Drake in Oregon? The Mystery Continues……
Hardly a year goes by without a reconstruction of a historic sailing ship visiting the Columbia River. The Lady Washington is a frequent visitor, but I can also recall going on board Captain Cook’s Endeavour, and even meeting Captain Bligh on HMS Bounty–they all explored the pacific Ocean in the 1700s. Each ship was rigged and sailed in an authentic manner–at least when the wind blew—and in port the crews attempted to show how they lived in its historic period. However, the ship that stands out clearest in my memory was from a period 200 years earlier.
This was the modern version of the Golden Hinde, the ship that carried Francis Drake around the world, stopping somewhere along the NW coast where he claimed the whole territory for England, then returned triumphantly back to London in 1580. Drake was the first captain to succeed in circling the world (and survive) in an era when navigation was much more primitive than in Cook’s day. This fact was self-evident from its ungainly rig and vast freeboard in the sterncastle.
In the 1980’s, it seemed highly unlikely to me that the ship could do much more than run downwind when the weather turned against it….but the replica had already been around the world one and a half times, and the motley crew had managed to survive worst weather–without a figurehead as it had been lost in a storm between Everett and Aberdeen a month previously.
Re-creating History for 45 Years
In 2013, forty years after it was launched in 1973, our courses crossed again. I was visiting my home town of Greenwich, where the old tea clipper Cutty Sark is preserved in a permanent graving dock. I was riding my folding Bike Friday along the Thames Pathway towards Tower Bridge when the path went around the tiny and ancient St Mary Overie Dock between two tall warehouses. I turned the corner and there was the Golden Hinde II high and dry right in front of me in a small graving dock.
This Tudor galleon seemed so out of place in this re-developed 21st century waterfront, I felt like I had stumbled on the set of a movie about Queen Elizabeth I. This has been the ship’s home since 1996, The bulwarks were being repaired, and as I watched, I guessed it is unlikely ever to float again. This unlikely encounter reminded me of the time I went below decks 25 years before and saw the “authentic” crowded conditions the crew were living in. It didn’t help that the young co-ed crew were engaged in tarring the rigging and appeared to have nowhere at all to clean up. Once again, I was profoundly happy to be sailing in the late 20th century!
I learned later that ironically, Queen Elizabeth knighted Drake in 1581 aboard The Golden Hinde nearby in Deptford. She then declared the ship should be a maritime museum, making it almost surely the first museum ship in the world! It survived until the mid-1600s when, predictably, the lack of funds for maintenance made it too dangerous to be open to the public.
In the office nearby, I learned about the ship’s 40th birthday, found more information, and learned that the Golden Hinde II was actually the dream of two American businessmen, Albert Elledge and Art Blum. They wished to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the completion of Sir Francis Drake’s famous circumnavigation in 1580. There were no plans of the original ship, so Loring Christian Norgaard, Californian naval architect, spent three years researching manuscripts about Drake’s voyage, traditional shipbuilding in the Tudor era and journals from crew members.
He used the measurements for the wooden covering that was built around the original ship while berthed in Deptford as a maritime museum. With all this information Norgaard was able to design a fully working reconstruction. Once Norgaard’s plans were complete, the shipbuilding firm J. Hinks & Son in Appledore, Devon were selected to undertake the build. The Hinks family were respected shipbuilders with over 100 years of experience in traditional craftsmanship.
They began the time-consuming process of sourcing the authentic materials of oak, elm, pine and fir trees needed, as well as researching traditional hand-building methods and tools used to create the vessel. The internal and external decorations were also meticulously planned, including the “hinde” (deer) figurehead. After two years of devoted work, Golden Hinde II was launched on 5th April 1973, by the Countess of Devon.
The Great Voyages 1975-1996
In 1975 the ship sailed to San Francisco as a memorial to Francis Drake’s landing in North America. In 1979 she crossed the Pacific to Japan to film the TV Series “Shogun” before returning to England. Golden Hinde II then celebrated the 400th anniversary in Plymouth in 1980, while filming “Drake’s Venture” starring the late John Thaw. After a tour of Britain and Ireland, she sailed to Canada to appear in Expo ’86. In 1987 she began a four-year-expedition through the East and West Coasts of North America. In Portland, the U.S. Coastguard demanded that the ship must pay tax as a commercial passenger vessel because it charged an entry fee. There was a public outcry and they relented, only insisting on a second gangplank and a fire pump on shore. Returning to the U.K. In 1991, the ship made a successful tour of Britain before retiring to the London waterfront.
The Great Voyage 1577-1580
Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth on 13th December 1577 with a fleet of 5 ships: the Pelican, the Elizabeth, the Marigold, the Swan and the Christopher. His mission was to open trade links with new nations and discover new shipping routes, thereby weakening the Spanish dominance of South America. He did this successfully, acquiring treasure from Spanish ships and claiming land on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I.
By June 1578, he landed at Port San Julian, in modern day Argentina – here an execution took place of a fellow officer and friend, Thomas Doughty, who had been charged with mutiny. At the Strait of Magellan, the Pelican was renamed The Golden Hinde in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton, a patron of the voyage whose coat of arms features a golden deer (“hinde”). The Golden Hinde, the Elizabeth and the Marigold then sailed through the Strait of Magellan and emerged in the Pacific Ocean.
As a series of storms erupted, the Marigold was lost and the Elizabeth sailed back to England. The Golden Hinde was blown to the southernmost point of South America, reaching the island now known as Cape Horn. Francis Drake then sailed north along the west coast of South America acquiring treasure from Spanish and Portuguese ships and settlements, and learned of the Spanish ship Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion (Cacafuego), which was sailing towards Peru laden with silver and jewels.
The Golden Hinde caught up with Cacafuego on 1st March 1579 off the coast of Mexico and acquired 362,000 pesos worth of silver from the ship. Francis Drake continued north and landed somewhere on the coast north of San Francisco Bau in 1579 where he repaired The Golden Hinde and traded with the local Native Americans becoming the first European to make contact with them.
He named the land “Nova Albion” (New England), and claimed it in the name of Queen Elizabeth I. But the exact location of his landing has never been proved scientifically! (SEE BELOW) Leaving North America he sailed across the Pacific Ocean, through Asia, arriving in Plymouth via the Cape of Good Hope, on 26th September 1580 – the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world. His treasure was calculated at £600,000 in Elizabethan money – many millions by today’s standards. Queen Elizabeth I knighted Drake on 4th April 1581 aboard the Golden Hinde in Deptford, declaring the ship should be a maritime museum; however it fell into disrepair and was broken up in the mid-1600s. All that remains of The Golden Hinde are a chair made of the timbers, which currently sits at the Bodleian Library in Oxford
Francis Drake in Oregon?
During the course of his Famous Voyage around the world, Francis Drake spent the summer of 1579 in a harbour on the West Coast of America, preparing the Golden Hinde for the long journey back home. While there, he claimed the land for England, naming it New Albion, and placed the local people under the protection of the British Crown. He inscribed his claim on a metal plate, which he nailed to a post along with an English sixpence, which carried an image of Queen Elizabeth.
This was the very first instance of an English Colony or Protectorate being established on foreign shores, so wherever this took place was the birthplace and first outpost of the British Empire, one of the most important historic sites in North America. Just where Drake was has always been a mystery. When Drake got back home, a great veil of secrecy was erected around his voyage. All logs,maps and charts from the voyage were confiscated by Queen Elizabeth and never seen again, his crew were sworn to secrecy about their movements, under pain of death, and no accounts of the voyage were allowed to be published for almost ten years.
When the official account was published by Richard Hakluyt, England’s foremost naval chronicler, in 1589, it said that after Drake had plundered Spanish ships and settlements along the Pacific coast of South and Central America, he tried to return home via the Moluccas, the Spice Islands in the East Indies. However, lack of suitable winds caused him to travel further north, where bitterly cold weather forced him back to the American coast shortly after reaching 42° latitude, now the California-Oregon border.
According to Hakluyt, he found a suitable harbour to repair his ship, which Hakluyt placed at 38°, in the region of San Francisco. However, in the British Library there are not one but two hand-written accounts of the voyage, which both place the anchorage at 44°, on the mid-Oregon coast. Furthermore, it is easy to demonstrate that this official account was falsified in at least five places, and probably in ten places, for political purposes, and there are certain features of the description of the people and the animals that Drake saw at New Albion that are inconsistent with it being in California.
In the official account, and elsewhere, there are a series of clues that lead us to the true location of Drake’s anchorage, and give us an explanation as to why the official account was falsified. It was mostly to do with Drake’s search for the North West Passage. Hakluyt’s account is therefore very unreliable, and this is particularly important because the 38° location for the anchorage is the ONLY evidence of Drake’s supposed visit to California.
The anchorage location is not important just because Drake landed there. He landed in lots of other places around the world. It is important because when he was there, he claimed the land for England, naming it “New Albion”, and placed the local people under the protection of the British crown. This is the very first instance of a British colony or protectorate being established on foreign shores, so wherever this took place is the birthplace and first outpost of what was to become the British Empire, and therefore one of the most important historic sites in North America.
The local people described in the accounts also give us clues that New Albion could not have been in California. The Indians in that area were the Coast Miwok, and there are several aspects of the description of their culture and lifestyle that are inconsistent with a California location. However, in our attempt to limit the search for New Albion, we need only to consider one aspect of the culture that is notable for its absence: totem poles.
The people that Drake met at New Albion were not of the totem culture that characterizes the people of the North West Coast around, and north of, the Columbia River, all the way up to Alaska. Therefore Drake’s anchorage must have been south of the Columbia River. These clues let the limits be set for the search for New Albion. Muskrats set the southern limit at about the California-Oregon border and the lack of totems sets the northern limit at the Columbia River. Drake’s New Albion must therefore lie along the coast of either Oregon or Washington.
Only 56 men survived with Drake, returning after three years and a journey of more than 36,000 miles, with a vast cargo of treasure worth hundreds of millions of pounds in today’s money. Queen Elizabeth I’s share alone was more than the country’s national debt. ‘El Draco’ or ‘The Dragon’ became one of the most famous men in Western Europe, was feared and reviled by the Spanish and was duly knighted in London.
