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Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral, (c. 1540 – January 27, 1596) was an English privateer, navigator, slave trader, politician and civil engineer of the Elizabethan era. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died of dysentery after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1596.
His exploits were semi-legendary and made him a hero to the English but to the Spaniards he was equated with the devil. He was known as "El Dragón" (an obvious play on his family name) for his actions. King Philip II offered a reward of 20,000 ducats (about $10 million by 2007 standards) for his life. Many a city in the 16th century was ransomed for less.
While his passing was mourned in England, there were celebrations in Spain and its dominions.

Birth and early years

Entering the Pacific
On June 17, 1579, Drake landed somewhere north of Spain's northern-most claim at Point Loma. He found a good 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 realised. He claimed the land in the name of the Holy Trinity for the English Crown as called Nova Albion - Latin for "New Britain."
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, California. This so-called Drake's Plate of Brass was later declared a hoax.
Another location 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 English colonists on the Atlantic coast when those 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.

Nova Albion
Drake now headed westward across the Pacific, and a few months later reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the south west Pacific, in eastern modern-day 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 barque 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 arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano'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.

Continuing the journey

Main article: Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada
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, at age 56 while anchored off the coast of Porto Belo, Panama where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin, near Portobelo, Panama.

Final years
Drake's exploits as an explorer have become an irrevocable part of the world's subconsciousness, particularly in Europe. Numerous 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 trip 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.
In 1961 the television series Sir Francis Drake debuted on ITV, starring Terence Morgan in the title role.

Cultural impact

Controversies
Though considered a hero in England in his own time and regarded as a significant historical figure even now, Spanish history perceives him as a mere pirate who used to sack 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.

Spanish Opinion of Drake
Drake and Sir John Hawkins made the first English slave-trading expeditions, making his fortune through the sale of West Africans. Around 1563 Drake first sailed west to the Spanish Main, on a ship owned by his uncle John Hawkins, with a cargo of people forcibly removed from the coast of West Africa. Drake planned to sell the Africans into slavery in Spanish plantations. But Drake took an immediate dislike to the Spanish, at least in part due to their Catholicism and inherent mistrust of non-Spaniards. His hostility is said to have increased over an incident at San Juan de Ulua in 1568, when, while delivering his human cargo, a Spanish fleet took him by surprise. Although he was in an enemy port, it was conventional for the Spanish to 'surrender' for a few hours in order to purchase control of the kidnap victims. Thus it was unusual for a fleet of enemy warships to appear out of the blue. Drake survived the attack largely 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.

Slave Trading
The most celebrated of Drake's adventures along the Spanish Main 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. He remarked as he saw it that he hoped that one day an Englishman would be able to sail it, which he would years later as part of his circumnavigation of the world.
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.

Conflict in the Caribbean
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.[1]
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.

Atrocities in Ireland
In 1578, Drake had his co-commander Thomas Doughty beheaded with fabricated accusations of witchcraft in a mock trial.

Footnotes

Bawlf, R. Samuel. The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, 1577-1580.(Douglas & McIntyre, 2003)
Coote, Stephen, Drake, Simon & Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0-7432-2007-2.
Froude, James Anthony, English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century, London 1896, available as a free eText from Project Gutenberg
Hughes-Hallett, Lucy. Heroes: A History of Hero Worship. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, New York, 2004. ISBN 1-4000-4399-9.
Mattingly, Garett, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, ISBN 0-395-08366-4 – a detailed account of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, it received a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize committee in 1960.
Merideth, Mrs. Charles, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, during a residence in that colony from 1839 to 1844; BOUND WITH: "Life of Drake" by John Barrow (1st ed, 1844) [xi, 164; and xii, 187 pp. respectfully]
Rodger, N.A.M. The Safeguard of the Sea; A Naval History of Britain 660-1649. (London, 1997).
Turner, Michael. (2005). In Drake's Wake - The Early Voyages, Paul Mould Publishing. ISBN 978-1904959212