Talk:Francis Drake
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An event in this article is a April 4 selected anniversary (may be in HTML comment).
I deleted the phrase "heavily outnumbered and outgunned" referring to Howard and Drake's English fleet. This is a total myth, and anybody who doubts this should read Garret Mattingly's book "The Armada", which won a Special Pulitzer Prize and is, incidentally, the finest history book I've ever read.
The fleets were roughly equal in size, but the English ships were of a more modern design with superior guns. Mattingly discusses the origins of the myth about the supposed "superiority" of the Spanish fleet.
A one-shot anonym having added a note on Drake's career of harrassment of the Spanish, I've made it a bit more accurate: his relations to the Armada are rather inadequately described as "harassment"; and the center of his attentions appears to have been the Empire more than the Spanish, though possibly there could be debate on this. Meanwhile, there needs to be a mention of the incident as San Juan de Ulloa (or Ulua), which has now been done without once using the word "treachery". Dandrake 06:39, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
BTW, to say that he became a privateer at the age of 13 is pretty silly, so the article no longer says it. Dandrake 06:47, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
Well, personally, I think he was just a pirate, but that's my own point of view which I am of course not going to add to the main article. I just wanted to mention that my Spanish is good enough to know that "El Draque" does NOT mean absolutely anything. So whoever wrote that it is a translation from Drake was wrong. I don't know what they called him. I'm only saying that Draque is not Spanish for dragon. Rumpelstiltskin 12:54, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Well, it means something now, as the folks at a Spanish multimedia company's site www.draque.com could tell you. But this derivative of DragonQuest isn't helpful in the present case. More interesting is the descent of the Cuban cocktail the mojito from a drink popular in the pre-Bacardi era before 1850 and called the draque, allegedly named after (heck, allegedly invented by) Sir Francis; but we know better than to take these folk tales seriously. It would be nice to get the opinion of someone expert in historical Spanish; would el Draque have any semantic significance to a 16th-century Spaniard? But any Google search is doomed by those other two draques. Dandrake 07:13, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)
The source for our illustration is http://www.mcn.org/2/oseeler/drake.htm Oliver seeler's website "Sir Francis Drake" Wetman 03:53, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
http://www.douglas-mcintyre.com/book_details.asp?b=817
Agree with Dandrake about Mattingly's book "The Armada" c 1959.
- For the record, that's not me; it's someone else's comment that didn't happen to have a signature. BTW don't forget to end your comments with the four-tilde ~~~~ gimmick that attaches a name and time. (I must read the book some day!) Dandrake 19:45, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)
It's beautiful. I have a copy I am reading now. The only mention of San Juan de Ulua (pp 83-84) does not discuss the size of the forces. It only states "... the armed ships of that prosperous merchant (John Hawkins) were treacherously set upon by the Armada of New Spain." Drake, with Hawkins, lost money and reputation and almost lost their lives. Mattingly states Drake's "private war" with the Spanish arose from this attack. Drake was further motivated by religious considerations learned from his father (a Puritan preacher). The Spanish were of course on the opposite end of the Christian spectrum, papists.
Did Drake use the Puritan theory that Catholics were idolators as moral justification for pirating Spain's silver and gold? - probably
Revenge for San Juan de Ulua and enriching himself - probably more justification.
Could Elizabeth ever acknowledge Drake's activities vs. Spain? No, Elizabeth never did anything politically incorrect. She was the ultimate teflon politician.
Sorry about the non-signature. Just recently started using Wikipedia and now am registered but still neophyte at editing. ````Jambo 19-Jul-04
I think the article is heavily biased in that it doesn't have the word pirate anywhere in the text. A search in google for "drake pirate" gives about 86000 results. 12 Jul 2004
- Instead of adding an NPOV dispute disclaimer to the body of the article, why not edit the article to resolve the dispute? Add "pirate" somewhere, where appropriate. Personally, I think its covered: the lead states that Drake was a "privateer", which is accurate. Marlowe 16:20, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- If a lot of people talk of him in terms of pirates, and somebody cares, how about a pragraph that notes that the Spanish considered him a pirate, and noting the distinction between a privateer (officer of the Elizabethan privatised navy) and a freebooter (pirate)? Dandrake 23:58, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)
- Added text to that effect under section 'First Adventures'.Marlowe 17:24, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
He worked for his cousin John Hawkins, a slave trader, early in his career. This does not make the trade a significant part of his fame, which was gathered after he was master of his own ship. Shall we also have the introduction mention that he was childless, along with his religious opinions? In fact, the article is deficient in saying not enough of his honorable dealings with the ex-slaves who worked with him in the Darien expedition. (Oh, and the Intro goes into excess detail on Nova Albion, which belongs (and is) in the CIrcumnavigation section.)
BTW, what's the source for the bit about the 25 men left behind at N.A.? Doesn't seem to be a familiar part of the usual accounts. Dandrake 05:01, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
- You should fix the lead section, if you find it inadequate, instead of writing about it on the discussion page. Actually, the lead section would be expanded in general. Marlowe 19:44, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- I did fix it, and was noting why. As to larger revisions, I thought I'd see if anyone particularly cared; since no one does, I'll work on it when it hits the top of the queue. I didn't know that policy required changes to be made in a bunch and then argued over, never discussed while in progress. Dandrake 02:46, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)
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Golden Hinde
The name of his ship was the Golden Hinde. The spelling "Hind" is a modernisation.
California?
Yes he landed in California however that was a very minor event, not one of his biggest achievments. Why is it mentioned at the head of the article? Shouldn't it mention him being one of the figures seen as creating modern England and defeating the armada?
- There must be an editor who is very interested in Drake and California. The History of California is burdened by a long section on Drake's possible stop there. I'm going to move most of it here, and I apologize in advance for any clumsiness in the merge. Please correct as necessary. Cheers, -Willmcw 20:57, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Someone had deleted the entire section about circumnavigation. I've reverted it back, but it's still rather more focussed on California than the whole round trip. --ScottDavis 01:15, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
El Draco?
I seem to remember that for some countries around the Caribbean the term for the bogeyman is something like El Draco and is related to Drake. Can anyone confirm and add this in?
Nothwest passage?
This fabled northwest passage is mentioned twice, but I am not sure which mention of it is in the correct place. The gold plate hoax is mentioned twice too.. --Sprintstar
DELETED THE “EL DRAQUE”
I am Spanish, and I have deleted the reference to the supposed nickname of “El Draque”. The explanation is as simple as hilarious.
Dragon in English means Dragón in Spanish.
“Draque” is how a Spaniard who doesn’t know how to talk English would say “Drake”. ‘El’ is an article used before the name of things, but when it is used before the name of the people it uses to have pejorative connotations.
Drake was (and stills being) depreciated by the Spaniards, as a cruel and coward pirate who used to sack civilian harbors when the Royal Spanish Armada was away enough to protect them.
Unlike Nelson, who was admired by the Spanish naval officers as a great military enemy, Drake would had been hung as soon as he was captured by the Spanish escort fleets.
Apart from this, Drake is seen by the Spanish historians as a megalomaniac and a compulsive liar, who used to exaggerate his victories as much as he hided his defeats.
For instance, something that is not commented in the article, is that when Drake circumnavigated the World, he considered himself as the first man doing such a thing, despite the fact that the Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano had circumnavigated the World some decades before Drake. Drake even carried in his ship a plate with the words “First man circumnavigating the World”.
Not the first Protestant services in
Not the first Protestant services in America
Yesterday I edited the entry to say that Drake's communion was *one of* the first Protestant services in America. According to Francis Parkman, who cites extensive primary documents, French Huguenots established a colony in Florida in the early 1560s. They were Protestants. They were also nearly all exterminated by the Spanish.
But my edit disappeared today!! What's up with that?
April 28, 2005