Francis Drake's Circumnavigation (1577-1580) in the Golden Hind

Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of 1577 to 1580 was the second voyage around the world and the first led from start to finish by the same commander. Sailing from Plymouth with five ships, Drake passed through the Strait of Magellan, raided Spanish ports along the Pacific coast of South America, captured a rich treasure ship, claimed land in California for England and returned home across the Pacific and Indian Oceans in the Golden Hind. The voyage made him a national hero in England and deepened the hostility between England and Spain.

Background

By the 1570s Spain drew vast wealth from the silver mines of Peru and Mexico, especially Potosí. The Pacific coast of South America was considered a Spanish sea, lightly defended because no enemy was expected there. Only a handful of Spanish expeditions, beginning with Magellan’s, had entered the Pacific from the Atlantic by the southern strait, and the route was rarely used.

Francis Drake, born in Devon around 1540, had made his name raiding Spanish shipping and settlements in the Caribbean. In 1573 he had captured a mule train carrying silver across the Isthmus of Panama. Relations between Protestant England and Catholic Spain were tense, but the two countries were not yet openly at war.

The 1577 expedition was backed by a group of investors that included Queen Elizabeth I and leading courtiers such as Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Francis Walsingham. Its official purpose was vague, mentioning trade and exploration in the South Sea. Its real aims almost certainly included plunder of Spanish treasure, and the queen’s involvement was kept secret.

Departure and the Atlantic

Drake’s fleet consisted of his flagship the Pelican, the Elizabeth under John Winter, the Marigold, the Swan and the Benedict, with roughly 160 to 170 men. A first departure in November 1577 was driven back by a storm, and the fleet finally sailed from Plymouth on 13 December 1577.

Off the coast of Africa Drake captured several Spanish and Portuguese vessels, keeping one Portuguese pilot, Nuno da Silva, whose knowledge of South American waters proved valuable. The fleet then crossed the Atlantic to the coast of Brazil and sailed south to Patagonia.

At Port San Julián, where Magellan had once put down a mutiny, Drake accused one of the gentlemen on the voyage, Thomas Doughty, of plotting against him. Doughty was tried and beheaded there on 2 July 1578. Drake then reorganised his command, insisting that gentlemen and sailors should work together. Two of the smaller ships were abandoned as unfit.

Through the Strait of Magellan

Drake renamed the Pelican the Golden Hind, after the crest of his patron Hatton, and in August 1578 led the three remaining ships into the Strait of Magellan. They passed through in about 16 days, a fast passage for the time, and entered the Pacific in early September.

There a series of violent storms struck. The Marigold sank with all hands. The Elizabeth was separated, and John Winter, after waiting in the strait, sailed back to England. The Golden Hind was driven far to the south, where Drake observed that open sea lay beyond Tierra del Fuego. The stretch of ocean between South America and Antarctica is now called the Drake Passage.

Raiding the Pacific coast

Now with a single ship, Drake sailed north along the coast of Chile and Peru. He surprised the Spanish everywhere he went. In December 1578 he raided the port of Valparaíso, and in February 1579 he entered Callao, the port of Lima, where he learned that a treasure ship had recently left for Panama.

Drake gave chase and on 1 March 1579 captured the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción off the coast of Ecuador, near Cape San Francisco. Sailors knew her by the vulgar nickname Cacafuego, a joke about a ship that “spat fire”. Her cargo included large quantities of silver bars, gold and coins; English and Spanish estimates of its value varied, but it was one of the richest single prizes taken in the century.

Laden with treasure and knowing the Spanish would wait for him at the strait, Drake decided not to return the way he had come. He raided the small port of Guatulco in Mexico and then sailed north, possibly hoping to find a northern passage back to the Atlantic.

Nova Albion

In June 1579 the Golden Hind anchored in a harbour on the coast of California to be repaired. The English stayed about five weeks and had friendly contact with the local Coast Miwok people. Drake claimed the land for Elizabeth I under the name Nova Albion, Latin for New Britain, and according to accounts of the voyage left a brass plate recording the claim.

The exact landing place has long been debated. Most historians favour Drakes Bay at Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, and the area was designated a US National Historic Landmark in 2012. A brass plate found near San Francisco in the 1930s and claimed to be Drake’s was shown by scientific analysis in the 1970s to be a modern fake.

Across the Pacific and home

Drake left California in late July 1579 and crossed the Pacific in about two months without sighting land for much of the way. After touching islands in the western Pacific he reached the Moluccas, the Spice Islands, in November. On Ternate he met Sultan Babullah, an opponent of the Portuguese, and loaded several tons of cloves.

On 9 January 1580 the Golden Hind struck a reef off the island of Sulawesi and was stuck for about a day. The crew threw cannon and part of the cargo of cloves overboard before the ship floated free. Drake continued to Java, then crossed the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope in June 1580 and sailed north along the African coast.

The Golden Hind entered Plymouth on 26 September 1580. Of the men who had sailed nearly three years before, only around 55 to 60 returned in the flagship, though the crew of the Elizabeth had already come home.

Key people

• Francis Drake (c. 1540–1596): Devon seaman and privateer who led the expedition.
• Elizabeth I (1533–1603): Queen of England, secret investor in the voyage, who knighted Drake.
• Thomas Doughty (died 1578): gentleman adventurer executed by Drake for alleged mutiny.
• John Winter: captain of the Elizabeth, who returned to England after the Pacific storms.
• Babullah: sultan of Ternate, who traded cloves with Drake and welcomed him as an enemy of Portugal.

Consequences

The treasure was carefully counted and much of it quietly handed over to the queen and investors. Its total value is uncertain, but the investors are often said to have received a return of about 4,700 per cent. Spain demanded its return and Drake’s punishment, and Elizabeth refused.

On 4 April 1581 the queen visited the Golden Hind at Deptford, where Drake was knighted on board. The ship was kept at Deptford as a memorial until it decayed in the 17th century; a chair made from its timbers is preserved at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Elizabeth ordered that accounts of the voyage be kept secret for some years, partly to protect the route and partly to avoid provoking Spain further. The first printed narrative appeared only in 1589, in Richard Hakluyt’s collection of English voyages, and the fuller account The World Encompassed, based largely on the notes of the chaplain Francis Fletcher, was published by Drake’s nephew in 1628.

The voyage added to the grievances that led to open war between England and Spain in 1585. Drake went on to lead the raid on Cádiz in 1587 and served as a commander against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died of dysentery off Portobelo, Panama, in January 1596.

Myths and facts

Myth: Drake was the first person to sail around the world. That distinction belongs to the survivors of Magellan’s expedition, who returned to Spain in 1522 under Juan Sebastián Elcano. Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines. Drake was, however, the first captain to command an entire circumnavigation and live to return.

Myth: the brass plate found in California proves where Drake landed. The “Plate of Brass” discovered in 1936 was celebrated for decades but was shown in 1977 to be a modern forgery, and in 2003 researchers revealed it had begun as a prank. The landing site must be judged on other evidence.

Fact: Drake’s discoveries changed maps. His report of open sea south of Tierra del Fuego showed that it was an island group rather than part of a great southern continent, although navigators did not routinely use the route around Cape Horn until the Dutch voyage of Le Maire and Schouten in 1616.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1577, 13 December: Drake sails from Plymouth with five ships.
• 1578, 2 July: Thomas Doughty is executed at Port San Julián.
• 1578, August–September: The fleet passes through the Strait of Magellan in about 16 days.
• 1578, autumn: Storms sink the Marigold; the Elizabeth turns back to England.
• 1579, 1 March: Drake captures the treasure ship Cacafuego off Ecuador.
• 1579, June–July: The Golden Hind is repaired in Nova Albion, California.
• 1579, November: Drake reaches Ternate in the Moluccas.
• 1580, 9 January: The Golden Hind runs aground on a reef off Sulawesi.
• 1580, 26 September: Drake returns to Plymouth.
• 1581, 4 April: Drake is knighted aboard the Golden Hind at Deptford.

Why it matters

Drake’s voyage, following the Magellan-Elcano expedition, showed that Spain’s Pacific empire was vulnerable and that English sailors could operate across the globe. It enriched the English crown, made Drake a hero at home and a villain in Spain, and pushed the two countries towards war. It also marked the beginning of England’s ambitions as an oceanic power.