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Gregor MacGregor was born in Scotland in 1786 and died in Venezuela in 1845, was an adventurous soldier and a powerful deceiver. He invented the state of Poyais, a country in Central America that did not exist but that declared itself its ruler.
In 1822 in London, MacGregor managed to persuade several hundred people to cross the Ocean to go to Poyais, causing the death of most of them. Even today he is considered the “King of Deceivers”, the man who managed to create the biggest lie ever created.
He was the son of a naval captain of the British East India Company, who grew up speaking Scottish Gaelic and only later learned English in school.
MacGregor has claimed to have studied for some time at the University of Edinburgh, but there is no evidence in this regard and given his character it is easy to doubt him.
It is known for sure that at the age of 16, shortly before the start of the Napoleonic Wars, he enlisted in the British Army. He married Maria Bowater, the daughter of a wealthy admiral, and also, thanks to her family’s money and fame, made a quick military career. MacGregor became captain in a very short time and then general.
After a few years in Gibraltar, he left the army in 1810 and returned to the United Kingdom. However, in 1811, the death of his wife changed his outlook on life. Without the money and support of her family she was forced in 1812 to leave for Venezuela, at a time when a revolt was taking place against the Spaniards. There he married a cousin of the revolutionary Simon Bolivar and again made a military career, this time in the ranks of the army of the Republic of Venezuela.
He scored several successes and became known as the founder of the Republic of Florida, which lasted as a republic for only a few months. In the summer of 1821, a decade or so after his departure, MacGregor returned to the United Kingdom.
The father was joined by his wife who had arrived from South America to Europe. He said he had returned to London, to attend the coronation of King George IV, on behalf of the state of Poyais. He had produced various documents, a coin, a coat of arms and a flag. He even managed to write a book about that remote place, signed under the pseudonym Thomas Strangeways.
It seems absurd, but perhaps for fear of losing the right investment or simply being deceived by some promises, many people managed to buy Poyais bonds invented by MacGregor. According to estimates made by The Economist, the bonds, all together, are worth four billion euros. Many of the people who were deceived were Scots.
As interest in the land grew, MacGregor raised prices and began selling land and even ended up organizing trips to Poyais. He managed to fill two ships of 250 people that set sail in September 1822 and January 1823. The voyage lasted two months and those who claimed to be finding Poyais unfortunately found nothing.
Many died of starvation or malaria, but some, thanks to contacts with the local population and the support of passing ships, managed to escape. Many died on the way back, others stopped in various Latin American countries, but only about fifty people managed to return to the UK.
“It was clear that they had lived in extreme conditions and looked like ghosts and corpses“, Wrote a Scottish newspaper of the time.
The news that Poyais’s state did not exist spread rapidly, thus helping to cancel the departure of other ships, news that forced MacGregor to flee to Paris, but that even there he tried again to sell Poyais’s idea, but with much little success.
He was arrested in France but acquitted at a later trial. MacGregor returned to Scotland and again tried to get involved in some scams related to Poyais. In 1838, he left for Caracas, where he was again welcomed as a Venezuelan citizen and died there in 1845.
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