Sidebar Interview: Melissa Darby on Sir Francis Drake and the Search for Novo Albion

The History of the Americans

This is a fun one, especially for fans of Sir Francis Drake! Longstanding and attentive listeners will remember Melissa Darby as the author of the 2019 book, Thunder Go North: The Hunt for Sir Francis Drake’s Fair & Good Bay, which was the primary source for our episode “Novo Albion and Drake’s Legacy,” which goes back to early December, 2021. It wouldn’t hurt to listen or (re)listen to that episode before this one, but I don’t think it is essential. Another way might be to go back and listen to it after you have heard this interview. In the interview Melissa and I talk about the documents discovered by two women scholars, Zelia Nuttell and Eva Taylor, around a century ago, that upended the evidence for Francis Drake having claimed Novo Albion in the area of San Francisco; the ethnographic and linguistic evidence in support of the Golden Hind landing on the coast of Oregon or Washington instead of California; the plot by a famous University of California historian to manufacture Drake's "plate of brass" to refute Nuttell’s claims and obstruct the publication of her paper; the remarkable point that the crew of the Golden Hind spent between five and ten weeks on the Northwest coast, interacting with Indians routinely, without ever having fought with them; and Drake’s legacy more generally. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Books referred to in this episode Melissa Darby, Thunder Go North: The Hunt for Sir Francis Drake’s Fair & Good Bay Samuel Bawlf, The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580