issued "Amelia dollars." This dirty but successful ploy must have been the inspiration for his ultimate scam: Poyais.
		Poyais, MacGregor informed the receptive British public in 1821, was a small country in the region of the Mosquito Coast in Central America.
		It had a European-style capital city, St. Joseph, an enlightened government headed by MacGregor himself ("His Highness Gregor, Cazique of Poyais"), a hard-working and friendly native population and abundant natural resources.
	washingtontimes.com /functions/print.php?StoryID=20040207-101912-3970r (1261 words)

	Hoax Forum Topic: Poyais (1820s)
		The Poyais scheme basically involved a colony in Central America which advertised for colonists willing to settle; it was backed up by almanacs, books of descriptions, vivid drawings, and numerous certificates, plus the name of Sir Gregor MacGregor, a hero of the wars of Bolivar.
		The intricate hierarchy of Poyaisian society MacGregor had told England about was totally invented, as were the almanacs, books, drawings, and certificates - and MacGregor's knighthood and status as a "war hero".
		Dozens of colonists died in the mosquito-infested jungles while looking for the colony and waiting for MacGregor's second convoy; the economy in England plummetted after word got out; and the devious mastermind was jailed for a short amount of time.
	www.museumofhoaxes.com /hoax/forum/forum_comments/1853 (334 words)

	Bogus Prince held court at Wanstead (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		City financiers as well as staid Wanstead locals were all taken in when Gregor MacGregor, a soldier of fortune, held court at Oak Hall as the self-styled prince of a legendary "sovereign state" called Poyais, on the eastern coastline of South America.
		Needless to say, as the state of Poyais existed only in the imagination of this crafty Highland opportunist, none of the investors ever benefited from their support of this arch-imposter.
		The following text is taken from an article penned by the renowned Wanstead historian Winifred Eastment, that appeared in the January 1969 edition of Essex Countryside Magazine.
	www.wansteadonline.co.uk /pages/history/articles/bogusprince.asp (450 words)

	Amazon.ca: Editorial Reviews Books: The Land That Never Was: Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Sir Gregor MacGregor, a pusillanimous and pompous soldier who fought in the South American wars of liberation, concocted the Territory of Poyais in the early 1820s as a means of getting rich off of land sales and financial speculation.
		Appointing himself "His Highness Gregor, Cazique of Poyais," MacGregor spread word of this purported utopia throughout Britain, describing weather patterns, soil and vegetation, and the government and enviable lack of taxes.
		That is, hundreds of people staked their future and their hard-earned money on relocating to what proved to be a nonexistent country.
	www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/books/0306814110/reviews (519 words)

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