entity Updated 2026-08-26

John Hawkins

John Hawkins appears in 693. Elizabeth I vs The Catholics: England’s Greatest Hero (Part 3) as Francis Drake’s relative and an English captain deeply involved in Atlantic slaving. The episode says Hawkins launched what the hosts call the first English slaving voyage in 1562 and that Drake definitely joined Hawkins’s third slaving expedition in 1567.

The source uses Hawkins to make Drake’s early career morally and commercially explicit. The expedition mixes Protestant identity, patriotism, greed, violence, and illegal access to Iberian-controlled markets, making Hawkins central to Atlantic Slave Trade-Privateering Link.

Hawkins’s fleet is then broken at San Juan de Ulua in 1568. He and Drake escape, but the losses of ships, sailors, prisoners, and money help turn failed trade into anti-Spanish grievance and push Drake toward raiding as a more profitable strategy.

Connections