Sir Francis Drake: 1540-1596

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his command of the Golden Hind on its circumnavigation.

Known as a superb seamen, navigator and commander.

[Edit: Since first writing this article I’ve become very interested in Drake. I’ve even taken my family on a trip to Drake’s Cove in California to see his infamous stay in California. The article below is mostly trash, written as a place holder until I have the time to elaborate more on Drake and what he means to the common sailor. More than anything, the post below is more-or-less accurate, though its tone misses the glory of Drake. Drake was a mariner machine – the finest. He could navigate, sail, command, overtake, and steal his way into glory and around the world. Drake established safety nets for mariners on shore – one of the first social systems for landlocked sailors. He established best practices for navigating, shipping and seamanship. What I write below is my personal bias against religion, against historical cultural norms, and against the noble sailing class. Dirty Sailor Company’s objective is to give the working sailor props for their lifestyle and their efforts – after all, the working sailor is the hero of the ages – not the noble class navigator. Though, Drake realized this too. He had compassion and respect for his sailors – at least the protestant ones.]

We romanticize over explorers like Francis Drake, with knowing mostly nothing about them. A glossy paperback from Amazon tells us he is a noble, educated, Christian, loyal subject of the Queen. An English man with all the right gull and tenacity to take up the Queen’s order to wreak havoc on the Spanish. We assume the statues and monuments – carved into literature and lore – are true. We have every reason to believe the public squares, beaches and cities named for this historical figure, are done so because he is our hero.

We are wrong. And we are assholes for being wrong. This knight Sir Francis Drake, was a pirate and a slave trader. He was brutal to those who stood in his way, loyal to his own determination, and carried the cross as a weapon against those humans who happened to be in his way.

Drake made his start as the son of a sailor (funny how we have little choice of who we become) and he became a fine sailor by his teenage years. The man was soon sailing the Barbary Coast and stealing slaves off of Spanish and Portuguese slave ships. He in turn would sell these souls to the highest bidder.

At the time, the age of exploration was boiling hot. The Spanish, Portuguese, and Netherlands were all out and about making their mark in the West, returning with loads of gold, spices and land. The English had wars to fight and money was low. They had virtually nothing to show for the greatest find in European history – North America. The Holy crusades were dwindling and the treasures from these Holy missions were dwindling too. The ships of Gold from Peru all the way up the Coast to Guatemala were pouring into the Spanish treasury – securing a nice-looking future for the Spanish. The Queen, Elizabeth 1, started taking note of the Captain who had been causing a ruckus on Spain, and she started developing a plan.

The Spanish model was pretty straight forward. 1. Find large bands of Native Americans on the Coast. 2. Land a fleet of Marines there (Conquistadors). 3. Use diplomacy and manipulation to encourage the locals to war with each other (the famous battles were all against the Incas – a band of natives much to organized and strong for the Spanish to overcome alone), and 4, take advantage of the aftermath of the war they created by enslaving the people, establishing breading policies to ensure the Spanish blood line entered into the population, force Christian rule through the Missionary system, and loot the rich gold and jewel supplies of the cities they interacted with. The model on the Spanish Main was boosting the power of the Spanish home land and Elizabeth was not about to stand by and allow England to become the weak link any longer.

Elizabeth recruited Francis Drake and sent him on a mission for England. Drake was to eventual set sail for the West Coast of the Americas and secure land there for the crown. Though first, Elizabeth had to put a stop to the Spanish success, and Drake was her tool to do so.

The original royal missions set out on were not exploration, they were piracy missions. Drake was to use his skills as a slave-ship pirate on the Spanish fleet. The Spanish Gold Ships leaving Panama were protected much of their, Drake was to meet these ships when the Spanish Armadas were out of range. Upon meeting these ships, Drake’s only order were to secure the gold. In typical pirate fashion, Drake not only managed to secure the gold, he would secure the entire ship and manage any crew who resisted or who refused to swear allegiance to the English Crown and the protestant ethic. After many successful returns, Queen Elizabeth sent her new-found friend on a larger mission – to scout the Spanish supply lines across Panama (these same routes were used to transport gold well into the 20^th century – until of course it was dredged by the Americans in the 1914s) and take a mule train’s loot for England.

On this mission, Drake took his men to shore, his ships left anchored safely at harbor miles down the coast. Drakes men marched half the width of Panama, through jungle and disease, and found a caravan of Spanish commuting the spoils of war through the jungle. Under the cover of darkness, outnumbered and with devious strategy, Drake ordered his men to steal the Spanish loot and slip back into the jungle. By day light Drake’s men were riding high on Spanish horses through the Jungle, back towards their ship. The Spanish, caught off guard, were in quick pursuit. For two days Drakes men struggled to carry the weight of their stolen treasures – and so the Spanish gained on them. By the time Drake’s men made it to the coast the Spanish were firing rounds over their shoulders. Drake ordered his men to jump in the boats and row. And as they did this the Spanish were able to shoot them one by one. Drake and his first officer slipped into the water and swam for it. For miles they swam back to their ships at harbor. Once reaching their ships and climbing onboard – the image of a pirate was solidified for all time. Soaking wet, covered in the soars of heavy Jungle travel, there was Drake, exhausted and full of adrenaline – yelling order to set the sails and weigh anchor – “The Spanish are behind us!”

At this point Drake had lost most of his men. With a skeleton crew Drake returned to his Queen, and lied. He said his mission was a success, and they had properly deterred the Spanish from using Panamanian routes so carelessly. As for the treasure they stole, the Captain told Elizabeth the treasure was buried on the Coast – a necessity in the rush of the moment, to ensure the treasure did not fall back into the hands of the Spanish.

And so, the Queen sent Drake out yet again. This time his orders were to secure his buried treasure and head around the cape to the West Coast of the Americas, to Pirate the Spanish there, to acquire Gold, and to secure land. Drake headed West again, this time with an Armada of his own. By the time he made it through the Straits of Magellan, Drake was down to one ship – the Golden Hind. As he headed up the Coast, Drake would pirate every ship in sight, after their gold, and more importantly their maps. The significance of nautical charts during this time cannot be lost. They were hand drawn and based on local knowledge, and included specific knowledge of the navigator who drew the map and who used it. Not only did it include knowledge, it often left important information out. As sort of a deterrent, Captains were known to distort their maps, and leave a “key” to decode the maps for later use. The two were kept separate. The nostalgia of pirate maps was thus born, and Drake surely stole his share of Maps to make it up the West Coast.

And so he did. Through his three-year journey, Drake filled the hulls of all his ship with stolen treasure. He became a nightmare on the West Coast – El Draque. Making it all the way to the Pacific North West, before continuing across the Pacific, Drake marked his path with a claim on the Coast. Like the Spanish before him, Drake would use his Christian and Noble right to secure land from the Native populations he encountered. In Marin County (French for Sailor, though disappointingly actually named for a local Miwok Chief) Drake landed to make repair to his ship, before giving up his search for the Northwest Passage and heading across the Pacific, to trace more of Magellan’s route. The landing spot is in what is now called Drake’s Estero, and more specifically, what some people (not the local Park Rangers) call Drake’s Cove (see pictures).

Then there was the crossing of the Pacific. The charting of the Philippines. The crossing of the Indian. The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. And the transit North, along the coast of Africa, the Barbary Coast, and bypass of the Straits of Gibraltar.

Riding up the Thymes, the bells rang as Drake returned on the mighty Golden Hind, his flag ship. The Queen upon hearing of his arrival went to the docks herself. She, which was unlike royalty, especially a Queen, boarded the Golden Hind and asked Drake, “Was my Captain Successful?” Drake replied in the affirmative and showed the Queen his ballast of gold. The Queen, smiling, knighted the pirate, slave trading, murderer on the spot.

And thus is my scanty version of Sir Francis Drake. [please sign up for our email notices, so you can come back and read a proper biography on Drake, and his crew!]

The information for this essay comes from multiple sources.

Corbet, Julian. “Sir Francis Drake.” 2018
Morison, Samuel. “The European Discovery of America.” Oxford University Press, 1974
Aker, R and Von der Porten. “Discovering Francis Drake’s California Harbor.” Drake Navigators Guild. 2010