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The Real Pirates of the Caribbean

Khalid Elhassan January 7, 2020 32 min

32. An early Start in Piracy

Francis Drake first went to sea at an early age. As a teenager, he was enlisted by his relatives, the Hawkinses, a clan of privateers who preyed upon French coastal shipping. By the 1560s, Drake had risen to command his own ship and entered the slave trade, smuggling shackled captives illegally into Spain’s New World possession.

During one such trip, Drake was cornered by Spanish authorities, and escaped only with heavy loss of life among his crew. The experience left him with a lifelong hatred of Spain. In 1572, he received a Letter of Marque from Queen Elizabeth, authorizing him to plunder Spanish property. Armed with that authorization, Drake raided Panama, but was wounded and forced to retreat. After recovering, he raided Spanish settlements around the Caribbean, and returned to England in 1573 with a rich haul of gold and silver.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.