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Francis Drake

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History
1500-1750; Historical figures

         Francis Drake
           privateer
   Born About 1541
        Tavistock, Devon
   Died 1596- 01-28
        San Juan, Puerto Rico

   Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral, (c. 1540 – January 28, 1596) was an
   English privateer, navigator, naval pioneer and raider, politician and
   civil engineer of the Elizabethan era, considered by many a pirate. He
   was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada
   in 1588. He died of dysentery while unsuccessfully attacking San Juan,
   Puerto Rico in 1596.

Birth and early years

   Miniature of Drake, age 42 by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581
   Enlarge
   Miniature of Drake, age 42 by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581

   Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, one of two sons of Edmund
   Drake (1518–1585), a Protestant farmer who later became a preacher, and
   his wife Mary Mylwaye. Francis was a grandson of John Drake and
   Margaret Cole. He is often confused with his cousin Francis Drake
   (1573–1634), who was the son of Edmund's older brother, Richard Drake.
   (cf. John White, note 2). His maternal grandfather was Richard Mylwaye.
   John Drake and Margaret Cole were also great-grandparents of Sir Walter
   Raleigh.

   He was reportedly named after his godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl
   of Bedford, and throughout his cousins' lineages are direct connections
   to royalty and famous persons, such as Sir Richard Grenville, Amy
   Grenville, and Geoffrey Chaucer. However, James Froude states, "He told
   Camden that he was of mean extraction. He meant merely that he was
   proud of his parents and made no idle pretensions to noble birth. His
   father was a tenant of the Earl of Bedford, and must have stood well
   with him, for Francis Russell, the heir of the earldom, was the boy's
   godfather."

   As with many of Drake's contemporaries, the exact date of his birth is
   unknown and could be as early as 1535, the 1540 date being extrapolated
   from two portraits: one a miniature painted by Nicholas Hilliard in
   1581 when he was allegedly 42, the other painted in 1594 when he was
   alleged to be 53 according to the 1921/22 edition of the Dictionary of
   National Biography, which quotes Barrow's Life of Drake (1843) p. 5.
   Francis was the second eldest of 12 children; as he was not granted
   legal right to his father's farm, he had to find his own career.

   During the Roman Catholic uprising of 1549, the family was forced to
   flee to Kent. At about the age of 13, Francis took to the sea on a
   cargo barque, becoming master of the ship at the age of 20. He spent
   his early career honing his sailing skills on the difficult waters of
   the North Sea, and after the death of the his captain he became master
   of his own barque. At age 23, Drake made his first voyage to the New
   World under the sails of the Hawkins family of Plymouth, in company
   with his cousin, Sir John Hawkins. Together, Hawkins and Drake made the
   first English slave-trading expeditions, making his fortune through the
   sale of West Africans.

Conflict in the Caribbean

   Around 1563 Drake first sailed west to the Spanish Main, on a ship
   owned by his cousin John Hawkins, with a cargo of slaves from Africa.
   He took an immediate dislike to the Spanish, at least in part due to
   their mistrust of non-Spaniards and the Spaniards' Catholicism. His
   hostility is said to have been increased by an incident at San Juan de
   Ulua in 1568, when, while delivering his load of slaves, a Spanish
   fleet came upon him by surprise. Although he was in his enemy's port,
   it was conventional for the Spanish to 'surrender' for a few hours in
   order to purchase slaves. Thus it was unusual for a fleet of enemy
   warships to appear out of the blue. Drake survived the attack in large
   part 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 Caribbean adventures 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.

   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.

Alleged 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.

   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. (see John
   Sugden, "Sir Francis Drake", Simon+Schuster/New York, ISBN
   0-671-75863-2)

Circumnavigation of the globe

   Sir Francis Drake, circa 1581. After Drake became famous, portraits of
   him were in demand. 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.
   Enlarge
   Sir Francis Drake, circa 1581. After Drake became famous, portraits of
   him were in demand. 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.

Entering the Pacific

   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.

   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 south of Tierra del Fuego around Cape Horn was
   not discovered until 1616. Drake crossed from the Atlantic to the
   Pacific through the Magellan Strait, after which a storm blew his ship
   so far south that he realized that Tierra del Fuego was not part of a
   southern continent, as was believed at that time. This voyage
   established Drake as the first Antarctic explorer, as his furthest
   south of at least 56 degrees (as evidenced by astronomical data quoted
   in Haklyut's "The Principall Navigators", 1589) was not surpassed until
   James Cook's voyage of 1773, and was the first known occasion that any
   explorer had travelled further south than any other human being.

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

Nova Albion

   On June 17, 1579, Drake landed somewhere north of Spain's northern-most
   claim at Point Loma. He found an excellent port, landed, repaired and
   restocked his vessels, then stayed for a time, keeping friendly
   relations with the natives. It is said that he left behind many of his
   men as a small colony, but his planned return voyages to the colony
   were never realized. He claimed the land in the name of the Holy
   Trinity for the English Crown as called Nova Albion — Latin for "New
   England."

   The precise location of the port was carefully guarded to keep it
   secret from the Spaniards, and several of Drake's maps may even have
   been altered to this end. All first hand records from the voyage,
   including logs, paintings and charts were lost when Whitehall Palace
   burned in 1698. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new
   lands, fitting the description in Drake's own account, was discovered
   in Marin County. This so-called Drake's Plate of Brass was later
   declared a hoax.

   Another point often claimed to be Nova Albion is Whale Cove (Oregon),
   although to date there is no evidence to suggest this, other than a
   general resemblance to a single map penned a decade after the landing
   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 colonialists 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 became
   important during the negotiations that ended the Mexican-American War
   between the United States and Mexico.

Continuing the journey

   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 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 bark 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 overall, after Magellan'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 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 Augustíne
   in 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 King of Spain's beard" by
   sailing a fleet into Cadiz, 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.

   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 British fleet as the Spanish drew nearer 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 while again unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, where
   some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. He was buried at sea in
   a lead coffin, near Portobelo, Panama.

Cultural impact

   Drake's exploits as an explorer have become an irrevocable part of the
   world's subconsciousness, particularly in Europe. Numerous legends,
   myths, 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 folk-tale.

   During his circumnavigation of the globe, Drake left a plate upon
   leaving his landing place on the west coast of North America, claiming
   the land for England. In the 1930s, it appeared that Drake's plate had
   been found near San Francisco. Forty years later, scientists confirmed
   that the plate was a hoax, as had been suspected. Later information
   attributed the hoax to E Clampus Vitus.

   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.

   Though England considers him a hero, Spaniards regard him as a cruel
   and bloodthirsty pirate who used to sack defenceless Spanish harbours.
   Drake, or Draco (" dragon") or "El Draqui," to use Spanish names for
   him, was used as a bogeyman for centuries after his "vicious" raids.
   Children through the Spanish-speaking world are still raised to fear
   "El Draqui."
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