Sir Francis Drake — Notorious Pirate or Famous Explorer?
The answer depends on who you ask
When you Google Sir Francis Drake, the search engine happily flashes across the screen that Drake was an “English explorer.” And that is certainly true. But it is only a tiny fraction of what made the man. Drake was the first of many Englishmen to circumnavigate the world and the first Englishman to set his gaze upon the Pacific Ocean (from the top of a tall tree if the tale is to be believed.) But if you asked around the taverns, bars, and farms of the time, most people would say that Sir Francis Drake was a corsair, a thief, and even a murderer. He was hailed at home in England for being a hero who terrorized Spanish and Portuguese ships on the high seas, and abroad he was talked about in hushed whispers.
Long before Drake was a famous explorer, he was an infamous pirate with a taste for treasure and a deep hatred of anything Spanish. But the victors are the ones who write the history books, and as the gleam of the Spanish Empire faded, the tales of Drake’s exploits as an explorer have far outstripped those of him being a pirate.
