New Albion - History

History

During his circumnavigation of the globe (1577–1580), in which he was ordered to destroy the Spanish flotillas in the New World and plunder settlements, Sir Francis Drake landed on the western coast of North America and claimed the area for Queen Elizabeth I as New Albion. Along with Martin Frobisher's claims in Greenland and Baffin Island and Drake's claims at the tip of South America, New Albion was one of the earliest English territorial claims in the New World. However, unlike Humphrey Gilbert's 1583 claim of Newfoundland, it was not followed up by settlements.

Assertions that he left some of his men behind as an embryo "colony" are founded merely on the reduced number who were with him in the Moluccas.

The western coast of North America had been partially explored in 1542 by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo who sailed for the Spanish, but as England was in conflict with Spain, Drake decided to claim the region. Wherever his actual landing place was, it was well north of San Diego Bay where Cabrillo had asserted Spain's claim. Spain had claimed the entire Pacific coast of the Americas since the Inter caetera papal bull of 1493, reinforced in 1513 when Vasco Núñez de Balboa formally claimed all lands adjoining the Pacific Ocean for the Spanish Crown. However, England did not recognize the authority of the Inter caetera and Balboa's claim covered a vast and mostly unknown area.

Upon his return to England on 4 April 1581, Francis Drake was knighted by the French Ambassador on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I for his deeds against the Spanish during the circumnavigational voyage. However, in order to keep an uneasy peace with Spain, and to avoid having Spain threaten England's other claims in the New World, Drake's logs, charts, and other writings were confiscated. Thus, the discovery and claim on New Albion was ordered by the Queen to be considered a state secret. Drake and his crew were sworn to silence on pain of death. Only years later, after England's destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588 (in which Drake played a significant role), did Queen Elizabeth allow an official account of Drake's voyage by Richard Hakluyt to be published — though with many of the details obscured.

However, Drake was always uneasy with the misrepresentations in the "official" account, and in 1592, he wrote to Queen Elizabeth in reference to "the certain truth concealed, as I have thought it necessary myself." and requesting that the account be rewritten accordingly. The Queen denied his request.

Drake's account of the voyage including many details of New Albion was published in 1628.

After Elizabeth's death, maps began to mark the area of North America above New Spain and New Mexico as Nova Albion, although the boundaries and locations greatly differ among maps. However, Drake's claiming land on the Pacific coast became the legal basis for subsequent colonial charters granted by English monarchs that claimed lands from "sea to sea" (i.e. from the Atlantic where English colonies were first settled, to the Pacific). However, despite these claims, the English did not establish a colonizing presence on the west coast of North America until the late 18th century in the form of the explorations and asserted claims of Captains Cook and Vancouver and the associated Nootka Conventions, shortly after, the establishment of the Columbia Fur District of the Hudson's Bay Company and its headquarters at Fort Vancouver.