I was a heavyset man who showed I was used to working outdoors. I was 5 foot, 6 inches tall. I had brown hair, a pointy beard of the same color and moustache with the tips twirled upward. I had grey eyes with a scar under the right eye from an arrow shot by a South American Indian.
I was born in circa 1540 in Tavistock, Devon in England. I was the eldest of twelve brothers in my family. In my time, the world was divided between Protestants and Catholics. I personally was a Protestant and I had a strong dislike for Catholics. My father, Edmund Drake, was a preacher of the Bible for English ships. This forced us to move from my family's simple farm in Tavistock, to a Royal Navy at the mouth of the river Thames. Preaching to ships' crew didn't pull in much money, so at ten my father found me a job on a small vessel. There I learned to navigate the ocean by the stars and compass, avoid sandbanks, and to steer clear of rocky coastlines. I did so well, that my captain even remembered me in his will. At the age of sixteen I became commander of my own vessel. I worked hard to save money, and eventually I sold my ship so I could pursue wealth and glory.
I went to Plymouth, in Devon, and joined John Hawkings, a distant cousin of mine. Portugal, who had enslaved the natives already in the New World, traded with us their slaves for other goods. John Hawkings became the founder of the English Slave Trade. He was the leading slave trader, and he built some of the finest warships of all time.
He made two successful slave trades, but the third one was ambitious and carefully planned. I was a captain for one of his six ships. There were 400 men total on this voyage. The voyage was to Africa. Hawkings already had 150 slaves, but decided that we needed more slaves to make the trade in the New World "worthy". We approached the local chiefs of where we docked. Hawkings made a trade with them, that in exchange for slaves, we would help them defeat Conga, a town by the Sierra Leone River. We went to battle with them only to find that they didn’t give us any slaves. Hawkings managed to capture 400 slaves and on February 2, 1658 we were off to the New World. By September we sold all of the slaves in the New World and we set course back to Plymouth. But alas, we were struck by a hurricane off the west tip of Cuba. We were forced to anchor for repairs at San Juan de Ulua, an island in the harbour of Vera Cruz, the chief port of New Spain. There the Spanish attacked. We suffered a horrible defeat. Hawkings and I were left with 67 of the initial 400 men we sailed off with. This gave me a deep hatred for Spain which I'll hold for the rest of my life.
In 1569 I married my first wife named Mary Newman. I did not spend much time with her; fore I wanted to go back out to sea. I wanted to cripple Spain. I wanted to loot the Spanish of the treasure they have found in the new world because that was keeping them powerful. I had to cut off their supply of treasure. It came from Vera Cruz, Mexico, and the Central part of the New World. Between 1569 and 1572 I studied how could reach one of the Spanish bases, Nombre de Dios. I sailed to Port Pheasant which became my base in the New World, but to find a burning tree, a warning sign, from former crew mates, to say that the Spanish have found it. I decided that it was safe to stay for a few days, while my crew readied themselves for the raid. I needed the element of surprise. When we finally attacked Nombre de Dios, they were waiting. They were prepared for an attack for escaped slaves. We were not doing well. A storm broke out in the middle of the fight and our gunpowder became wet and useless. I was injured in the leg and my crew refused to follow my order to go on, and they brought me back to the ship. One of my two brothers who went on this voyage with me managed to get into the treasure room and found that the Spanish shipped it off six weeks earlier. I couldn't go home empty handed. An escaped slave knew how the treasure was being moved and he wanted to help us. He sent us into the jungle where we met the Cimaroon. They were former slaves and they told me about life under the Spaniards. I admired them. Their stories opened my eyes to see that slaves were people, not merchandise.
During this time with the Cimaroon, my two brothers died, one to disease, the other was shot in the stomach during an attack. We went south to Panama City to intercept the treasure only to find that the treasure was sent back to Nombre de Dios because the Spanish suspected that we would come to raid the treasure. There were only 31 of the original 72 men. We sailed back to Nombre de Dios and we found a crew of Frenchmen. We decided to help each other and split the loot. A group of us went to camp about a mile in front of Nombre de Dios. The captain of the Frenchmen and I were in that group. We successfully raided the treasure. There was so much silver that we hid 15 tons of it in holes. The French captain was severely injured so I left him with two Frenchmen to search for gold. He and one of the Frenchmen were captured. The captain was beheaded and the other man was forced to tell the Spanish, where the silver was. Then he too, was beheaded. Whoever was left and I found all of the gold and we went to the rendezvous point with my ships. We found Spanish there so we quickly built a raft. I sailed off with two Frenchmen and eventually found my ships that were delayed by bad weather. We picked up the rest of the men and the gold and sailed off. I split the gold with the French and I left a rich man.
When I returned to England many people wanted me arrested for piracy, which was a serious charge. Because of this, I "disappeared" for about 4 years. I was a guard against the Irish who were constantly rebelling. I received a letter saying that I am to go to London. On my arrival, I went to a meeting that I was told that I needed to go to. The secretary of state, Francis Walshingham, who was impressed by my activities, told me that relations with Spain had worsened, and that the English needed to send a message to them saying that they needed to mend their ways, but not something strong enough to trigger war with them. Spreading a map on a table, Walshingham asked me to mark the places the Spanish might be hurt. No one really wanted to mark any places because they knew that if during this voyage, Queen Elizabeth is to die, and her successor is friendly to Spain, they would be practically be signing their own death warrants.
A few days after this, I was invited to the join Walshingham at the royal palace to meet Her Majesty in person. Her Majesty herself asked me to attack the Spanish ships in the New World. That was music to my ears. We planned and we planned. On November 15, 1577 my five ships secretly slipped out of Plymouth harbour. I sailed on the flagship, named the Pelican. Along with me were the Elizabeth, Marigold, Benedict, and Swan. We sailed the Atlantic, and went down south until we reached the most treacherous waters in the world. We would have to navigate the Strait of Magellan. (The Strait of Magellan was the waters between the southern tip of South America and Tierra del Fuegos, an archipelago in the south). During this time a gentleman by the name of Thomas Daughty started to question my authority. He tried to start a mutiny.
On our trip to the Strait of Magellan we docked in Port San Julian (Near present-day Buenos Aires). When we went on land we were immediately surrounded by natives. I didn't want to provoke them, but it was too late. The Natives started firing. I took a gun and fired at the chief, killing him. The others, in shock, ran and never came back. Thomas Daughty was still causing problems and trying to start a mutiny. On July 16th, I picked a 40 man jury and charged Daughty with mutiny. The penalty for mutiny was Death. I asked the jury if he was worthy of death, 40 hands rose simultaneously. The verdict was guilty. I allowed him to choose his method of death. He chose to be beheaded.
We reached the Strait of Magellan on August 21, 1578. This was the day I renamed The Pelican, The Golden Hind. It took me 16 days to get through the Strait of Magellan. I was worried that my small fleet was going to get lost, so I gave the order to sink the Swan and the Benedict. With 3 ships left, we were hit by a storm. The Marigold was sunk, her crew lost forever. A week later, the captain of the Elizabeth, John Wynter gave an order to turn back. They went back through the Strait and back home to Plymouth.
I was left with the Golden Hind. From there we were driven 966 kilometers south. We anchored and took shelter on an island for 53 days. During this time, while observing my surroundings I noticed that the geography was different than maps. I saw that at the southern tip of the New World, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean were connected to become one big ocean. The maps showed that the southern tip of the New World connected with the bottom of the world, and that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were completely cut off.
On November 25th 1578, we sailed north and we reached the Mocha Islands. We were greeted by the Mocha Indians, a tribe that were slaves and had fled from Spain. I warned my crew to speak only in English or Sign Language. Despite my warnings, some of my men asked for "agua." The natives looked at us suspiciously, but they agreed to take us to a spring.The next morning, I went with twelve men on a boat and rowed back to the island. Two sailors, Tom Brewer and Tom Flood ran ashore to secure to boat,when suddenly a few Indians seized the two men and pulled the boat higher up the beach. A large amount of Indians jumped out from hiding and ambushed us.One man died from his wounds. Flood and Brewer could not be saved. They were captured, killed, cut up, and eaten. I was shot by an arrow under my right eye. I was not injured much from that. I refused to take revenge on them. We needed to focus on the Spanish. We took the Spanish by surprise in the Pacific. My first target, Valparaiso, Chile. We boarded the El Grand Cápitan del Mar del Sur (in English, The Grand Captain of the South Sea), a Spanish vessel bound for Panama. I took all of their valuables, wine, and food. We continued raiding the coast, taking all of the Spanish by surprise. When we raided Callao, the port of Lima, Peru on February 15, 1579, we took everything we wanted from Spanish ships, cut their anchors and let the, go afloat. There we learned of a ship that had left for Panama two weeks earlier. A ship by the name of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. (The English name would be "Our Lady of Conception"). Her crew called her Cacafuego, (Spitfire) because she had many cannons. The captain, San Juan de Antón, was not expecting any attacks from boats larger than Native's boats.
My crew and I sailed north. We gradually caught up to Cacafuego in a way that Antón wouldn't suspect the Golden Hind as a warship. Eventually, Antón thought that the Golden Hind was a messenger ship so he turned around. He was falling right into my trap. When we caught up to him we boarded his ship. I captured Antón and his ship. No one was killed, but all of Cacafuego's loot was taken. The treasure was 80lbs of gold and 26 tons of silver. I handed out some of the treasure to all of my crew and even to the prisoners. Now I had to figure out how to get home.
We tried our luck going up the Northwest Passage, but by the time we got to Vancouver Island, we were hit by a fog and we immediately turned back. We landed in a port-like peninsula (San Francisco area). We were greeted by Indians who helped us. (More about it under the Findings tab). After setting sail once again, we decided to go around the globe to get home.
On the way, when we passed Asia we stopped at a few islands to trade for spices, peppers, ginger, rice, bananas, and sugar cane. While weaving through the maze of islands in Asia (Indonesia), We struck an undersea mountain. The winds were not in our favor. We threw some items overboard, but we needed the wind to stop hitting us from the right. I prayed for a miracle and it happened, the wind changed and we were sailing again.
On September 26th, 1580 we finally reached Plymouth. Back home I was called back to London, where Queen Elizabeth knighted me. I also received 10,000 pounds of our loot. England was now on the brink of a war with Spain, and we needed to keep them out. In 1583 my wife suddenly died. I was remarried to Elizabeth Sydenham, one of the wealthiest people in England.
I sailed again in two Royal Navy ships and attacked Spanish ships, and sieged Spanish cities like St. Augustine. After St. Augustine I was given orders to sail back to England to keep the Spanish out of England.
I attacked Cadiz, Spain, the coast of Portugal, and captured incoming ships. I delayed the attack for more than a year. In the spring of 1588, the Spanish Armada assembled in Lisbon. They had 130 ships and 30,000 men. The English had 140-160 ships, so they were a big concern to Spain. The English defeated the Spanish Armada. Only 10,000 Spanish men returned to Spain. In November 24th, 1588 the English celebrated victory.
Next I was to take out any remaining ships. I failed badly in Portugal and lost my Queen's favor. In my 50's I sailed back to the New World to take more land from Spain. I was hit with a series of losses. In a few months after I lost the attack on San Juan de Puerto Rico, I caught dysentery. (A bad case of diarrhea). On January 28, 1596, near Panama I could tell it was the end for me. I died on January 28, 1596, and I am somehow telling you my life's story.