Gregor MacGregor
British soldier, adventurer and confidence trickster (1786-1845) · United Kingdom · On the map · Died at 58
Gregor MacGregor 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".
Gregor MacGregor is read about 307 times a day, in 16 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 6 November 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 104 days, one point a day.
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Photos 11
A romanticised depiction of a MacGregor clansman, by R R McIan
Josefa Lovera MacGregor, painted by Charles Lees in 1821
Battlements at Cartagena de Indias, where MacGregor took part in the defence against Spanish attackers in 1815
Part of the fort at Porto Bello, Panama, where MacGregor abandoned his troops led by Colonel William Rafter in April 1819![An engraving from Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, purporting to depict the "port of Black River in the Territory of Poyais"[110]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/View_of_the_port_of_Black_River_in_the_Territory_of_Poyais.jpg/1280px-View_of_the_port_of_Black_River_in_the_Territory_of_Poyais.jpg)
An engraving from Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, purporting to depict the "port of Black River in the Territory of Poyais"[110]
A Bank of Poyais "dollar", printed in Scotland. MacGregor bartered these worthless notes to his would-be settlers, taking their real British money in exchange.
Carte de la Neustrie showing the (fictional) towns of Sidon, Tyr, Asylum, Refugium, Eden and SertoriaAbout this person
Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822-23 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.