Page 2 - Sir Francis Drake

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Sir Francis Drake: Explorer, Pirate, Hero 1540?-1596
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• Secret Expedition: (1577–1580): Five ships,– Pelican, renamed Golden Hind, Elizabeth, Marigold, Swan, Christopher. A sixth ship, Mary, was later captured and added. Try to find a North West Passage for trade. 164 men.
• Charge: To raid Spanish ports along the Pacific coast of the Americas and disrupt the flow of gold and silver to Spain. In 1572, Drake obtained a privateer’s commission from Queen Elizabeth I, which was essentially a license to plunder any property belonging to King Philip II of Spain.
• Accomplishments: First English circumnavigation of the world (second after Magellan), returning with a huge cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasure. Drake helped to defeat the Spanish Armada whose purpose was to invade England and de-throne Queen Elizabeth I.
Early Years
To the Spanish, Francis Drake was known as El Draque (The Dragon) for his ferocious piracy, and plundering of Spanish wealth. To the English, Drake was an explorer and a hero for helping to destroy the Spanish Armada and paving the way to Great Britain’s rise as a major sea power.
Francis Drake, born in the city of Plymouth on England’s south coast of Devon, (see map) was the eldest of 12 sons born to Mary Myllwaye
and Edmund Drake. Drake’s father was a tenant farmer and later ordained a priest. At age16, Francis Drake, a natural sailor, was apprenticed to a merchant who sailed coastal waters trading goods between England and France. This merchant treated Francis as the son he never had and when he died, his boat went to Francis. According to the English chronicler Edmund Howes (1607 – 1631), Francis Drake was eighteen years old when he sailed as purser on one of John Hawkins’ ships (his cousin, and first English slave trader) in the Bay of
Biscay, a trading stop on the northern coast of Spain. During this time, Spain was an ally with England, although this would soon change. In Howe’s account, all of Francis Drake's early voyages were in boats belonging to the Hawkins family.
During his teens, Drake sailed on one of the Hawkins ships looking for merchant vessels to plunder.