He had no money to pay his passage, and he therefore followed the usual custom of those days and sold himself for a term of three years to an agent who was taking out a number of men to work on the plantations.

In the places where these men were enlisted they were termed servants, but when they got to the new world they were generally called slaves and treated as such.
When young Morgan reached the Barbadoes he was resold to a planter, and during his term of service he probably worked a good deal harder and was treated much more roughly than any of the laborers on his father's farm.
But as soon as he was a free man he went to Jamaica, and there were few places in the world where a young man could be more free and more independent than in this lawless island.
Here were rollicking and blustering "flibustiers," and here the young man determined to study piracy.

He was not a sailor and hunter who by the force of circumstances gradually became a buccaneer, but he deliberately selected his profession, and immediately set to work to acquire a knowledge of its practice.

There was a buccaneer ship about to sail from Jamaica, and on this Morgan enlisted.

He was a clever fellow and very soon showed himself to be a brave and able sailor.
After three or four voyages he acquired a reputation for remarkable coolness in emergencies, and showed an ability to take advantage of favorable circumstances, which was not possessed by many of his comrades.