John Hawkins's Slave Voyages (1562-1568): England Joins the Trade

John Hawkins’s slave voyages were three expeditions, in 1562-1563, 1564-1565 and 1567-1569, in which the Plymouth merchant and seaman carried captive Africans from the coast of West Africa to Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. They marked England’s entry into the Atlantic slave trade and were backed by London investors and by Queen Elizabeth I herself. The last voyage ended in a violent clash with a Spanish fleet at San Juan de Ulua in Mexico in 1568, which helped turn Anglo-Spanish rivalry into open hostility.

Background

In the mid-sixteenth century the Atlantic slave trade was dominated by Portugal, which had trading forts on the West African coast such as Elmina, and by Spain, which needed enslaved labour for its American colonies. Spain licensed the supply of Africans to its colonies through official contracts, and foreigners were forbidden to trade there.

John Hawkins (1532-1595) was the son of William Hawkins, a Plymouth merchant who had traded with Guinea and Brazil in the 1530s. From voyages to the Canary Islands, John learned from Spanish contacts that colonists in the Caribbean were short of labour and willing to buy enslaved people from anyone who could deliver them. He saw an opportunity to break into a closed market.

Hawkins married Katherine Gonson, daughter of Benjamin Gonson, Treasurer of the Navy. Through this connection he won the backing of powerful London figures, including Gonson, Sir William Winter and the merchants Sir Lionel Ducket and Sir Thomas Lodge. Their money turned a private scheme into a well-funded commercial venture.

The first voyage (1562-1563)

Hawkins sailed from England in October 1562 with three small ships, the Salomon, the Swallow and the Jonas, and about 100 men. On the coast of Sierra Leone and the Upper Guinea region he acquired at least 300 Africans, partly by raiding and partly by seizing Portuguese ships that already carried captives and other goods.

He crossed the Atlantic to Hispaniola in 1563 and sold the captives at small ports on its northern coast, away from the main colonial authorities. Local officials, keen for labour, cooperated despite Spanish law. Hawkins returned to England in September 1563 with hides, sugar, ginger and some pearls. Two cargo ships he sent to Spain were confiscated, but the voyage still made a substantial profit.

The second voyage (1564-1565)

The success of the first voyage drew greater backing. Elizabeth I lent the Jesus of Lubeck, an ageing royal carrack of about 700 tons, and invested in the expedition. Hawkins sailed in October 1564 with four ships and took around 400 Africans on the Guinea coast, again largely through raids and attacks on Portuguese vessels.

In the Caribbean he traded along the coast of present-day Venezuela and Colombia, at Borburata and Rio de la Hacha. Where Spanish officials refused permission to trade, Hawkins used threats and shows of force, and the sales went ahead. He returned to England in September 1565. That year he was granted a coat of arms whose crest showed a bound African captive, a direct record of how he had made his fortune.

The third voyage and San Juan de Ulua (1567-1569)

The third expedition was the largest. Six ships left Plymouth in October 1567, including the Jesus of Lubeck and another royal ship, the Minion. Among the commanders was Hawkins’s young kinsman Francis Drake, who later captained the small ship Judith. On the Sierra Leone coast Hawkins joined two local rulers in an attack on a fortified town and received captives as his share; in all the fleet carried perhaps 400 to 500 Africans westward.

Sales in Spanish America in 1568 were harder than before. At Rio de la Hacha the English attacked the town when the treasurer refused to trade, and Cartagena turned them away. Hurricane-season storms then badly damaged the Jesus of Lubeck. In September 1568 Hawkins put into San Juan de Ulua, the island harbour of Veracruz in Mexico, to make repairs.

The next day a Spanish fleet arrived carrying the new viceroy of New Spain, Martín Enríquez de Almansa. Hawkins controlled the island batteries and could have kept the fleet out, but an agreement was made and hostages were exchanged. On 23 September 1568 the Spanish launched a surprise attack. The Jesus of Lubeck was abandoned, and most of the English ships were lost. Only the Minion, under Hawkins, and the Judith, under Drake, escaped.

The Minion was dangerously overcrowded and short of food. About 100 men asked to be put ashore on the Mexican coast; many were captured, and some were later tried by the Inquisition in Mexico. Drake reached Plymouth on 20 January 1569 and Hawkins arrived in Cornwall a few days later with only a small fraction of the men who had set out.

Key people

John Hawkins organised and commanded all three voyages. He combined commercial planning with ruthless use of force against Africans, Portuguese traders and, when necessary, Spanish colonists.

Elizabeth I lent royal ships and shared the profits, showing that the trade was acceptable at the highest level of English society at the time.

Francis Drake served on the third voyage. His bitterness at what the English saw as Spanish treachery at San Juan de Ulua shaped his later raids on Spain’s empire, including his circumnavigation of 1577-1580.

Martín Enríquez de Almansa, the incoming viceroy of New Spain, ordered the attack, regarding Hawkins as an intruder trading illegally in Spain’s dominions.

Consequences

The disaster at San Juan de Ulua ended Hawkins’s slaving ventures. English participation in the Atlantic slave trade remained small until the seventeenth century, when English colonies in the Caribbean and North America created a large demand for enslaved labour and chartered companies took over the trade.

The battle deepened hostility between England and Spain. Elizabethan sailors treated it as a grievance that justified privateering against Spanish ships and ports, a conflict that grew into open war in 1585 and led to the Spanish Armada of 1588.

For the Africans carried on these voyages the consequences were enslavement and, for many, early death. Their names were not recorded, and almost nothing is known of their lives after sale in the Caribbean.

Later career

Hawkins went on to an influential naval career. As Treasurer of the Navy from 1577 he reformed shipbuilding and dockyard administration, favouring lower, faster and more heavily gunned ships. He served as a commander against the Armada in 1588 and was knighted at sea during the campaign. He died on 12 November 1595 off Puerto Rico during a final expedition with Drake against the Spanish Caribbean.

Myths and facts

A remark is often quoted in which Elizabeth I supposedly called the slave trade detestable and warned that it would bring down the vengeance of heaven. Historians have found no contemporary source for it, and her investment in Hawkins’s voyages shows that she supported them.

It is also sometimes said that Hawkins invented the “triangular trade”. In fact Portuguese and Spanish traders had carried Africans across the Atlantic for decades before him. His importance lies in being the first Englishman to do so on an organised scale.

Timeline

• 1562, October: Hawkins sails from England on his first slaving voyage.
• 1563: Captives are sold in northern Hispaniola; Hawkins returns to England in September.
• 1564, October: The second voyage departs with the royal ship Jesus of Lubeck.
• 1565, September: Hawkins returns after trading at Borburata and Rio de la Hacha.
• 1567, October: The third voyage of six ships leaves Plymouth.
• 1568, September: Hawkins enters San Juan de Ulua; the Spanish attack on 23 September.
• 1569, January: Drake and then Hawkins reach England with the surviving ships.
• 1595, 12 November: Hawkins dies off Puerto Rico.

Why it matters

Hawkins’s voyages were England’s first organised involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, backed by the Crown and leading financiers. They show how early English overseas expansion was bound up with violence against Africans, and how commercial rivalry in the Americas pushed England and Spain towards war.