The Jamestown Experiment (2 page)

The difficulties Hawkins’s fleet encountered only multiplied when the Englishmen reached the West Indies. Although Hawkins managed to trade the slaves at several ports along the Caribbean coast of South America, it was only after he fired on and burned
the towns and captured the uncooperative Spanish officials that he managed to force them to trade with him. Then, in late August, a hurricane battered the ships for three days and sank one of his treasure-laden vessels.

The storm forced the English ships to limp into the Gulf of Mexico, where they put in at San Juan de Ulúa on the Yucatán by hiding their identity until it was too late for the Spanish garrison. The English were making repairs to their ships when a Spanish treasure fleet appeared and trapped them in the harbor. The tense days that followed came to a boil when the Spanish finally attacked, boarding and firing on the enemy ships. The English fleet tried to break out, but the
Jesus
was mortally wounded, and Hawkins transferred his men and the wealth to another ship. The ships fired broadsides at each other while the cannon of the fort thundered away. When the smoke cleared, Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake managed to sail only two ships out of six away. Hawkins landed in Plymouth in early 1569 with fifteen gaunt survivors of an Atlantic crossing plagued by starvation and scurvy.

Hawkins did not break the lucrative Iberian monopoly over the trade in human beings, but he and Drake soon hatched another, more daring idea.
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During the sixteenth century, Spanish treasure fleets brought back tons of gold and silver to fund Philip II’s profligate spending on his armies, which he marched across Europe and tried to quell the Protestants revolting in the Netherlands. Philip’s needs were so great that not even the treasure fleets could adequately pay for his armies, and he was forced to borrow money abroad. Two fleets, one bound for Mexico and one for Peru, sailed from Spain to Hispaniola. The Mexican fleet then went to San Juan de Ulúa, the site of Hawkins’s fiasco. The Peruvian fleet stopped at Cartagena and at Nombre de
Díos in Panama, where Peruvian silver was brought by mule trains. Both fleets rendezvoused at Havana before arriving at Seville in Spain. In 1571, Sir Francis Drake roved between Cartagena and Nombre de Díos, intercepted a dozen Spanish ships with the small, forty-ton
Swan
, and plundered their cargo, netting some £66,000 and exposing the weaknesses of the Spanish Empire.
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In May 1572, Drake sailed to take his revenge on the Spanish enemy for events at San Juan. His two ships were joined by a third English ship, the
William and John,
and they rowed three pinnaces (small vessels propelled by sails or oars) to Nombre de Díos. They successfully raided the town, but their leader was wounded, and they were forced to pull out. Drake recovered and plunged into the jungles of Panama to ambush the silver train. He became the first Englishman to look upon the waters of the Pacific and prayed that “almighty God of His goodness to give [me] life and live to sail once again in an English ship to that sea.” Drake eventually hit the convoy of men and mules carrying several tons of gold and silver. The Spanish pursued him, and he was forced to bury most of his treasure off the trail.

Drake returned to England, and his cargo of precious metals made him and his investors very wealthy. More important, it was “evidence of God’s love and blessing towards our gracious Queen and country,” as the English believed Providence was on their side against Catholic Spain. Drake also proved that the flow of gold and silver to Spain was vulnerable.
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In late 1577, Drake sought to fulfill his promise to sail the Pacific when he took a fleet toward the Strait of Magellan to plunder the west coast of Spanish South America with the firm support of the queen and her court. Drake’s fleet had not passed the Cape Verde Islands before it started raiding its competitors, taking a Portuguese prize and an experienced pilot named Nuño da Silva.

After making landfall in Brazil, there were troubles in the fleet centered on Thomas Doughty, a proud gentleman. He challenged Drake’s authority on several occasions and was accused of fomenting a mutiny. Drake finally put in at Port San Julián in Argentina and tried and convicted Doughty. Doughty was executed, and Drake addressed his men, laying down the principle of unity of command and discipline in the person of the captain. He stated: “Let us show ourselves all to be of a company, and let us not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice at our decay and overthrow…If this voyage shall not have good success, we shall not only be a scorning unto our enemies, but also a great blot to our country forever; and what a triumph that would be for Spain and Portugal.”
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After scuttling an unseaworthy ship and renaming the flagship the
Golden Hind,
the fleet of three ships and two pinnaces under the firm command of Sir Francis Drake entered the treacherous Strait of Magellan on August 21, 1578, during the Antarctic winter. Drake had just emerged from the strait a little over a month later, when a storm beat him back into the strait and caused one of his captains to sail the second-largest ship in the fleet back to England. Drake persevered and sailed north for the Spanish ports along the Chilean and Peruvian coasts, which were virtually undefended because no Englishmen had sailed the waters of the Pacific—until now.

Drake surprised the Spanish and looted one port after another as the unsuspecting Spanish believed his ships were their own. First he sacked Valparaiso and took chests of twenty-five thousand gold pesos
.
Next, the fleet captured two barks with forty large bars of silver. The Englishmen then snatched another thirteen silver bars on a beach from a sleeping guard and joked that they had “freed him of his charge.” Drake’s men seized another prize with another thirty-seven bars of silver, a chest full of coins, and wine. In mid-February 1579, rather than sack the port of Callao, Peru, he disabled the ships
in the harbor and pursued the grand prize of a treasure ship:
Nuestra Señora de la Concepcíon
(or
Cácafuego
).

The
Golden Hind
and her companion ships captured prizes and gathered intelligence as they chased the
Nuestra Señora.
Drake offered a great prize to the man who spotted her first, which was claimed by his cousin a few weeks later. On March 1, Drake came alongside the Spanish ship and demanded her surrender, causing the master of the ship to reply, “What English demands I strike sail? Come do it yourself.” Drake did so. His men opened fire, tearing down the mizzenmast and wounding the master in a hail of arrows. The treasure loaded on to the English ships for nearly a week was an incredible twenty-six tons of silver, fourteen chests of gold coins, jewels, and gilt items.
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Drake could hardly return back through the Strait of Magellan now that the Spanish were alerted to his presence and seeking him. He made for the North American coast, landing at Oregon and California for repairs, fresh food and water, and to look for the western entrance to the Northwest Passage. He named the land “New England” and erected a brass plate claiming North America for the queen of England.

From there, Drake knew he would have to circumnavigate the globe and plunged across the Pacific. In late 1579 he made landfall at Portuguese possessions in the Philippines and the famed Spice Islands of the Moluccas, where he traded for six tons of invaluable cloves, pepper, and other spices. Although the
Golden Hind
struck a reef, forcing Drake to lighten her load by dumping half his cloves, the ship miraculously got off and remained seaworthy as it rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached England in September 1580. After nearly three years at sea, the patriotic Drake first inquired, “Is the queen alive and well?” She was, and she was very pleased with the 4,700 percent return for investors and knighted Drake for
his accomplishments for the nation.
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But the English still pursued trade and settlement in North America as well as plunder to the south. The gentlemen adventurers continued to strike out across the ocean to the new world in pursuit of these goals.

In June 1576, mariner Martin Frobisher initiated decades of serious English exploration and colonization of the New World when he embarked on the first of three voyages to North America looking for the Northwest Passage. He was convinced that the voyage to Cathay was “not only possible by the northwest, but also as he could prove, easy to be performed.” He was trained in the navigational arts by court astrologer John Dee, who was skilled in astronomy, mathematics, and geography, and served as principal advisor to the Crown on navigation.

In mid-July, a pair of barks and a pinnace reached the eastern coast of Greenland, but icepacks frightened off one of the masters, who sailed back to England, and the pinnace sank. Frobisher endured and managed to sail around the southern tip of Baffin Island and up what is now Frobisher Bay, which he believed was a strait and the fabled passage to Cathay. He claimed the land for England and captured a native before sailing home.

When he returned to London, Frobisher was “joyfully received with the great admiration of the people, bringing with them their strange man and his boat, which was such a wonder onto the whole city and to the rest of the realm that heard of it.” The native Eskimo helped spark a wild popular enthusiasm for the exotic in distant lands and was a spectacular flesh-and-blood example of the exotic rather than just a dramatic travel narrative. The pyrite that Frobisher had found turned out to be fool’s gold, but it nevertheless set off a wave of gold fever in London and great enthusiasm for additional voyages.

Merchant Michael Lok formed the Cathay Company, and subscribers (including the queen) invested in Frobisher’s second and third voyages to search for gold and the Northwest Passage. Frobisher sailed in May 1577 and again exactly one year later. During the former, he brought home 140 tons of ore and ten times as much as that during the latter. In July 1578, he sailed up the Hudson Strait, but fog and ice forced him to turn around. Nevertheless, he believed he had found the passage to China. Although his voyages had cost a whopping £20,000 and showed virtually no return, the English remained resolute in their pursuit of wealth and empire.
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Humphrey Gilbert, half brother to Sir Walter Ralegh and an acquaintance of colonial promoters Richard Hakluyt and John Dee, also sought the Northwest Passage and the English settlement of North America. Gilbert was a ruthless soldier who had fought for England and the cause of Protestantism in France, Ireland, and the Netherlands. He was knighted for his service in Ireland, during which he brutally repressed the Munster Rebellion through terror and slaughter. He was elected to Parliament and supported a practical education in the navigation arts.

In 1576, he published
A Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cathay,
arguing for the existence of the Northwest Passage. In June 1578, with the support of his influential men at court, Gilbert won a patent from Queen Elizabeth for all North American lands “not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people.” He was given extensive rights to govern any settlements, although English colonists would retain their traditional rights. The Crown would take one-fifth of any gold and silver he discovered, but controlling the trade of the East was beyond the imagination of an ambitious Elizabethan gentleman adventurer.
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On November 18, 1578, the expedition departed from Plymouth. It was destined to fail. Storms dispersed the fleet and forced Gilbert
to Ireland, the farthest point he sailed to on this voyage. Other ships went privateering off the coast of France and Spain, and Ralegh made it to the Cape Verde Islands until a leaky ship forced him to turn back. The abortive voyage was nothing short of a disaster.

Yet, in June 1583, Gilbert organized another fleet after selling millions of acres of land in North America to investors. The queen did not want her beloved pet Ralegh nor Gilbert to risk the dangers of the voyage, but she relented with Gilbert, who made a northern crossing and landed at St. John’s Harbor in Newfoundland. The large island with its waters teeming with codfish was visited annually by dozens of ships from several different European countries, but that did not stop the haughty Englishman from formally claiming Newfoundland for Elizabeth. The dumbfounded fisherman looked on with barely concealed amusement at Gilbert’s actions and let it pass without comment.

When disease wracked the English fleet, Gilbert made for England in late August. Terrible storms struck the fleet north of the Azores. One of the ships was wrecked, and eighty men killed. Then, on September 9, Gilbert was aboard the
Squirrel
when “suddenly her lights were out, whereof as it were in a moment, we lost sight, and withal our watch cried, the general was cast away, which was too true. For in that moment, the frigate was devoured and swallowed up of the sea.” Gilbert paid with his life, but his dreams of settling North America did not die with him, for other adventurers who believed in colonization picked up his banner.
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In the 1580s the vision of overseas colonies and a global English Empire most clearly took shape in the writings of Richard Hakluyt, which were used to attract royal support and investor interest as promotional literature. The Oxford-educated young man was drawn to the study of geography and exploration when he visited
“the chamber of Mr. Richard Hakluyt my cousin, a gentleman of the Middle Temple…at a time when I found open upon his board certain books of cosmography, with a universal map; he seeing me somewhat curious in the view thereof, began to instruct my ignorance.”
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The encounter set off a lifelong interest and study of every travel manuscript that he could lay his hands on and conversations with every mariner who would be willing to speak with him.

In 1582, Hakluyt the younger published a pamphlet called
Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America, and the Islands Adjacent
in which he advocated the colonization of America “to advance the honor of our country.” He produced an inexpensive edition in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. Hakluyt stated that the English had a legitimate claim to North America because of the voyage of John Cabot and because the lands were “unpossessed by any Christians.” Addressing the recent failures of Frobisher and Gilbert, Hakluyt argued that the English explorers were driven by “a preposterous desire of seeking rather gain than God’s glory.” Moreover, they must establish great centers of learning in navigational arts like their rivals. He gave what he believed was ironclad proof of a great river or northwest passage cutting through North America to China and the Spice Islands. North America also promised to yield great amounts of gold, silver, and pearls, just as the Spanish had found to the south. He also advanced the idea that the English could reap a number of commodities from the undeveloped, fertile lands to England, which could then challenge the Spanish monopoly over treasure and commerce as well as convert the natives to Protestant Christianity, thus saving them from heathenism or Roman Catholicism.
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