Hawkins, John (1532–1595)

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Hawkins, John (1532–1595)

John Hawkins (b. 1532; d. 12 November 1595), an Englishman active in the West Indies from 1562 to 1600 who was primarily interested in trading. In the early 1560s, a new group of interlopers, the English, were led by the ingenious John Hawkins of Plymouth, who organized four trading voyages to the Indies from 1562 to 1568, personally leading three of them. His purpose was trade: to exchange cloth and merchandise from England and slaves from Africa with the Spanish in return for sugar, hides, and silver. Hawkins wanted to legitimize his activities with the Spanish government by securing a license to trade freely. Even though he vowed to fight privateers if the Spanish would grant him the license he desired, the Spanish refused to do so, wishing to avoid setting a precedent.

Hawkins's earliest venture was successful in business terms, although his overall plan failed. The first voyage embarked in October 1562 and prospered greatly, as he traveled among the Caribbean islands trading English goods and African slaves for hides and sugar, returning to England in September 1563. Hawkins's first effort succeeded in the midst of relative peace between the English and Spanish. Relations between the two nations soured quickly, however, as the peace between England and Spain that was based on common opposition to France broke down when France weakened from internal religious wars.

Thus, Hawkins's second and third voyages faced greater difficulties as Spain clamped down on its colonies and fervently attempted to prohibit foreign trade. Meanwhile, by the time of the second voyage (October 1564–September 1565), Hawkins had received more direct support from the English government. Nevertheless, the second and third voyages proved relatively unsuccessful in terms of trade, though each had its own accomplishments.

On his third and final voyage (October 1567–January 1569), Hawkins was bound for home in September 1568 when bad weather forced his fleet to dock at San Juan de Ulúa, the port of Veracruz. Later that month, a Spanish flota encountered his fleet there and destroyed most of it. In early 1569, after great hardships, he and fifteen remaining companions reached England. The Spanish, in fact, had proved unwilling to allow open trading, treating foreigners like Hawkins as pirates.

After aiding in the English defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Hawkins and Francis Drake returned to the Caribbean in 1595 with a large fleet, attempting an Indies Voyage, a plan intended to break the territorial power of the Spanish in the New World. The well-prepared Spanish defeated this ill-fated effort at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and at Cartagena, Colombia. They also defeated the English on the Isthmus of Panama at Porto Bello. John Hawkins's career thus came to an ignominious end.

See alsoPiracy .