The early days of Henry Alfonso Medillo are essentially unknown but, based upon British Admiralty records, it is believed he was born in the Canary Islands in the mid-1650's and went to sea aboard a British warship as a cabin-boy at the age of eight.

Until his name resurfaces in the histories and tales of the great age of pirates, nothing more of him is known.

As a very young man, Henry learned his pirating from Henry Morgan, the famed English pirate-privateer who bedeviled the Spaniard in the 17th century Caribbean. According to documents purported to be Morgan's now held in Trinity College's Special Collections, Medillo had risen to be one of Morgan's trusted lieutenants by 1668 and fought beside him on his rampage through Panama and his subsequent destruction of the Spanish fleet sent to stop them.

Unlike his comrades, Henry did not squander his share of captured booty. Instead, after his first experience "on the account," as it was called, he carefully invested his earnings with a trusted Danish-born banker in Jamaica named Moishe Feinbind who had sugar plantations and rum distilleries in play on the Amsterdam markets.

Medillo gained his commander's undying comradeship during the bleak but triumphant assault on Panama City in 1671. Morgan's jungle-weary force (technically pirates because of a recent peace treaty between England and Spain) sacked the rich town and scattered a much larger Spanish army.

It was not Henry's battle courage that most endeared him to Morgan (although that courage was great indeed). Rather, it was Henry's procurement of over a hundred mules to carry the plunder back to the ships. Of the mules, more than half suspiciously "disappeared." Legend has it that these beasts of burden and their precious cargos vanished into Morgan and Henry Medillo's pockets.

When looking for a place to pass his golden years, Henry knew that, if passersby survived Poco Cabesa's freak currents and off-shore winds, most gave the great guano fields of the island's south and west a relieved look and kept on sailing.

But on the northeast (usually hidden by sea-mists) he discovered a small harbor hidden by the bulk of Cape Medillo and protected by treacherous reefs (which produced perfect swells). Just to be on the safe side, he built a nice fort, too.

Henry and his followers' experiences in "exile" were completely contrary to those of Fletcher Christian and his men on their Pitcairn hideout. A healthy, free-living colony and then a kingdom grew up in Medillo Grande, centered around their long-lived patriarchal ruler, the pursuit of happiness, and the island's anonymity.

Then and now life included everything from coconut harvesting to coral sculpturing to catching waves on hand-hewn longboards (the legacy of a Hawaiian convert on his way to Massachusetts whose ship foundered off Cape Medillo in 1831 -- he remained and his descendants surf on today).

Such occasional castaways (male and female) and a carefully compiled genealogical record avoided the usual results of inbreeding. In fact, the "breed" quickly took a matriarchal bent due to Henry's three wives bearing him fourteen innately intelligent and comely daughters.

After Bonny's capture by the British, Henry, risking his own safety, joined with other "reformed" pirates in arranging for that fair young and pregnant pirate's pardon from the noose in Kingston, allowing her to marry a fine doctor and ship to the American colonies and a new life.

Throughout the 18th century, Medillo Grande became a stopping spot for those still practicing Henry's old profession. Honor forbade his turning away from these "soulmates" and his hospitality replenished the belly and spirit of many a buccaneer (and put more than a bit of gold in Henry's purse).

This also meant that Henry acquired the things (living and otherwise) that rootless pirates did not want to keep. Among the human things left behind were artists, writers, and other creative types of little value to scalawags. Fortunately for these castaways, Henry fancied himself a bit of an artiste or, at least, a patron of the arts, and a custom arose of offering sanctuary for these sort of folk (if the pirates did not expect too much for them).

Henry died in 1756, apparently over 100 years of age, surrounded by his weeping and extensive family. Whether he knew it or not, he had sown the seed (many of them, in fact) of a lineage that would rule and inhabit this marvelous paradise called Medillo Grande right up to the present day.

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