Pirates: Behind the Legends

Episode 1

The Tale of Francis Drake

Sat, Jun 8, 2024

Francis Drake started out as junior business partner of his wealthy brother in law, sailing to West Africa to buy prisoners of tribal warfare -illegally sold by or extracted at gunpoint from Spanish colonists- to sell at tenfold the price in the Americas, where foreign traders were also illegal. Francis abandoned his in-law when the Spaniards seemed to has trapped him, only to find him escaping and dissolving the partnership. Francis starts on his own, even more ambitiously, to rob Spanish ships, an act of piracy semi-sanctioned by queen Elisabeth I, who craves her fat 'tax' share without openly challenging the superior Spanish military, yet most of the aristocracy refuses to accept him, even when knighted. He even raids the silver mules caravan at the Panama isthmus and on the Pacific coast, forced to return by Asia. When Philip II's unseen armada sails to return Albion to Catholicism, Drake gets admiral command of a gloriously triumphant defense, only to be discredited seven years after the disastrous counterattack on the Spanish ports. Returning to Caribbean piracy, he perishes.