Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake, Vice Adm, (c. 1540 – January 28, 1596) was an English privateer, navigator, naval pioneer, naval raider, politician, and civil engineer of the Elizabethan period. He was the first Englishman (and the first captain of a non-Spanish ship) to circumnavigate the globe. He was second in command of the English fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Circumnavigation of the globe

In 1577, Drake was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth to undertake an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. He set sail from Plymouth, England, in December aboard the Pelican, with four other ships and over 150 men. After crossing the Atlantic two of the ships had to be abandoned on the east coast of South America. Drake crossed from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Magellan Strait, after which a storm blew his ship so far south he almost could have concluded that Tierra del Fuego, the land seen to the south of the Magellan Strait, was not part of a southern continent as was believed at that time, but an archipelago, or group of islands.

Related Topics:
1577 - Elizabeth - Magellan Strait - Tierra del Fuego

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The three remaining ships departed for the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of the continent. This course established Drake's Passage, but the route around the bottom of South America, south of Tierra del Fuego where the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans meet at Cape Horn, was not discovered until 1616.

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A few weeks later Drake made it to the Pacific, however, violent storms destroyed one of the ships and caused another to turn back to England. Drake pushed on in his flagship, now renamed the Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton (after his coat of arms).

Related Topics:
Golden Hind - Christopher Hatton - Coat of arms

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The Golden Hind sailed northward alone along the Pacific coast of South America, attacking Spanish ports like Valparaíso as it went. Some Spanish ships were captured, and Drake made good use of their more accurate charts. On his search for the Northwest Passage Drake may have made it as far as today's US-Canadian border. His account of the voyage describes icy waters. Unable to find the fabled route back to the Atlantic, he turned and headed southward.

Related Topics:
Valparaíso - Northwest Passage

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On June 17, 1579, Drake landed somewhere above Spain's most northerly claim at Point Loma. Drake found an excellent port, landed, repaired and restocked his vessels, then stayed for a time and kept friendly relations with the aboriginal natives. Drake named the port New Albion (New England) and claimed it for England. It is usually assumed that Drake's port was somewhere near the northern San Francisco Bay — anywhere from Bodega to San Pablo Bay. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new lands, fitting a description in Drake's own account, was discovered in Marin County. The so-called Drake's Plate of Brass was later declared a fraud. Although Drake's port has also been theorized to have been at Whale Cove (Oregon), and as far north as Comox, British Columbia, no one knows exactly where it was. Drake's brother endured a long period of torture in South America at the hands of Spaniards who sought intelligence from him about Drake's voyage. The precise location of Drake's port was carefully guarded to keep it secret from the Spaniards, and several of Drake's maps may have been altered to this end. It is unlikely that the riddle of Drake's port will ever be unraveled, for the relevant records at London's Whitehall Palace were burned.

Related Topics:
June 17 - 1579 - Point Loma - New Albion - San Francisco Bay - Marin County - Drake's Plate of Brass - Whale Cove (Oregon) - Comox - British Columbia - South America - London - Whitehall Palace

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It is said that Drake left behind many of his men as a small colony, but planned voyages back to the colony were never realized. The land Drake claimed in the name of the Holy Trinity for the English Crown was Nova Albion — that is in Latin, "New England."

Related Topics:
Trinity - Nova Albion - Latin

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Drake's voyage to the west coast of North America is important for a number of reasons. When Drake landed, his chaplain held Holy Communion, as in the words of Thomas Cranmer, "it is very meet and right and our bounden duty so to do." This was one of the first Protestant church services in all the New World. (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.

Related Topics:
North America - Communion - Thomas Cranmer - Protestant - New World - Huguenots - Papacy

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What is certain of the extent of Drake's claim and territorial challenge to 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 "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 when the colonies became free states. Maps made soon after would have "Nova Albion" written above the entire northern frontier of New Spain. These territorial claims would later become important during the negotiations that ended the Mexican-American War between the United States and Mexico.

Related Topics:
Papacy - Mexican-American War

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Drake now headed westward across the Pacific, and a few months later reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the southwest pacific (east of today's Indonesia).

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He made multiple stops on his way towards 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 crew remaining aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures, the Queen's half-share of the cargo exceeding the rest of the crown’s income for that whole year. Hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth, Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth aboard the Golden Hind, and became the Mayor of Plymouth and a Member of Parliament.

Related Topics:
Cape of Good Hope - Sierra Leone - July 22 - 1580 - September 26

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The Queen ordered all written accounts of Drake's voyage considered top secret, 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.

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