Thomas Modyford

[citation needed] Modyford emigrated to Barbados as a young man with other family members in 1647, in the opening stages of the English Civil War.

In Jamaica Sir Thomas used a labour force of twenty-eight indentured servants from England, and a large number of African slaves.

In the second half of the 1660s, Modyford waged war against the Karmahaly Maroons, led by Juan de Serras, but the governor failed to subdue this community of runaway slaves.

[16] The issuance of the aforementioned privateer commission to Morgan, who used it to attack and plunder the Spanish possession of Panama, resulted in revocation of Modyford's governorship and arrest in 1671.

King Charles II of England, in desperate need of Spain as an ally in an impending war with the Dutch, had ordered the arrest and revocation merely to appease a Spanish Crown, furious over the destruction of their prize city.