John Hawkins was born in Plymouth in 1532 to a shipping family; his father William was the first Englishman to sail to Brazil, and his cousin Francis Drake grew up in the same household. Before 20 he killed a Plymouth barber in a brawl and received a royal pardon. Around 1559 he moved to London with £10,000 and married Katherine Gonson, daughter of a Navy administrator. Backed by knights and London merchants, his 1562 to 1563 voyage seized about 300 Africans around Sierra Leone and sold them on Hispaniola, where officials staged token resistance before trading for pearls, hides and sugar. The College of Arms then granted him a crest showing a bound captive. Queen Elizabeth I lent him the 700-ton Jesus of Lübeck for a second voyage.
That 1564 to 1565 voyage forced sales at Borburata in Venezuela and at Rio de la Hacha, where his men burned part of the town. The third voyage began with failed raids near modern Dakar, where Hawkins was hit by a poisoned arrow, and ended in 1568 at San Juan de Ulúa in Mexico, where a Spanish fleet broke a truce and destroyed most of his force; he escaped in the Minion. Appointed Treasurer of the Navy in 1578, he cut corruption, raised sailors’ pay and built lower, faster galleons without tall castles. Vice admiral against the Armada in 1588, he was knighted. Sailing with Drake to rescue his son Richard, he died at sea off Puerto Rico in 1595, aged 62.
- He survived the arrow wound using garlic, on the advice of one of the people he had captured, while eight of his men died.
- On his second voyage he traded a ship and supplies to starving French colonists at Fort Caroline in Florida.
- A 1566 proxy voyage under John Lovell, with Drake aboard, ended with over 90 captives left ashore unpaid.
- A commission including Lord Burghley and Francis Walsingham cleared him of fraud and praised the fleet’s condition.
- A descendant apologized in 2006, and in 2023 Plymouth removed his name from a public square, renaming it Justice Square.
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