#43 Drake Burns Down the West Indies and St. Augustine!
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2021
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We are back in the summer of 1585, and careful listeners could hear the ever louder drums of war between Spain and England. In this episode we tell the story of Drake’s voyage to the West Indies in 1585-86, which fundamentally ended with the rescue at Roanoke Colony. There are three reasons why we are devoting an episode to Drake’s West Indies expedition. First, it was this mission more than any other affront to Philip that made direct war between Spain and England inevitable. Without that war, and without the defeat of the Spanish Armada in the course of that war, it is far from clear that English settlement in North America would have unfolded as it did, or that it ever would have happened. Second, Drake burned down St. Augustine and affected the course of the Roanoke Colony, both of which are decisively within the mandate of the podcast. Finally, Drake’s West Indies voyage was a great moment in military history, an extraordinary example of amphibious warfare long before we used that term.
Oh. And please listen to the end — I tackle a historical mystery and wonder if some of the academic historians who have written about it have done so … carefully.
Selected references for this episode
John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake
Angus Konstam, The Great Expedition: Sir Francis Drake on the Spanish Main 1585–86
Mary Frear Keeler (Editor), Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian Voyage, 1585-86 (Hakluyt Society, Second Series)
Michael Guasco, Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 43. |
| 0:10.8 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman. |
| 0:13.6 | And this episode is Drake Burns Down the West Indies in St. Augustine. |
| 0:19.8 | I'm recording this episode on October 15th, 2021, in New Orleans. |
| 0:26.6 | At this point, you might well be wondering why this isn't the Francis Drake podcast. Well, that is an |
| 0:33.7 | awesome idea, but never fear. For those of you who might be getting tired of the 16th century |
| 0:39.9 | English man who most profoundly influenced the course of English North America, we are mostly |
| 0:46.5 | through our tour of Drake's career. We will do an episode on the defeat of the Spanish Armada, |
| 0:53.8 | in which Drake figured prominently, and probably another an episode on the defeat of the Spanish Armada, in which Drake figured prominently, |
| 0:56.4 | and probably another to stare unflinchingly at his legacy, |
| 1:00.0 | and especially the debate of the location of Nova Albion on the Pacific Northwest. |
| 1:05.4 | I hope this episode pushes you into the More Drake Camp, |
| 1:13.5 | as I have been since I started reading about him. |
| 1:20.9 | If you are new to the podcast, we are telling the story of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without presentism. |
| 1:25.4 | We believe there is dignity in our national story, |
| 1:29.3 | along with tragedy, triumph, brilliance, hypocrisy, |
| 1:34.3 | magnificence, depravity, corruption, venality, |
| 1:40.3 | genius, defeat, and glory. Mostly though, we are here to have some fun. We hope you enjoy |
| 1:49.5 | listening to the history of the Americans as much as we like making it, and that you tell all |
| 1:54.5 | your friends, spread the word on your social propaganda website of choice, and subscribe in your favorite podcast app. |
| 2:04.0 | At the end of our last episode on the timeline, set fair for Roanoke Part 3, Sir Francis Drake |
| 2:11.5 | and his fleet arrived at Ralph Lane's first Roanoke colony, ready to resupply the settlers in June, 1586. He and Lane agreed to a plan |
... |
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