Ancient Navigators: Sir Francis Drake

The journey of Francis Drake up the Pacific Coast in 1579, artist's impression.

 Francis Drake (1540 - 1596) was one of the most famous naval captains of the 16th century. His numerous exploits brought him great fame and recognition in his home country of England, but also great amount of notoriety by the Spaniards who regarded him as a pirate. As an explorer, he is hailed as a first Englishman that has managed to circumvent the world.

He started his naval career in 1570, with few visits to West Indies as a trader, but two years later he become English privateer and begun raiding Spanish ships in the area of the Caribbean. His first naval victory was in 1572 when he successfully raided Spanish town and its harbor, but due to wounds he and his army retreated. A year later he joined with French buccaneer Guillaume Le Testu in a attract that brought them incredible raid. They managed to intercept Spanish mule traders that were carrying 20 tons of silver and gold stolen from the land of MiddleAmerica. That kind of bounty could not be easily transported to the 28 kilometers distant shoreline so they decided to burry the majority of the treasure on a secret location. The remainder of a treasure was buried at the shoreline when they noticed that Spaniards were close. A year later Francis Drake returned to England where his fame escalated to new heights.

Following that success in 1577, he received an order from Elizabeth I of England who directed him to go to the South America and explore its lands and defeat any Spain's forces that he encounter. He embarked with a fleet of 6 ships, but only three of them reached the MagellanStrait, but there he was hit with a massive storm that destroyed one of his ships and made one too damaged for the journey ahead. From there he continued north following the cost and raiding Spanish towns reaching the northern parts of Chile. There he managed to capture two Spanish ships that were full of treasure - more than 26tons of silver and several thousands of golden coins and jewels. He traveled to the shores of the North America and then went westward and toward the Asia and Africa.

Drake receives knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. Bronze plaque by Joseph Boehm, 1883, base of Drake statue, Tavistock.

Circumnavigation of the earth (1577–1580)
 
A map of Drake's route around the world. The northern limit of Drake's exploration of the Pacific coast of North America is still in dispute. Drake's Bay is south of Cape Mendocino.

With the success of the Panama isthmus raid, in 1577 Elizabeth I of England sent Drake to start an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. Drake used the Plans that Sir Richard Greynvile had received the Patent for in 1574 from Elizabeth, which was rescinded a year later after protests from Philip of Spain. He set out from Plymouth on 15 November 1577, but bad weather threatened him and his fleet. They were forced to take refuge in Falmouth, Cornwall, from where they returned to Plymouth for repair.

After this major setback, he set sail again on 13 December, aboard Pelican, with four other ships and 164 men. He soon added a sixth ship, Mary (formerly Santa Maria), a Portuguese merchant ship that had been captured off the coast of Africa near the Cape Verde Islands. He also added its captain, Nuno da Silva, a man with considerable experience navigating in South American waters.
A replica of the Golden Hind

Drake's fleet suffered great attrition; he scuttled both Christopher and the flyboat Swan due to loss of men on the Atlantic crossing. He made landfall at the gloomy bay of San Julian, in what is now Argentina. Ferdinand Magellan had called here half a century earlier, where he put to death some mutineers.

Drake's men saw weathered and bleached skeletons on the grim Spanish gibbets. They discovered that Mary had rotting timbers, so they burned the ship. Following Magellan's example, Drake tried and executed his own 'mutineer' Thomas Doughty. Drake decided to remain the winter in San Julian before attempting the Strait of Magellan.

 Entering the Pacific (1578)

The three remaining ships of his convoy departed for the Magellan Strait at the southern tip of South America. A few weeks later (September 1578) Drake made it to the Pacific, but violent storms destroyed one of the three ships, the Marigold (captained by John Thomas) in the strait and caused another, the Elizabeth captained by John Wynter, to return to England, leaving only the Pelican. After this passage, the Pelican was pushed south and discovered an island which Drake called Elizabeth Island. Drake, like navigators before him, probably reached a latitude of 55°S (according to astronomical data quoted in Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation of 1589) along the Chilean coast.

By 1580, he returned home being the first Englishman who has successfully circumnavigated the Earth. His cargo full of his Spanish treasure secured that his success, and in 1581 he received his knighthood, become Mayor of Plymouth and a member in English Parliament.

A map of Drake's route around the world. The northern limit of Drake's exploration of the Pacific coast of North America is still in dispute. Drake's Bay is south of Cape Mendocino.

Map of Drakes Great Expedition in 1585 by Giovanni Battista Boazio

Great Expedition

War had already been declared by Phillip II after the Treaty of Nonsuch, so the Queen through Francis Walsingham ordered Sir Francis Drake to lead an expedition to attack the Spanish colonies in a kind of preemptive strike. An expedition left Plymouth in September 1585 with Drake in command of twenty one ships with 1,800 soldiers under Christopher Carleill. He first attacked Vigo in Spain and held the place for two weeks ransoming supplies. He then plundered Santiago in the Cape Verde islands after which the fleet then sailed across the Atlantic, sacked the port of Santo Domingo and captured the city of Cartagena de Indias in present-day Colombia. On 6 June 1586, during the return leg of the voyage, he raided the Spanish fort of San Augustín in Spanish Florida.

After the raids he then went on to find Sir Walter Raleigh's settlement much further North at Roanoke which he replenished and also took back with him all of the original colonists before Sir Richard Greynvile arrived w/ supplies & more colonists. He finally reached England on 22 July, when he sailed into Portsmouth, England to heroes welcome.

After that, he continued his service in English military and died from dysentery at the age of 55 in the year of 1596. He was buried in lead coffin at the sea, and his body has still yet to be found.

Ancient Navigators: The Quadrant

Favored by Columbus, the quadrant is a metal plate in the shape of a quarter- circle, with a weight on a string that crossed the opposite edges of the circle hung from its center. The navigator would sight the North Star along one edge, and the point where the string crossed the edge would show the star’s altitude or angle above the horizon.

Mariner’s brass quadrant. The quadrant shown above is a replica of the type Columbus might have used on his voyages to the New World. This one is marked off at the latitudes of Lisbon, Cabo Verde and Serra Leoa, down near the Equator where Columbus is known to have visited.

Sri Lanka: Temple of the Tooth

Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is a Buddhist temple in the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is located in the royal palace complex of the former Kingdom of Kandy.

Monks conduct daily worship in the inner chamber of the temple. Rituals are performed three times daily: at dawn, at noon and in the evenings. On Wednesdays there is a symbolic bathing of the relic with an herbal preparation made from scented water and fragrant flowers, called Nanumura Mangallaya. This holy water is believed to contain healing powers and is distributed among those present.

Built in the 16th century, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (also known as Dalada Maligawa) is one of the most sacred Buddhist sites in the world. As denoted by its namesake, it houses Sri Lanka’s most important Buddhist relic- an actual tooth of Buddha. The relic is kept in a golden Dagoba casket and attracts many devotees and curious visitors.

In ancient times, the tooth held more than religious significance, it also carried political importance, as it was believed that whoever had the tooth was vested with power to rule.

Wall painting at Kelaniya Temple of Princess Hemamali and her husband, Prince Dantha which she carried Gautama Buddha's tooth relic hidden in her hair to Sri Lanka. - Painting by Solias MendisJPG

In the 4th century King Guhasinha of Dantapura sent his daughter to Sri Lanka with the Tooth hidden in her hair to keep it safe during a time of political crisis. This was in the year 310 CE and since that time the vicissitudes of the Tooth have been meticulously recorded.

In 1560 the Portuguese who were constantly fighting with the Sinhalese for control of the island triumphantly announced that they had captured the Tooth. They took it to Goa where a huge public gathering was held during which Archbishop Don Gaspar, with spiteful glee, desecrated it, burned it then and had its ashes thrown into the sea. It was the Sinhalese however who had the last laugh. Just as some leaders will sometimes have doubles acting in their place to protect them from assassination, Sri Lankan kings sometimes had replicas of the Tooth made to confuse those who might want to seize it during times of uncertainty. The Portuguese had in fact captured one of these replicas. In 1545 the Tooth was brought to Kandy where it has remained ever since.

Pirates Anne Bonny, Mary Reed and "Calico Jack" Rackham

Anne bonny

Anne Bonny (1700-1782, exact dates uncertain) was a pirate who fought under the command of "Calico Jack" Rackham between 1718 and 1720. Together with fellow female pirate Mary Read, she was one of Rackham's more formidable pirates, fighting, cursing and drinking with the best of them. She was captured along with the rest of Rackham's crew in 1720 and sentenced to death, although her sentence was commuted because she was pregnant. She has been the inspiration for countless stories, books, movies, songs and other works.


The Birth of Anne Bonny:

Most of what is known about Anne Bonny's early life comes from Captain Charles Johnson's "A General History of the Pyrates" which dates to 1724. Johnson (most, but not all, pirate historians believe that Johnson was actually Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe) provides some details of Bonny's early life, but did not list his sources and his information has proven impossible to verify. According to Johnson, Bonny was born near Cork, Ireland probably sometime around 1700, the result of a scandalous affair between an English lawyer and his maid. He was eventually forced to bring Anne and her mother to America to escape all the gossip.

Anne Falls in Love:

Anne’s father set up in Charleston, first as a lawyer and then as a merchant. Young Anne was spirited and tough: Johnson reports that she once badly beat up a young man who “would have lain with her, against her Will.” He father had done quite well in his businesses and it was expected that Anne would marry well. Nevertheless, she fell for a penniless sailor named James Bonny, who was reportedly quite disappointed when her father disinherited her and cast them out. She may have been as young as sixteen.

Bonny and Rackham:

An 18th-century woodcut of Rackham

The young couple set out for New Providence, where Anne's husband made a meager living turning in pirates for for bounties. She evidently lost all respect for James Bonny and developed a reputation for sleeping around with various men in Nassau. It was at this time - probably sometime in 1718 or 1719 - that she met pirate "Calico Jack" Rackham (sometimes spelled Rackam) who had recently wrested command of a pirate vessel from the ruthless Captain Charles Vane. Anne soon became pregnant and went to Cuba to have the child: once she had given birth, she returned to a life of piracy with Rackham.

Anne Bonny the Pirate:

Anne proved to be an excellent pirate. She dressed like a man, and fought, drank and swore like one too. Captured sailors reported that after their vessels were captured by the pirates, it was the two women – Bonny and Mary Read, who had joined the crew by then – who egged their crewmates on to greater acts of bloodshed and violence. Some of these sailors testified against her at her trial.

Anne and Mary Read:

According to legend, Bonny (dressed as a man) felt a strong attraction to Mary Read (who was also dressed as a man) and revealed herself as a woman in hopes of seducing Read. Read then confessed that she was a woman, too. The reality is slightly different: Bonny and Read most likely met in Nassau as they were preparing to ship out with Rackham. They were very close, perhaps even lovers. They would wear women's clothes on board, but change into men's clothes when it looked like there would be some fighting soon.

The Capture of Bonny, Read and Rackham:

By October of 1720, Rackham, Bonny, Read and the rest of the crew were infamous in the Caribbean and Governor Woodes Rogers had authorized privateers to hunt and capture them and other pirates for bounties. A heavily armed sloop belonging to Captain Jonathan Barnet was tipped off as to Rackham’s location and caught up to them: the pirates had been drinking and after a small exchange of cannon and small arms fire, they surrendered. When capture was imminent, only Anne and Mary fought against Barnet’s men, swearing at their crewmates to come out from under the decks and fight.

A Pirate's Trial:

The trials of Rackham, Bonny and Read caused a sensation. Rackham and the other male pirates were swiftly found guilty: he was hanged with four other men at Gallows Point in Port Royal on November 18, 1720. Reportedly, he was allowed to see Bonny before his execution and she said to him: "I'm sorry to see you here, but if you had fought like a man you need not have hanged like a dog." Bonny and Read were also found guilty on November 28 and sentenced to hang. At that point, the both declared that they were pregnant. The execution was postponed, and it was found to be true: both women were pregnant.

Later Life of Anne Bonny:

Mary Read died in prison about five months later. What happened to Anne Bonny is uncertain. Like her early life, her later life is lost in shadow. Captain Johnson’s book first came out in 1724, so her trial was still fairly recent news while he was writing it, and he only says of her “She was continued in prison, to the time of her lying in, and afterwards reprieved from Time to Time, but what is become of her since, we cannot tell; only this we know, that she was not executed.”

Legacy of Anne Bonny:

So what happened to Anne Bonny? There are many versions of her fate and no truly decisive proof in favor of any one of them, so you can pick your favorite. Some say she reconciled with her wealthy father, moved back to Charleston, remarried and lived a respectable life into her eighties. Others say she remarried in Port Royal or Nassau and bore her new husband several children.

Anne's impact on the world has been primarily cultural. As a pirate, she didn't really have a great impact. Her pirating career only lasted a few months. Rackham was a second-class pirate, mostly taking easy prey like fishing vessels and lightly armed traders. If not for Anne Bonny and Mary Read, he would be a footnote in pirate lore.

But Anne has gained great historical stature in spite of her lack of distinction as a pirate. Her character has much to do with it: not only was she one of only a handful of female pirates in history, but she was one of the die-hards, who fought and cursed harder than most of her male colleagues. Today, historians of everything from feminism to cross-dressing scour the available histories for anything on her or Mary Read.

No one knows how much of an influence Anne has had on young women since her days of piracy. At a time when women were kept indoors, barred from freedoms that men enjoyed, Anne went out on her own, left her father and husband, and lived as a pirate on the high seas off and on for two years. How many repressed young girls of the Victorian Era saw Anne Bonny as a great heroine? This is probably her greatest legacy, the romantic example of a woman who seized freedom when the opportunity presented itself (even if her reality was probably not nearly as romantic as people think).

Sources:
Cawthorne, Nigel. A History of Pirates: Blood and Thunder on the High Seas. Edison: Chartwell Books, 2005.
Defoe, Daniel (writing as Captain Charles Johnson). A General History of the Pyrates. Editoed by Manuel Schonhorn. Mineola: Dover Publications, 1972/1999.
Konstam, Angus. The World Atlas of Pirates. Guilford: the Lyons Press, 2009
Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.
Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Mariner Books, 2008.

Via About.com