Francis Drake

English explorer and privateer who completed the second circumnavigation of the world.

His birth year is uncertain, with estimates ranging from 1539 to 1544 based on portraits and contemporary texts.^[1][2]

Quick Facts

Born: 1540
Birthplace: Tavistock, Devon, England
Died: 28 January 1596
Place of death: off the coast of Portobelo (today Panama)
Nickname: El Draque (the Dragon)
Allegiance: Kingdom of England
Rank: Vice admiral
Base of operations: Caribbean Sea

Life and work

Drake began his seagoing training as an apprentice to relative William Hawkins of Plymouth.^[3] He accompanied John Hawkins on slaving voyages, and after the 1567–1569 voyage he turned from trading to attacking Spanish possessions.^[4][5] He was present at the 1575 Rathlin Island massacre in Ireland, where he prevented reinforcements from reaching the island.^[6] From 1577 to 1580 Drake circumnavigated the globe, raiding Spanish ports along the Pacific coast and capturing the treasure ship Nuestra Señora de la Concepción.^[7][6]

At Crowndale Farm in Tavistock, Devon, Edmund Drake, a Protestant farmer, and Mary Mylwaye had twelve sons, of whom Francis was the eldest.^[1][8] On 11 February, Drake and John Oxenham climbed a high tree in the central mountains of the Isthmus of Panama and thus became the first Englishmen to see the Pacific Ocean.^[9]

What the cited sources add

Forde's 1923 account of the Rathlin Island massacre states that Sorley Boy, watching from the mainland, "was likely to have run mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself and saying that he there lost all that he ever had."^[10]

References

Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kelsey 2000, p. 3; Benson, "Sir Francis Drake", Harper & Brothers, 1927, p. 6; Corbett 1898, p. 393; Campbell, "Lives of the British Admirals and Naval History of Great Britain from the Time of Caesar to the Chinese War of 1841 Chiefly Abridged from the work of Dr. John Campbell", Richard Griffin & Co, 1841, p. 104 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: 1921/22 edition of the Dictionary of National Biography, which quotes Barrow's Life of Drake (1843) p. 5. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Loades 2007; Kelsey 2000, p. 3 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kelsey 2000, p. 3; Whitfield 2004, p. 12; Whitfield 2004, p. 12; Sims, "Decision Advantage: Intelligence in International Politics from the Spanish Armada to Cyberwar", 2022, p. 51–C3.P124 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Morgan, "Hawkins, Sir John (1532–1595), merchant and naval commander", 4 October 2007; "John Hawkins Admiral, Privateer, Slave Trader", www.rmg.co.uk; Sugden 2006 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sugden 2006 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bradley, "British Maritime Enterprise in the New World: From the Late Fifteenth to the Mid-eighteenth Century", Edwin Mellen, 1999, p. 348; Appleby, "Tudor England: An Encyclopedia", Routledge, 2000, p. 307; Parry, "Sir Francis Drake and the Famous Voyage, 1577–1580: Essays Commemorating the Quadricentennial of Drake's Circumnavigation of the Earth", University of California Press, 1984, p. 3–4; Black, "England in the Age of Shakespeare", Indiana University Press, 2019, p. 145; Kraus 1970 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Thomson, George Malcolm (1972), 'Sir Francis Drake', William Morrow & Company Inc. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Francis Drake" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bradford, "Drake: England's Greatest Seafarer", Open Road Media, 2014, p. 44–45; Morison, "The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America", Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 675; Cummins 1997, p. 287 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Forde, "Rathlin Island - Sketches of Olden Days in Northern Ireland", 1923. facts only, no text reused. libraryireland.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Francis Drake (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.