In 1586, thanks in part to Drake’s relentless privateering, King Philip II began assembling the famed Spanish Armada for an invasion of England. Desperate to beat his old enemy to the punch, Drake set sail the following spring and launched a preemptive strike on the Spanish mainland at the port of Cadiz. After catching the town by surprise, he and a small fleet spent two days occupying its harbor and bombarding, burning or pillaging everything in sight. The Cadiz raid succeeded in destroying between 30 and 40 ships and several thousand tons of supplies, and Drake later continued his reign of terror by harassing the Portuguese coastline and capturing a treasure ship off the Azores. All told, his “singeing of the King of Spain’s beard,” as he jokingly called it, may have delayed the Armada’s launch by over a year. Drake would later serve as the vice admiral of the English fleet that helped scatter the Spanish invasion in the summer of 1588.
He began his career as a slave trader.
Drake went to sea as a young man, but his first major expeditions came in the 1560s, when he joined a cousin named John Hawkins on some of Britain’s earliest slave trading voyages to West Africa. The pair usually procured their human cargo by attacking native villages or attacking Portuguese slave ships. They would then transport the slaves to the Spanish Caribbean and sell them off to local plantations—an action that was illegal under Spanish law. During one of these slaving expeditions in 1568, a flotilla of Spanish ships ambushed Drake and Hawkins at the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulúa, destroying four of their vessels and killing or capturing many of their crew. Drake escaped unharmed, but the defeat left him with a seething hatred for Spain and its king, Philip II.
On April 4, 1581, a few months after he completed a daring circumnavigation of the globe, the British navigator Francis Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I during a ceremony aboard his flagship Golden Hind. Drake’s round-the-world voyage was a high point in a career that saw him serve as everything from a naval commander and explorer to a statesman and civil engineer, but he was best known as Britain’s most feared “Sea Dog”—the nickname for the ruthless privateers who preyed on Spanish shipping in the New World. Explore ten fascinating facts about Queen Elizabeth’s favorite pirate.
Drake’s Circumnavigation:
Was Drake a Hero or a Villain?
Task 1:
Individual Work
· Using the
details of Drake’s journey from the Google Earth tour at www.activehistory.co.uk, find
evidence to fill in this table.
· Any evidence
that Drake was a hero (for example, he was kind and brave) should be placed in
the left-hand column.
· Any evidence
that he was a villain (for example, he was cruel and cowardly) should be placed
in the right-hand column.
· Any evidence
which you are not sure about can be placed in the middle column.
·TIP: Two
events have been added to start you off (you can delete them if you wish!).
Hero
Villain
Mogador: 27th Dec. 1577
Drake traded sheep and chickens with the locals. This shows he is
willing to make friends with the people he meets.
Cape Blanco: 17th Jan. 1578
Drake hijacks a Spanish ship. This shows that he is a thief.
Task 2:
Group Work
Working with a partner, then in a larger group, compare what you put
into the middle column. Work together to decide whether it should be moved into
the “Hero” or “Villain” column.
Alternatively, your teacher may ask you to contribute these ideas to a
whole-class discussion, and for each point raised the class would vote on whether
it belongs in the “Hero” or “Villain” category.
Task 3: Writing up your findings
Using your completed table to help you, provide a written answer to
this question:
“Was Drake a hero or a
villain?”
Paragraph 1: “There is evidence to suggest that Drake was a
hero. For example,…” [use your information from column 1]
Paragraph 2: “There is evidence to suggest that Drake was a
villain. For example,…” [use your information from column 2]
Paragraph 3: “In conclusion, my opinion of Drake is
that…”[reach your own judgement – be as detailed as you can!]
Francis Drake was the first English explorer to sail around the world. His ship was originally called the Pelican, but was renamedGolden Hind,sometimes spelled the Golden Hinde.
Drake was basically a pirate. He stole gold and silver and cargo from other ships! He loaded his own ship with so much cargo, some from trading, some from theft, that he was a bit concerned his own ship might sink! He pushed on anyway, and sailed successfully round the world.
Drake returned to England with an enormous amount of treasure, mostly stolen from Spanish explorers and Spanish ports in the Americas. This delighted the Queen of England when she heard about it, as England and Spain were enemies at the time. The Queen was so pleased, in fact, that she knighted Francis Drake. Forever after, Francis Drake becameSirFrancis Drake.
