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Francis Drake, Chilean wines and the birth of the British Empire

Francis Drake, Chilean wines and the birth of the British Empire

Ramón A. Rada M.

Since the XIV and XV centuries the Renaissance was unfolding mainly in Florence, Italy, in the beginning in the hands of Dante, with his masterpiece the Divina Comedia (1321), and then in those of Leonardo (1452-1519) and Michelangelo (1475-1564), with their drawings, paintings and sculptures. At the same time the European Christianity become astonished by their fear because of the Fall of Constantinople (1453) under the rule of the Muslim Ottoman Turks. Everything was announcing the incoming of a new world as well as new technologies as the Johannes Gutenberg  movable type printing press (1454), enhancing the portability of knowledge throughout new and handy books and contributing to spread these news and feelings rapidly. The jewel of the Crown was the Christopher Columbus discovery of America (1492) contributing to create an atmosphere of progress and optimism. In the Iberian Peninsula, the final defeat of the Moors (name for the Arabs coming from the former Roman province of Mauritania) with the aid of new technologies in the service of the armies, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the Gran Capitán led a successful military campaign heading to conquer Granada (1492) allowing the rise of the Kingdom of Castile and Aragón, shaping territories to start the journey to become the Spanish Empire. The innovations introduced by the Gran Capitán to the Spanish army will lead to the creation of the Tercios de España, the world’s most successful military formation for more than a century. The Royalty start to finance expeditions for long-distance navigation trips lead by Portugal closely followed by Spain, an age of news and discoveries. The innovative city of Florence along with stablishing the fundamental of the western financial systems, the invention of modern accounting by the Italian monk Luca Pacioli, who, in 1494, first described the system of double-entry bookkeeping used by Venetian merchants, allowing financial accountability, boosting the incipient globalization and global enterprises, starting the development of joint-ventures and associations of individuals, formed to undertake enterprises on behalf of the Kingdom. These charter companies were originally Italian, but the Dutch and the English will emerge as the Italians’ most aptest and advantaged pupils in this respect. In the emerging small Kingdom of England a notable expedition led by Francis Drake was organised and financed as a Royal charter company. These joint-ventures, partnerships or associations, were a common method of organising and financing commercial voyages, military expeditions, and colonizing activities, particularly from the Middle Ages onwards.

Francis Drake’s most famous and well known expedition, financed as joint-venture by English investors whom were high officials as Privy Councilors Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; Sir Francis Walsingham; the Earl of Lincoln and Lord High Admiral of England; also, Sir Christopher Hatton; Admiral Sir William Wynter, Surveyor and Master of Ordnance of the Navy; George Wynter and John Hawkins, cousin and Drake’s former commander as well as founder of the English slave trade. The Queen Elizabeth I herself may have been an investor, though this is not quite certain. Francis Drake himself participated to the tune of £1000, a good sum for that time but not a trouble for Drake who was then already a rich man for the profits obtained in the slave trade. Drake’s involvement in the slave trade started when his cousin John Hawkins, England’s first slave trader, invited him to be part in 1562 and they enjoy the benefit of the trade until 1567. They made three voyages to Guinea and Sierra Leone and enslaved between 1,200 and 1,400 Africans. According to slavers’ accounts of the time this would probably have involved the death of three times that number. Their personal profits coming from selling slaves was so huge that they become rich men and wise enough as they were to have a hidden business partner, Queen Elizabeth I herself. The Virgin Queen would be the patron of the next most important venture of Francis Drake, the unveiling of the most cherished Spanish crown secret, discovered 58 years before, the location of the Strait of Magellan, as well as the most profitable plundering ever had in piracy history.

Golden Hinde replica (1973) moored in the docks of the Tower of London by Murgatroyd 49. The Golden Hinde, launched in 1577, was the second ship to circumnavigate the planet from 1577 to 1580 under Francis Drake command who after that was knighted by the Queen Elizabeth I, one of his main partners in the charter.

Francis Drake sailed from Plymouth on December 13, 1577. The squadron consisted of five vessels, the two larger ships being the Pelican, Drake’s own ship, weighing about 100 tonnes, renamed it as Golden Hinde during the voyage, on August 20, 1578; and the Elizabeth, commanded by John Wynter. Three smaller vessels were the Marigold, the Swan, and the Christopher. Only the Golden Hinde, managed to make the complete voyage, returning to England on Sept. 26, 1580. The little fleet proceeded due south to the Cape Verde Islands with the intention to take advantage there of the trade winds on route towards the coast of Brazil. On Cape Verde and fortunately for Francis Drake, on January 30, 1578, he captured the Portuguese pilot Nuno da Silva with an extensive experience of the Atlantic South American coast, that Drake will be released only more than a year later in Guatulco, on April 13, 1579, in the west coast of Mexico. Nuno da Silva was a pilot with the knowledge of the Spanish and Portuguese maps of the America coast of the Atlantic and probably have had knowledge of the entrance of the Strait of Magellan.

Navigation in the Strait of Magellan was forbidden for the Portuguese pilots, due to the 1493 papal bull Inter Caetera, issued by the former Spanish Cardinal Archbishop of Valencia, Rodrigo de Borja (Valencian: Roderic Llançol i de Borja) Rodrigo Borgia in Italian, a close friend of Isabella I then Queen of Castile and Ferdinand II, then King of Aragon. Rodrigo Borgia, once elected pope, was renamed Pope Alexander VI. The prohibition of navigation on the Strait of Magellan which was affecting the pilot Nuno da Silva does not mean that he was not in knowledge of the Spanish maps of the Strait of Magellan itself, one of the most carefully secrets kept of the Iberian crown. Thence they sailed across the Atlantic to the coasts of South America near to Río de la Plata, and went southwards to the port of San Julián, where Hernando de Magallanes had anchored 58 years before; they arrived there on June 18, 1578, confirming by making ashore that they were following their steps and Drake following the same criterion of Magellan decided to remain the winter in San Julián before attempting the Strait of Magellan. After deciding to abandon the two small ships, the Swan, and the Christopher, and burned the Mary (former Santa María captured to Nuno da Silva in Cape Verde) which was unable to navigate because of rotting timbers, they left San Julián in search of the oriental entrance of the Strait of Magellan.

On August 20, 1578 with the Strait of Magellan in sight, Francis Drake held a ceremony in which he changed the name of his flagship from Pelican to Golden Hinde (a golden female red deer) to honour Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor of England and a favourite of Elizabeth I of England as well as one of his mayor investors. Sir Christopher Hatton’s heraldic crest was a golden hinde, a prestigious symbol remembering the noble’s hunting journeys of the red deer in the English countryside.

Becoming the first English privateer in finding and crossing the Strait of Magellan, Francis Drake followed the steps of Hernando de Magallanes, its discoverer, and another two Spanish expeditions, in October 1578, disclosing the cherished secret of the Spanish crown. The Spanish Crown was able to keep the secret for almost 6 decades. Once in the shore of the Magellan Strait, Francis Drake and his men engaged in skirmish with local indigenous people, becoming the first Europeans to kill indigenous peoples in southern Patagonia. Just one ship successfully crossed the Strait of Magellan along with the Golden Hinde which was the Elizabeth, captained by John Wynter, Drake’s second in command. The Marigold was destroyed against the coast and the Elizabeth were separated from the Golden Hinde when face a storm entering the Pacific Ocean and John Wynter turned back. Going back into the strait and having sickness on board he sent a boat ashore to search out for medicinal herbs. During the stay in the strait, crew members discovered that an infusion made of the bark of Drimys winteri (Canelo tree in the Mapudungun language of the Mapuche people in Chile), called later Winter’s bark, could be used as a remedy against scurvy. Captain John Wynter ordered the collection of great amounts of bark – hence the scientific name after him – and set back to England, reaching Plymouth eight months later, on June 2, 1579. Once in England, in the same day of his arrival, he sent a report on the voyage and explaining his desertion from Drake to his father and uncle, George and his brother Admiral Sir William Wynter, both of whom were members of the Navy Board. On the other hand, after separated from the Elizabeth and leaving the occidental mouth of the Strait of Magellan, the Golden Hinde sailed due north along the Pacific Ocean coast of Chile with the resolved intention of attacking Spanish ports and pillaging towns and villages.

However, Drake’s second encounter with the inhabitants of Patagonia was on the Pacific coast, with the native Mapuche people, in November 25, 1578, at Mocha Island, where he anchored to approach land searching for vegetables and fresh water, as it is written in the Golden Hinde’s logbook, after an initial friendly greeting a surpris fight arose where two crewmembers were killed and two others badly wounded by arrows, Drake himself was injured twice gaining the scar below his right eye which will accompany him as a memory of the second circumnavigation of the planet for the rest of his life. According to the Golden Hinde’s logbook a member of the crew made the mistake to ask for fresh water using the Spanish word agua (water) making the Mapuche to think they were their traditional enemies, the Spaniards. The native Mapuche soldiers were already fighting back the Spaniards for more than 40 years, since 1536, before the English arrived, and for the Mapuche people Englishmen and Spaniards seem alike.

Francis Drake and his crew leave Mocha Island for a shelter cove in Papudo, north of Valparaíso where they recovered from their wounds and rested having water and food from the local Chango Indians. Felipe, a civilized Chango Indian, a fisherman who spoke Spanish and they found there, told them that they just have passed Valparaíso and he could pilot them into the port to seize a Spanish vessel. Therefore, the 5th of December 1578, the tide changed for the Elizabeth’s favoured captain as the Golden Hinde slipped into the bay to seize the only ship anchored there, the crew of eight Spaniards and three negroes took them for friends, salute them with drum beats and make ready a jar of Chilean wine to drink with them. Drake’s men took the ship and only one Spaniard leaped overboard and swam ashore. In this, an audacious manoeuvre, Francis Drake had captured La Capitana, the Captaine of Moriall, or the Great Captaine of the South Islands, Admiral of the Islands of Solomon, under the command of Hernando Lamero y Gallego de Andrade, a celebrated pilot who leaped overboard and swam ashore to give the alarm of the assault of Drake’s men. Hernando Lamero had loaded his vessel with 25.000 pesos of fine gold brought from Valdivia (Baldivia wrote Drake) and 1720 Chilean wine clay jugs (colonial botigas of one arroba [35,5 liters] or botigas de carga for transport of two arrobas [71 liters]). [1]

In addition, full of enthusiasm, he did not forget to sack for three days the Spanish small port of Valparaíso particularly the poor Catholic chapel, considering the religious animus of the times, adding a few more things made of gold, more wine from local stores, bacon, bread and all sort of supplies. However, little booty was found in the town, then inhabited for just nine families which run away to the hills, except for the prize’s cargo and the wine in a warehouse waiting for embarkment that was added to the ship cargo holds totaling 1770 Chilean wine clay jugs and 60.000 pieces of gold. Drake seize the ship and the pilot Juan Griego (John Greek), named like that due to his origin and who will be disembark in Callao, Peru. [2]

The Captaine of Moriall (La Capitana in Spanish reports) wine cargo had been originally destined to supply the mining town of Potosí silver mountain in Alto Peru via the Spanish port of San Marcos de Arica. The gold from La Capitana had been destined to the Spanish Silver Train, a trail used by cargo mule’s trains to transport silver coming mainly from Potosí across the Isthmus of Panama to the port city of Nombre de Jesús in order to load it into the ships’ holds of the Spanish treasure fleet. Francis Drake at the time did not know that some years later he would succeed in capturing the mule train from the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama and later would also find in the area his own death. Probably Francis Drake and his crew were the first Englishmen in tasting the Chilean wines which had been playing such a significant role in the Spanish conquest. There is unknown if this wine sailed along with Drake to arrive to the table of Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, in the very heart of England, to rival with French wines. In addition to French wines other wines from diverse origin, amongst others from Cyprus, Messina or Porto were used to enhance Elizabethan dinner table. William Shakespeare and many other English writers mention wine from the Canaries, but Shakespeare was insistent on almost all his creations, especially Henry IV (1597), calling it sack and canary. For the Malvasia wine of the Canary Islands, William Shakespeare used the terms sack and canaries or malmsey canary. To refer to other wines such as Jerez, he used the word sherry coming from the Arab Sherish, the old name of Jerez under the Arab rule. [3]

It is recorded that the wines which would become famous French brands, some short time later, as Haut-Brion, Latour, Margaux and Lafite wines from Bordeaux were there to enhance the offer of the Queen´s Elizabeth I dinner table celebrating her times. They were the times of the Sea Dogs of Elizabeth I, privateers or corsairs, like John Hawkins, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, which use to carry “Letters of Marque” which made their plundering of Spanish ships legal under English Law. They were the times also of writers and poets and scholars, the times of William Shakespeare, Philip Sydney, Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe. Those were the times of England’s golden age, the very beginnings of the British Empire. The times of Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of actors, a “playing company” where Richard Burbage was the main actor and for which William Shakespeare wrote for most of his career, and for whose performance, as secondary actor on the stage, the Queen pleasantly used to go to see at The Theatre (built under advice of John Dee) before the inauguration of Shakespeare’s associated theatre: The Globe. Certainly, Francis Drake did not know the Globe but for sure he pays a visit to The Theatre to see one of the famous plays of Shakespeare on the fashion at the times.

According to the logbook of Francis Drake’s Golden Hinde accounts: “To Lima we came the 13 of February; and, being entered the haven, we found there about twelve sail of ships lying fast moored at an anchor, having all their sails carried on shore; for the masters and merchants were here most secure, having never been assaulted by enemies, and at this time feared the approach of none such as we were. Our General rifled these ships, and found in one of them as chest full of reales of plate, and good store of silks and linen cloth; and took the chest into his own ship, and good store of the silks and linen. In which ship he had news of another ship called the Cacafuego, which was gone towards Payta, and that the same ship was laden with treasure. Whereupon we stayed no longer here, but, cutting all the cables of the ships in the haven, we let them drive whither they would, either to sea or to the shore; and with all speed we followed the Cacafuego toward Payta, thinking there to have found her. But before we arrived there she was gone from thence towards Panama; whom our General still pursued, and by the way met with a bark laden with ropes and tackle for ships, which he boarded and searched, and found in her 80 lb. weight of gold, and a crucifix of gold with goodly great emeralds set in it, which he took, and some of the cordage also for his own ship. From hence we departed, still following the Cacafuego; and our General promised our company that whosoever should first descry her should have his chain of gold for his good news. It was fortuned that John Drake, going up into the top, described her about three of the clock. And about six of the clock we came to her and boarded her, and shot at her three pieces of ordnance, and strake down her mizen; and, being entered, we found in her great riches, as jewels and precious stones, thirteen chests full of reales of silver, fourscore pound weight of gold, and six-and-twenty ton of silver. The place where we took this prize was called Cape de San Francisco, about 150 leagues [south] from Panama”.

John Maynard Keynes, a well-known English economist, linked all British foreign investment to the single act of looting of the Spanish Armada. John Maynard Keynes tracked the source of British capital – and computed the compounded value of this loot. – Keynes wrote:

“I trace the beginnings of British foreign investment to the treasure which Drake stole from Spain in 1580. In that year he returned to England bringing with him the prodigious spoils of the Golden Hind. Queen Elizabeth was a considerable shareholder in the syndicate which had financed the expedition. Out of her share she paid off the whole of England’s foreign debt, balanced her Budget, and found herself with about £40,000 in hand. This she invested in the Levant Company –which prospered. Out of the profits of the Levant Company, the East India Company was founded; and the profits of this great enterprise were the foundation of England’s subsequent foreign investment. Now it happens that £40,000 accumulating at 3f per cent compound interest approximately corresponds to the actual volume of England’s foreign investments at various dates and would actually amount today to the total of £4,000,000,000 which I have already quoted as being what our foreign investments now are. Thus, every £1 which Drake brought home in 1580 has now become £100,000. Such is the power of compound interest!”

By 1594, 100 thousand arrobas a year, equivalent to 1.6 million liters of wine, were produced in the Kingdom of Chile. Throughout the colonial period, the price of wine remained between 19 and 22 reales per arroba – equivalent to 16.13 liters -, and there were only sporadic increases, as a result of the bad harvests or the advance of the Arauco war that affected production in the south of the territory. Even though wine production was primarily destined for domestic consumption, part of it was exported to neighboring countries. The emergence of growing wine industries in México, Perú, Chile and Argentina was a threat to the Spanish Crown income, with Philip III and succeeding monarchs issuing decrees and declarations ordering the uprooting of New World vineyards and halting the production of wine by the colonies. In Chile, these orders were largely ignored; but in Argentina, they served to stunt growth and development until independence was gained from Spanish rule. In 1794, King Carlos IV, to protect the Spanish wine trade, issued a royal order prohibiting the export of Chilean wines to Nueva España (México) and Nueva Granada (Colombia and Venezuela).

[1] When Francis Drake assault Valparaiso the containers to storage and transport wines were mainly three: the tinajas made from clay and with a capacity of more than 400 litres used for winemaking and storage, the botiga of one arroba (Spanish old measure equivalent to 35,5 litres) and the botigas de carga (a clay wine jug designed for transport and with a capacity of two arrobas equivalent to 71 litres).

[2] The number of Chilean wine clay jugs as well as of pieces of gold varies according to the author. Because the Drake’s logbook was hidden by the Queen Elizabeth I, who appropriated the lion’s share of the proceeds of the voyage. Drake’s own journal, with its narrative and paintings, was immediately placed by him in the hands of the Queen, who seems to have lost it irretrievably. Drake was bidden to keep silence about his voyage because of the diplomatic danger if his armed intrusion into King Philip’s dominions were admitted. He swore his men to secrecy–the only means by which they could hope to keep their booty. The late date at which any reliable, let alone detailed, account of Drake’s circumnavigation became public reflects the early dearth of information, from which even professional geographers suffered.

[3] When Ferdinand of Magellan prepare his fleet in Seville, Spain, to start the circumnavigation in 1519, knowing the obligation to fulfil the naval habit or “collective agreement” of the seafarers then, “to endure the hard life on board“, had the right to “half azumbre a day” of wine (one liter), which they had to take distributed in “four quarts” throughout the day, not suddenly. Magellan ordered to bought “to maintain the spirits of the crew, the best of the best wines in Xerez (originally under the Arab name of “Sherish” as it was known in England since the XII century, which later became sherry), and no less than four hundred and seventeen wineskins and two hundred and fifty-three barrels, which should ensure for two years the drink on the sailors’ table“. Stefan Zweig, Magallanes, Ed. Juventud, Barcelona, 1990, p.93.