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Francis Drake

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For other uses, see the Elizabethan naval commander.

There is also evidence that "Nova Albion" was at Comox on Vancouver Island. This evidence is presented in Samuel Bawlf's The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake. It is known that Drake and his men sailed north from Nova Albion in search of a western opening to the Northwest Passage, a potentially valuable asset to the English at the time. During this venture the sailors accurately mapped the westward trend of the north-western corner of the North American continent, present-day British Columbia and Alaska. They had a rough voyage among the islands of the Alaskan panhandle, and were forced to turn back due to freezing weather.

Bawlf argues that the furthest north that Drake's ship reached was 56°N, much higher than was originally recorded. The reason for this false record, Bawlf writes, was for political reasons: competition with the Spanish in the Americas. Queen Elizabeth wanted to keep any information on the Northwest Passage secret. Unfortunately, she did such a good job on the cover-up that the location of Nova Albion and the highest latitude the expedition reached is still a source of controversy today, giving Drake and his men less credit for their great accomplishments than they probably deserve.

Drake's brother endured a long period of torture in South America at the hands of Spaniards, who sought intelligence from him about Francis Drake's voyage.

His voyage to the west coast of North America is important for a number of reasons. When he landed, his chaplain held Holy Communion; this was one of the first Protestant church services in the New World (though French Huguenots had founded an ill-fated colony in Florida in the 1560s). Drake was seen to be gaining prestige at the expense of the Papacy.

What is certain of the extent of Drake's claim and territorial challenge to the Papacy and the Spanish crown is that his port was founded somewhere north of Point Loma; that all contemporary maps label all lands above the Kingdoms of New Spain and New Mexico as "Nova Albion", and that all colonial claims made from the East Coast in the 1600s were "From Sea to Sea". The colonial claims were established with full knowledge of Drake's claims, which they reinforced, and remained valid in the minds of the English colonists on the Atlantic coast when those colonies became free states. Maps made soon after would have "Nova Albion" written above the entire northern frontier of New Spain. These territorial claims became important during the negotiations that ended the Mexican-American War between the United States and Mexico.

Continuing the journey

A modern replica of Drake's Golden Hind

Drake now headed westward across the Pacific, and a few months later reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the south west Pacific, in eastern modern-day Indonesia. While there, the Golden Hind became caught on a reef and was almost lost. After three days of waiting for expedient tides and dumping cargo, the barque was miraculously freed. Drake and his men befriended a sultan king of the Moluccas and involved themselves in some intrigues with the Portuguese there.

He made multiple stops on his way toward the tip of Africa, eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Sierra Leone by July 22, 1580. On September 26 the Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth with Drake and 59 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures. The Queen's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year. Hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth (and the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520), Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth aboard the Golden Hind on April 4, 1581, and became the Mayor of Plymouth and a Member of Parliament.

The Queen ordered all written accounts of Drake's voyage to be considered classified information, and its participants sworn to silence on pain of death; her aim was to keep Drake's activities away from the eyes of rival Spain.

"The "Drake Jewel Portrait, by Marcus Gheeraerts, 1591 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich)

On his return Drake presented the Queen with a jewel token commemorating the circumnavigation. It bore a ship with an ebony hull, enameled gold taken from a prize off the Pacific coast of Mexico, and an African diamond. For her part, the Queen gave Drake a jewel with her portrait, an uncommon gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake sported proudly in his portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts, 1591. On one side is a state portrait of Elizabeth by the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard, on the other a sardonyx cameo of double portrait busts, a regal woman and an African male. The "Drake Jewel", as it is known today, is a rare documented survivor among sixteen-century jewels; it is conserved at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.[1]

The Spanish Armada

Main article: Spanish Armada

War broke out between Spain and England in 1585. Drake sailed to the New World and sacked the ports of Santo Domingo and Cartagena. On the return leg of the voyage, he captured the Spanish fort of San Augustín in Spanish Florida. These exploits encouraged Philip II of Spain to order the planning for an invasion of England.

In a pre-emptive strike, Drake "singed the beard of the King of Spain" by sailing a fleet into Cádiz, one of Spain's main ports, and occupied the harbour for three days, capturing six ships and destroying 31 others as well as a large quantity of stores. The attack delayed the Spanish invasion by a year.

The Spanish Armada

Drake was vice admiral in command of the English fleet (under Lord Howard of Effingham) when it overcame the Spanish Armada that was attempting to invade England in 1588. As the English fleet pursued the Armada up the English Channel in closing darkness, Drake put duty second and captured the Spanish galleon Rosario, along with Admiral Pedro de Valdés and all his crew. The Spanish ship was known to be carrying substantial funds to pay the Spanish Army in the Low Countries. Drake's ship had been leading the English pursuit of the Armada by means of a lantern. By extinguishing this for the capture, Drake put the fleet into disarray overnight. This exemplified Drake's ability, as a privateer, to suspend strategic purpose if a tactical profit were on offer.

On the night of 29 July, along with Howard, Drake organised fire-ships, causing the majority of the Spanish captains to break formation and sail out of Calais into the open sea. The next day, Drake was present at the Battle of Gravelines.

The most famous (but probably apocryphal) anecdote about Drake relates that, prior to the battle, he was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards. This battle was the high point of the remarkable mariner's career. In fact tidal conditions caused some delay in the launching of the English fleet as the Spanish drew nearer[citation needed] so it is easy to see how a popular myth of Drake's cavalier attitude to the Spanish threat may have originated.

In 1589, the year after defeating the Armada, Drake was sent to support the rebels in Portugal, which opposed the personal union of Spain and Portugal under King Philip II of Spain in 1580. En route, he sacked the city of La Coruña in Spain. This massive combined naval and land expedition (see "English Armada") was a dismal failure, attributed to a grievous lack of organization, poor training, and paltry supplies. It was a crucial turning point in the Anglo-Spanish War (1585).

Final years

Drake's seafaring career continued into his mid-fifties. In 1595, following a disastrous campaign against Spanish America, where he suffered several defeats in a row, he unsuccessfully attacked San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Spanish gunners from El Morro Castle shot a cannonball through the cabin of Drake's flagship, but he survived. In 1596, he died of dysentery, at age 56 while anchored off the coast of Puerto Bello, Panama where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin, near Portobelo.

Cultural impact

Sir Francis Drake, circa 1581. This portrait may have been copied from Hilliard's miniature—note that the shirt is the same — and the somewhat oddly proportioned body added by an artist who did not have access to Drake. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Drake's exploits as an explorer have become an irrevocable part of the world's subconsciousness, particularly in Europe. Numerous stories and fictional adaptations of his adventures exist to this day. Considered a hero in England, it is said that if England is ever in peril, beating Drake's Drum will cause Drake to return to save the country. This is a variation of the sleeping hero folktale.

Drake's adventures, though less known in the United States, still have some effect. For instance, a major east-west road in Marin County, California is named Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It connects Point San Quentin on San Francisco Bay with Point Reyes and Drakes Bay. Each end is near a site considered by some to be Drake's landing place.

In 1961 the television series Sir Francis Drake debuted on ITV, starring Terence Morgan in the title role.

Controversies

Slave Trading

Drake and Sir John Hawkins made the first English slave-trading expeditions, making their fortunes through the abduction and transportation of West African people, and then exchanging them for high-value goods. Around 1563 Drake first sailed west to the Spanish Main, on a ship owned by his uncle John Hawkins, with a cargo of people forcibly removed from the coast of West Africa. The Englishmen sold their African captives into slavery in Spanish plantations. These activities (which he continued) undermine the tendency to view Drake as simply an English 'hero'. In general, the kidnap and forced transportation of people was considered to be a criminal offence under English law at the time, although legal protection did not necessarily extend to foreigners, non-Protestants or criminals. Hawkins' own account of his actions (in which Drake took part) cites two sources for their victims. One was military attacks on African towns and villages (with the assistance of rival African warlords). The other was piracy against Portuguese slave ships. Britain's slave trade later came to be regarded as by far the most terrible stain on the moral history of the nation, and Drake's role in laying the technical, legal and political foundations for the slave trade cannot be overlooked.

Conflict in the Caribbean

During his early days as a slave-trader, Drake took an immediate dislike to the Spanish, at least in part due to their Catholicism and inherent mistrust of non-Spaniards. His hostility is said to have increased over an incident at San Juan de Ulua in 1568, when, while delivering his African victims, a Spanish fleet took him by surprise. Although he was in an enemy port, it was conventional for the Spanish to 'surrender' for a few hours in order to purchase control of the kidnap victims. Thus it was unusual for a fleet of enemy warships to appear out of the blue. Drake survived the attack largely because of his ability to swim. From then on, he devoted his life to working against the Spanish Empire; the Spanish considered him an outlaw pirate (see also Piracy in the Caribbean), but to England he was simply a sailor and privateer. On his second such voyage, he fought a battle against Spanish forces that cost many English lives but earned him the favour of Queen Elizabeth

The most celebrated of Drake's adventures along the Spanish Main was his capture of the Spanish Silver Train at Nombre de Dios in March 1573. With a crew including many French privateers and Maroons — African slaves who had escaped the Spanish — Drake raided the waters around Darien (in modern Panama) and tracked the Silver Train to the nearby port of Nombre de Dios. He made off with a fortune in gold, but had to leave behind another fortune in silver, because it was too heavy to carry back to England. It was during this expedition that he climbed a high tree in the central mountains of the Isthmus of Panama and thus became the first Englishman to see the Pacific Ocean. He remarked as he saw it that he hoped that one day an Englishman would be able to sail it, which he would years later as part of his circumnavigation of the world.

When Drake returned to Plymouth on August 9 1573, a mere 30 Englishmen returned with him, every one of them rich for life. However, Queen Elizabeth, who had up to this point sponsored and encouraged Drake's raids, signed a temporary truce with King Philip II of Spain, and so was unable to officially acknowledge Drake's accomplishment.

Though considered a hero in England in his own time and regarded as a significant historical figure even now, Spanish history perceives him as a mere pirate who mercilessly plundered Spanish New World shipping and harbours. Drake, "el Draque", as he was referred to by the Spanish, was used as a bogeyman for centuries after his "vicious" raids.[2]

Atrocities in Ireland

In 1575 Drake was present at Rathlin Island, part of the English plantation effort in Ulster when 600 men, women and children were massacred after surrendering. See Plantations of Ireland#Early Plantations.

Francis Drake was in charge of the ships which transported John Norris' Troops to Rathlin Island, commanding a small frigate called "Falcon", with a total complement of 25. At the time of the massacre, he was charged with the task of keeping Scottish vessels from bringing reinforcements to Rathlin Island. The people who were massacred were, in fact, the families of Sorley Boy MacDonnell's followers.[3]

The case of Thomas Doughty

Main article: Thomas Doughty (explorer)

In 1578, Drake had his co-commander Thomas Doughty beheaded with accusations of witchcraft in a mock trial.[4]

Footnotes

  1. ^ "The Drake Jewel"
  2. ^ See especially Drake's Spanish nickname and its mythic power to frighten naughty children. John Cummins, Francis Drake: The Lives of a Hero, page 273. ISBN 0312163657.
  3. ^ John Sugden, "Sir Francis Drake" Simon Schuster New York, ISBN 0671758632
  4. ^ Stephen Coote, "Drake", Simon Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0743220072

References

  • Bawlf, R. Samuel. The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, 1577-1580.(Douglas & McIntyre, 2003)
  • Coote, Stephen, Drake, Simon & Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0-7432-2007-2.
  • Froude, James Anthony, English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century, London 1896, available as a free eText from Project Gutenberg
  • Hughes-Hallett, Lucy. Heroes: A History of Hero Worship. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, New York, 2004. ISBN 1-4000-4399-9.
  • Mattingly, Garett, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, ISBN 0-395-08366-4 – a detailed account of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, it received a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize committee in 1960.
  • Merideth, Mrs. Charles, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, during a residence in that colony from 1839 to 1844; BOUND WITH: "Life of Drake" by John Barrow (1st ed, 1844) [xi, 164; and xii, 187 pp. respectfully]
  • Rodger, N.A.M. The Safeguard of the Sea; A Naval History of Britain 660-1649. (London, 1997).
  • Turner, Michael. (2005). In Drake's Wake - The Early Voyages, Paul Mould Publishing. ISBN 978-1904959212

See also

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