Francis Drake, born around 1540 in Devon to a Protestant farmer and preacher, learned seamanship on a small trading ship and in the 1560s joined his relative John Hawkins in a crown backed push into the West African slave trade. In 1568 a Spanish surprise attack at San Juan de Ulua slaughtered hundreds of English sailors, and Drake fled in the Judith, leaving Hawkins surrounded. Shut out of legitimate trade, he turned to Panama, where Peruvian silver crossed the isthmus by mule train. After a failed raid on Nombre de Dios in 1572, he allied with the Cimarrons, communities of escaped enslaved Africans, and one of them, Diego, became his companion. In 1573 Cimarron guides led him up a tree with steps cut into its trunk, making him the first Englishman to see the Pacific. With a French privateer he ambushed a mule train carrying about 20 tons of silver and gold.

His secret 1577 voyage, almost certainly backed by Queen Elizabeth, stopped at Puerto San Julian, where he shared communion and dinner with co-commander Thomas Doughty before beheading him. Sailing alone in the Golden Hind, he raided Valparaiso, took the treasure ship Cacafuego, claimed Nova Albion in California in 1579, and reached Plymouth in 1580 with 59 survivors. He was knighted on deck in 1581 by a French diplomat. In 1587 at Cadiz he burned seasoned barrel staves, spoiling the Armada’s supplies, and in 1588 he doused his guiding lantern to capture the payroll ship Rosario. The 1589 English Armada lost 11,000 to 20,000 men and sidelined him. On a final raid he died of dysentery in January 1596 at 56 and was buried at sea off Portobelo in a lead coffin.

• The Spanish called him El Draque, the dragon.
• He produced a solid gold quoit from his shirt to tell his crew the 1573 raid had succeeded.
• His crew found that chewing Winter’s bark cured scurvy.
• He gave captured Spanish captains dinner, gifts, and safe conduct letters.
• A cannonball tore through his cabin in Puerto Rico during the 1595 voyage.