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Sir Francis Drake, c. 1540– 1596.Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – January 28, 1596) was an English privateer, navigator, naval hero, politician, and civil engineer of the Elizabethan period. He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, from 1577 to 1580. In 1579, he landed in northern California, or possibly further north in Oregon or the Pacific Northwest (the exact location is still disputed by historians) and claimed the land as " Nova Albion" for the English Crown. Maps made soon after would have "Nova Albion" written above the entire northern frontier of New Spain.
1 Birth and early years
As with many of Drake's contemporaries, his exact date of birth is unknown and could be as early as 1535Events January 18 Lima, Peru founded by Francisco Pizarro June 24 The Anabaptist state of Munster is conquered and disbanded. May 19 French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail for his second voyage to North America with 3 ships, 110 men, and Chief Donnacon. The 1540 date is taken from a portrait painted quite late in his life.
In the wake of his attack on CádizThis article is about the Spanish city. For other cities and meanings see Cadiz (disambiguation). Cadiz is a coastal city in southwestern Spain, in the region of Andalusia, and is the capital of the province of Cadiz. As of the 2003 census its population and his exploits in the Spanish MainSpain was the center of one of the first global empires. The 16th and 17th centuries are sometimes called "the Golden Age of Spain" (in spanish, Siglo de Oro . Spain maintained its vast overseas empire until the 19th century. According to Henry Kamen, Spa ( CaribbeanThe Caribbean or the West Indies is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. These islands curve southward from the bottom tip of Florida to the Northwest of Venezuela in South America. There are at least 7000 islands, islets, reefs and cayes in the regio), Drake earned the nickname El Draque ("The DragonSaint George versus the dragon Gustave Moreau, c. This small one has the look of a griffin or a wyvern. In European mythology, a dragon is a serpent-like legendary creature. The Latin word draco as in the constellation Draco, comes directly from Greek dra"), which is a direct translation of his surname.
Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, the son of Protestant farmers. 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 bark, becoming master of the ship at the age of twenty. He spent his early career honing his sailing skills on the difficult waters of the North Sea, and eventually, after the death of the captain for whom he was sailing, becoming the master of his own bark. At age 23 Drake took his first voyages to the New World under the sails of the Hawkins family of Plymouth, in company with his cousin, Sir John Hawkins.
2 First adventures
Around 1563 Drake first sailed west to the Spanish Main, drawn by the immense wealth accruing from Spain's monopoly on New World silver. Drake took an immediate dislike to the Spanish, at least in part due to their mistrust of non-Spaniards and their Catholicism. His hostility is said to have been increased by the incident at San Juan de Ulloa in 1568, when Spanish forces executed a surprise attack in violation of a truce agreed to a few days before, nearly costing Drake his life. From then on, he devoted the rest of his life to working against the Spanish Empire: the Spanish considered him an outlaw pirate, but to England he was simply a sailor and privateer. On his second such voyage he fought a costly battle against Spanish forces, which claimed many English lives but earned Drake 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 of 1573. With a crew including many French privateers and Cimaroons (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. When Drake returned to Plymouth on August 9, 1573, a mere thirty Englishmen returned with him, but each survivor was 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. Such intrigues were typical during Drake's era.
