1540-1596
Sir Francis Drake was among the more daring and famous of all the great Elizabethan seafarers. Born into a prosperous family in Devonshire, England, around 1540, Drake’s life as a sailor stemmed from his family connections with William Hawkins, a Plymouth merchant who had experience of piracy against the French and Spanish, and who put Drake to sea together with his own sons. By the early 1560s Drake had joined his cousin, John Hawkins (1532-1595), to undertake slaving voyages to Africa and then to the Americas. In 1568 he was part of an English fleet that was virtually destroyed by the Spanish in the Caribbean and his anger at what he perceived to be Spanish treachery initiated a life-long struggle with Spanish interests. However, there is no evidence that Drake was driven by religious zeal, even though his father was a cleric; hope of enrichment by trade and piracy were always the main motives for Drake’s activities. As an experienced seaman Drake was given a privateer’s license by Queen Elizabeth (15331603) to plunder Spanish treasure ships returning to Europe from the Caribbean. He quickly gained a reputation as the scourge of the Spanish and Portuguese by attacking their vessels and ports as he saw fit. Between 1572 and 1573 Drake traversed Spanish Panama from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean with the help of local runaway slaves (cimarrons) who guided and supported his expedition out of resentment toward the Spanish. Drake subsequently captured the Spanish silver train at Nombre de Dios in March 1573 and returned to England with a ship full of treasure.
Drake’s most famous exploit was his circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580. Initially traveling with five ships, only one, the Pelican, was left as Drake entered the Pacific Ocean in October 1578. Rather than heading west into the Pacific, Drake sailed north up the coast of South America attacking Spanish settlements in Peru and capturing treasure ships, eventually reaching as far north as California (or ”Nova Albion” as he named it). Only now did Drake head west, eventually reaching the East Indies where he loaded up with valuable spices. His return to England in 1580, with a wealth of treasure and spices on board the renamed Golden Hind, caused a sensation and earned Drake a knighthood. Drake continued to hamper Spanish ambitions in the Atlantic throughout the 1580s. In 1585 he burned down the town of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, and a year later captured San Domingo in Hispaniola. On his way back from the Caribbean in 1586 he stopped at Roanoke Island, the new English colony in North Carolina, but instead of finding a prosperous settlement he ended up taking the half-starved settlers back to England. In 1587 he ”singed the King of Spain’s beard” with a daring attack at Cadiz, and played a crucial part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, including capturing the Spanish flagship Rosario. He remained active in the Atlantic until his death from dysentery off the coast of Panama in 1596.
Drake’s exploits significantly raised the profile of the English in the Atlantic basin, demonstrating to the Spanish that their monopoly could be broken and to the English that both financial and imperial gains were possible in the Americas. The contribution his voyages
