grandson of notable mariners, and so well born to the sea. His
grandfather, John Hawkyns, had served in Henry the eighth’s navy; his
father, William Hawkyns, shipbuilder and merchant, had been one of the
principal sea-captains of the west parts of England, and was the first
Englishman to carry on a trade with Brazil. Hakluyt informs us that
William Hawkyns was “for his wisdome, valure [valour], experience, and
skill in sea causes much esteemed, and beloved of K. Henry the 8.” His
Brazilian voyages comprised “three long and famous” ones, made in his
own “tall and goodly shippe” of two hundred and fifty tons, the “Paul of
Plymouth,” between the years 1530 and 1532. He sailed first to the coast
of Guinea where he traded with the Negroes for elephants’ teeth and
other commodities of the region, and thence crossed to Brazil, where he
“used such discretion and behaved himself so wisely with those savage
people that he grew into great familiarity and friendship with them.”
His greatest exploit, or that which won him largest attention, seems to
have been the bringing to England on a visit one of the kings of the
country, leaving behind as a pledge of his safety and return a member of
the ship’s company—Martin Cockeram, a Plymouth man. The savage monarch
was brought over on the second voyage and his appearance created great
astonishment in London and at court when he was presented to King Henry
at Whitehall, as well it might. For, as Hakluyt describes, “in his
cheekes were holes made according to their savage maner, and therein
small bones were planted, standing an inch out from the said holes,
which in his own Countrey were reputed for a great braverie. He had also
another hole in his nether lip, wherein was set a precious stone about
the bigness of a pease [pea]. All his apparel, behaviour, and jesture
were very strange to the beholders.” He remained in London for nearly a
year, and then, satiated with his entertainment, embarked for his home
in Master Hawkins’s care, on the latter’s third voyage to Brazil. But it
was his fate to sicken and die at sea. Thereat Master Hawkins was much
troubled, fearing that the life of Cockeram would be forfeited. But when
he arrived at port and told his story, the savages were “fully
persuaded” that their prince had been honestly dealt with, and freely
gave up the hostage. Cockeram returned with his captain none the worse
for his sojourn here, and lived to spin, long years after, among his
fellows at home in Plymouth, rare sailors’ yarns about the Simple Life
among savages.
John Hawkins followed early in his father’s footsteps. His earliest
voyages were made when quite a young man to the Canary Islands. How he
came to engage in the slave trade between the African coast and the West
Indies Hakluyt thus naïvely relates:
“Master John Haukins having made divers voyages to the Iles of the
Canaries, and there by his good and upright dealing being growen in love
and favour with the people, informed himselfe amongst them by diligent
inquisition, of the state of the West India, whereof he had received
some knowledge by the instructions of his father, but increased the same
by the advertisements and reports of that people. And being amongst
other particulars assured that Negroes were very good merchandise in
Hispaniola, and that store of Negroes might easily be had upon the coast
of Guinea, resolved with himselfe to make triall thereof, and
communicated that devise with his worshipfull friendes of London; namely
with Sir Lionel Ducket, Sir Thomas Lodge, M. Gunson, his father in law
[Benjamin Gonson, then treasurer of the navy], Sir Wm. Winter [also of
the navy], M. Bromfield and others. All which persons liked so well of
his intention, that they became liberall contributers and adventurers in
the action.”
The first voyage of this enterprise was made in 1562–1563 with a fleet
of three ships and a company of one hundred men. Sailing in October he
touched first in his course at Teneriffe. Thence he passed down to the
Sierra Leone Coast, where he stayed “some good time” and collected,
“partly by the sword and partly by other meanes,” at least three hundred
Negroes, whom he packed in his ships, besides “other merchandises which
that countrey yieldeth.” With this “praye” (prey) he sailed over the
“ocean sea” bound for Hispaniola—San Domingo. Arriving at the port of
Isabella he there disposed of some of the English commodities he had
brought out, and a part of his living freight, meanwhile alert,
“trusting the Spaniards no further then [than] by his owne strength he
was able still to master them.” Thence he went to Porto Plata, where he
made his sales, while, as at Isabella, “standing alwaies [always] on his
guard”; and lastly to Monte Christi, disposing there of the remainder of
the Negroes. In these three ports he took by way of exchange “such
quantitie of merchandise that he did not onely lade his owne 3 shippes
with hides, ginger, sugars, and some quantitie of pearles, but he
freighted also two other hulkes with hides and other like commodities
which he sent into Spaine.” Then he returned to England with “much gain
to himselfe and the aforesayd venturers” as the outcome of this voyage.
The two hulks sent to Spain were seized at Seville as smugglers, under
the law of the country against unlicensed trading in the Spanish
colonies, and their goods confiscated. These Hawkins valued at twenty
thousand pounds. Notwithstanding their loss the balance of the profits
remained large.
The second voyage, begun in 1564, was that in which Florida was visited.
In this venture the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Robert Dudley, afterward
the Earl of Leicester, were foremost as investors. Four ships
constituted the fleet. These were the “Jesus of Lubec,” as “admiral,” or
flag-ship, a fine vessel of seven hundred tons belonging to the queen
and lent by her; the “Solomon,” Hawkins’s flag-ship in the previous
voyage; the “Tiger,” a bark of fifty tons; and the “Swallow,” a bark of
thirty tons. The fleet were well supplied with ordnance, including
several “faulcons of brasse”—small brass guns—and a plenty of small arms
for the men. The company enlisted numbered one hundred and seventy in
all.
They sailed from Plymouth on the eighteenth of October. On the ninth of
November they had arrived at Teneriffe; and later in November and
through December they were cruising along the African coast in the hunt
for Negroes. This time the natives were everywhere hostile and they had
to be fought for. The sharpest battle was at a point below Cape Verde.
An attack was made upon a town from which Hawkins expected to capture a
hundred and more Negroes, men, women, and children, comprising the most
of the population. But they fought desperately and only ten were taken
while seven of Hawkins’s men were slain and twenty-seven wounded.
Farther down the coast the hunt was more successful. By the close of
January the ships were at Sierra Leone all laden with “a great company
of Negroes”; and on the twenty-ninth of that month they set sail with a
crowded freight for the West Indies. But they were “only reasonably
watered,” and before they had been long at sea there was much suffering
among the ships’ companies and the living cargo alike. For eighteen days
they were becalmed; afterward they were beset by baffling winds. By
mid-February, however, fortune again favoured them, when, as the devout
slave-catcher’s chronicler recorded, “The Almightie God who never
suffereth the elect to perish,” sent just the right breeze to waft them
to their destination.
On the ninth of March they had come to the island of Dominica. Here they
landed in search of water. Only rain-water was found “and such as fell
from the hills and remained as a puddle in the dale”; and with this they
filled for the Negroes. Then they cruised among the neighbouring
islands, and along the Spanish Main, but were denied traffic by the
Spanish officials at all places. At Burburata, Venezuela, in April,
after arguing the point Hawkins brought the governor to terms with a
demonstration of his fighting spirit. Landing with a hundred men “well
armed with bowes, arrowes, harquebuzes, and pikes,” he marched them in
battle array toward the town. Thereupon the governor threw up his hands,
as the modern phrase is, and trade was opened without more ado. Here a
number of the Negroes were profitably disposed of. Next, in May, they
came to Rio del Hacha, now of Colombia. A sharper demonstration was
necessary at this place before the Spanish officials would remove the
prohibition. When they would listen to no argument, and were even
unmoved by Hawkins’s “diplomacy” in the audacious pretension that he was
“in an armada of the Queens Majesties of England and sent about her
other affaires,” and had been driven out of his intended course and into
these parts by contrary winds, he sent them the word “to determine
either to give him license to trade or else stand to their own harmes
[arms].” With this ultimatum he landed again the one hundred men in
armour, with two of his “faulcons.” At the first firing of these little
guns the officials surrendered with the desired grant. Traffic then
proceeded briskly, and within ten days the remainder of the Negroes were
bartered off prosperously. This accomplished, the fleet sailed
northward, now in search of a good place to take on a supply of fresh
water. After beating about Jamaica they passed the west end of Cuba and
came into the gulf of Florida: and so the mainland of Florida was
reached.
As they ranged along this coast pursuing their quest for several days,
dropping anchors at night wherever they happened to be, the voyagers
observed the luxurious country with keen interest. They found it
“marvellously sweete with both marish and medow ground, and goodly woods
among.” As they sailed onward Hawkins in his shipboat explored the
creeks and estuaries, and frequent landings were made from the fleet on
the green shores. Sorrel was seen growing “as abundantly as grasse,” and
about the habitations of the natives were “great store of maiz [maize:
Indian corn] and mill, and grapes of great bignesse,” tasting much like
the English grape. Deer were “in great plentie, which came upon the
sands before them.” There were quantities of “divers other beasts, and
fowle, serviceable to the use of man”; and luscious fish with strange
creatures of the waters. The natives were observed apparelled in deer
skins, hand-painted, “some yellow and red, some blacke and russet, and
every man according to his own fancy.” Their bodies were also painted,
“with curious knots or antike worke.” The colours were picked into the
flesh with a thorn. When arrayed for war their faces were daubed with “a
sleighter colour” to give them a fiercer show. Their weapons were bows
and arrows of hard wood and reeds. The arrows were of great length,
feathered, and variously tipped: with viper’s teeth, or bones of fishes,
flint stones, occasionally with silver. The women’s apparel, besides
painted deer skins, comprised “gowns of mosse,” long mosses, “which they
sew together artificially.”
Hawkins was impressed with the spaciousness as well as the richness of
the region ready for the white man’s cultivation. As he put it: “The
commodities of this land are more then [than] are yet knowen to any man:
for besides the land itselfe, whereof there is more then any king
Christian is able to inhabit, it flourisheth with meadow, pasture
ground, with woods of Cedar and Cypress and other sorts as better can
not be in the world.” There were of “apothecary herbs, trees, roots, and
gummes great store.” Turpentine, myrrh, and frankincense were abundant.
As for the precious metals, the natives wanted neither gold nor silver,
for both were worn for ornament; but where they were to be obtained had
not yet come to light. It was thought that the hills would be found to
yield them, when sufficient people, Europeans, were here to abide. Life
could easily be sustained in this land with its plenty of maize, which
made “good savoury bread and cakes as fine as floure [flour].”
The voyagers penetrated to the “River of May,” now St. John’s River,
coming to the seat on its banks of Laudonnière’s colony of French
Huguenots. They had been established here for fourteen months, and were
now in a wretched condition. The fleet anchored off their port, and
Hawkins and his chief men going ashore were “very gently entertained” by
Laudonnière and his captains. The Frenchmen gave a pitiful account of
the extremities to which the colony had been put for food. They had
brought out a scant stock of provisions expecting to receive fresh
supplies from France by ships that were to follow them with recruits.
But these had not arrived. From two hundred strong at the beginning the
colonists were now reduced by death and desertions to about half that
number. They had early exhausted all the maize that they could buy of
the natives. New supplies were got in return for the service of a number
of their soldiers with a king of the Floridians in a tribal war. But the
relief thus obtained was only temporary. When this supply had gone they
resorted to acorns and roots. The acorns “stamped [crushed] small and
often washed to take away the bitterness” were used for bread; the roots
as vegetables. Many of the roots albeit the sort that “served rather for
medicine than for meats alone,” they found to be “good and wholesome.”
They must, however, have had rich drink with this dull food, for Hawkins
noted that during the fourteen months here they had made twenty
hogsheads of wine from the native grapes. In the midst of the colony’s
distresses a rebellion arose. Some of the soldiers turned upon
Laudonnière, seized his armour, and imprisoned him. Then taking a bark
and a pinnace they set off, “to the number of fourscore,” on a piratical
cruise. They went “a roaming” to Jamaica and Hispaniola, spoiling the
Spaniards. Having taken the caravels laden with wine and “casair
[cassava], which is bread made of roots, and much other victuall and
treasure,” the marauding crew hovered about Jamaica, with frequent
carousals on shore. At length their revels were cut short when a ship
that had come out from Hispaniola bore down upon them. Twenty were taken
prisoners, “whereof the most part were hanged, the rest sent to Spain.”
Some twenty-five escaped in the pinnace and returned to the colony. Upon
landing they were thrown into prison, and four of the ringleaders were
“hanged at a gibbet.” Other troubles had come upon the colony through
the enmity of natives, hitherto friendly, who had been robbed of maize
by some of the colonists when nothing was left to barter for it. For
such offences several Frenchmen had been seized by the Floridians and
slain in the woods. When Hawkins’s fleet appeared the colony had not
more than forty soldiers unhurt and “not above ten days’ victuals” in
store.
Hawkins relieved their immediate wants with provisions and other
comforts and offered to convey them back to France. The generous offer
was declined with expressions of gratitude, and instead Laudonnière
arranged for the purchase of one of his ships, stocked with provisions,
to make the home voyage independently. Then with mutual exchange of good
wishes Hawkins departed for his homeward voyage.
The tragic end of the hapless Huguenot colony was not far off. When
shortly after Hawkins’s departure, Laudonnière and his people were about
to embark on the ship bought from him, sails were descried of the
long-looked-for French fleet approaching their port. These welcome ships
brought out Ribault to take the command, with emigrants in families,
implements of husbandry, domestic animals, and every supply for a
well-equipped colony. New life and hope were instilled into the colony
by the new comers. Then suddenly the terrible Pedro Menendez de Aviles
burst upon them with an invading army of Spaniards and destroyed them
with awful massacre, “Not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans,” as he
proclaimed, only a few escaping, Laudonnière and Le Moyne, the artist of
the colony (to whom we are indebted for the first drawings of American
natives and scenes), among these, to tell the tale. And then, two years
afterward, Menendez’s act was avenged by the fiery soldier of Gascony,
Dominic de Gourgues, with massacre of Spaniards in Florida, “Not,” as he
in turn proclaimed, “as unto Spaniards but as unto Traitors, Robbers and
Murderers.” All this as told in the accounts of Laudonnière and others
reproduced by Hakluyt, constitutes one of the saddest and bloodiest
chapters in early American history.
Hawkins’s return voyage was tempestuous. Contrary winds beset the fleet
and so prolonged the passage that their provisions ran short. Relief was
had, however, on the banks of Newfoundland by a large take of cod; and
farther along when two French ships were met sufficient supplies for the
remainder of the voyage were bought from them. Home was at length
reached on the twentieth of September, when the fleet arrived at
Padstow, Cornwall. Commercially it had been a most prosperous voyage,
for it had brought “great profit” not alone to the venturers but “to the
whole realme.” In addition to the gains from the unholy traffic in human
beings Hawkins brought his ship home freighted with “great store” of
gold, silver, pearls, and other jewels. Accordingly the chronicler
reverently closes his account with the pious and doubtless sincere
prayer, “His Name therefore be praised for evermore Amen.”
A third voyage was soon planned, to be made over the same course, with a
second visit to Florida. In this Francis Drake, a young kinsman of
Hawkins, later destined to be the first Englishman to circumnavigate the
globe, had part. It ended in disaster through conflict with a Spanish
fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, but its consequences were large in after
performances, especially of Drake.
The fleet assembled for this third voyage comprised six ships. The
“admiral” was again the “Jesus of Lubec,” commanded by Hawkins. Young
Drake had charge of the smallest of the lot—the “Judith,” a staunch
little craft of only fifty tons. The others were the “Minion,” the
“William and John,” the “Angel,” and the “Swallow.” Hakluyt gives us
Hawkins’s signed narrative of the adventure under a title foreshadowing
its unhappy nature: “The third troublesome voyage made with the Jesus of
Lubeck, the Minion, and foure other ships, to the parts of Guinea, and
the West Indies, in the yeeres 1567 and 1568 by M. John Hawkins.”
The fleet left Plymouth on the second of October. After only a week out
the first trouble came with a dispersion of the ships in an “extreme”
storm, which raged for four days and with such damage to the “Jesus”
that Hawkins felt obliged to turn her back homeward. Soon afterward,
however, the wind veered and the weather cleared, when she was returned
to the outward course. The other ships were met at the Canaries, where
repairs were made. Again in sailing trim the hunt for Negroes was begun
along the African coast. As before, the natives were found ready to
fight for their liberty. Arrived at Cape Verde, Hawkins landed one
hundred and fifty men, expecting to make a large catch here. But a
battle ensued in which many of the English force, Hawkins among them,
were hurt, and several mortally, by the natives’ envenomed arrows; and
only a few captures were made. Similar luck followed down to Sierra
Leone, scarcely one hundred and fifty Negroes having been got together.
Since this number was too small profitably to take to the West Indies,
and it was now quite time to get away, Hawkins decided to give over
further quest and to go to the “coast of the Mine” (the Gold Coast) in
the hope of obtaining enough gold for his merchandise at least to meet
the expenses of the voyage. But just as this decision was reached it was
overruled by an unexpected opening to more captures. A messenger from a
Negro “king” at war with neighbouring “kings” came aboard the flag-ship
asking the Englishmen’s aid in his war, with the promise that all the
natives he might capture should be “at their pleasure” as well as those
taken by them. The proposal was eagerly accepted and one hundred and
twenty men were sent ashore to join the king’s forces. The allies began
an assault upon a fortified town of eight thousand inhabitants. It was,
however, so strongly impaled, and so valiantly defended, that they could
not prevail against it. Six of the English were killed and forty wounded
in this attack, and reinforcements were called for. Thereupon Hawkins
himself took a hand. An assault now opened both by land and sea, Hawkins
with the king leading the land attack. Shortly the frail little houses,
covered with dry palm leaves, were set afire and the inhabitants put to
flight. So the town fell. Hawkins and his men captured two hundred and
fifty of the fleeing people, men, women, and children, while the king’s
men took six hundred. Of the king’s lot Hawkins was expecting to take
his pick, when, lo! during the following night the artful monarch
secretly moved his camp and stole away with all of his prisoners.
This breach of faith scandalized Hawkins and led him to write down that
in the Negro “nation is seldome or never found truth.” But later during
this “troublesome” voyage he was to experience a greater treachery, and
one more disastrous in its results, on the part of representatives of a
civilized nation, as we shall presently see.
Having, with his acquisitions from the spoiled town and a few other
takings, a cargo of between four and five hundred Negroes, Hawkins set
his fleet without further delay on his original course. The West Indies
were duly reached, at the island of Dominica, toward the close of March,
after a harder passage than before. They coasted from place to place,
making their traffic with the planters “somewhat hardly,” because the
Spanish governors had been more strictly commanded to suffer no trade
with foreigners. Still they did a fairly thriving business, and had
“courteous entertainment” all along from the island of Margarita to
Cartagena, “without anything greatly worth the noting,” saving at Rio de
la Hacha—the same where the sharpest opposition had been met on the
previous voyage. The officer in authority here not only denied them
permission to trade, but would not suffer them even to stop and take
water. The place, too, was found to be newly fortified with “divers
bulwarks.” No time was wasted in arguments at this port. Two hundred men
were put ashore and the bulwarks stormed. They were speedily broken
through with a loss to the Englishmen of only two men, and none at all
to the Spaniards, for “after their voly of shot discharged they all
fled.” No further obstacles appearing, a semi-secret trade was opened
and carried on briskly till two hundred of the Negroes had been sold.
When Cartegena was reached the Negroes had been nearly all disposed of.
Leaving this point on the twenty-fourth of July Hawkins sailed the fleet
northward, hoping to escape the dangers of the season of hurricanes, and
to do some profitable trading in that direction. On the twelfth of
August they were passing the west end of Cuba, toward the Florida coast,
when a fierce storm struck them. The gale continued through four days,
causing havoc among the fleet, and most seriously afflicting the
“Jesus.” She was so “beat” that all her “higher buildings” had to be cut
down. Her rudder was also “sore shaken,” and she was “in so extreme a
leake” that it was feared she must be abandoned. Yet “hoping to bring
all to good passe” they sped on for Florida. But no haven could be found
into which the ships could enter, because of the shallowness of the
water. While off this coast a second storm burst upon them and raged for
three days. In this extremity their only alternative was to make across
the Gulf of Mexico for the port of “Sant John de Ullua [San Juan
d’Ulloa, the port of Vera Cruz], which serveth the citie of Mexico,” in
“New Spain.” On the way they fell in with three ships carrying an
hundred passengers, and with these they kept helpful company, hoping
that the passengers would be “a meane” to them the better to obtain a
quiet place for the repairing of the fleet, and to purchase supplies.