Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Defeat of John Hawkins: A Biography of his Third Slaving Voyage


Unwin, Rayner, The Defeat of John Hawkins: a biography of his third slaving voyage, London: Allen & Unwin, 1960.

Admiral Sir John Hawkins (also spelled as Hawkyns) (1532 – 12 November 1595) was an English naval commander and administrator, merchant, navigator, shipbuilder, pirate and slave trader. He was considered the first English trader to profit from the Triangle Trade, based on selling supplies to colonies ill-supplied by their home countries, and their demand for African slaves in the Spanish colonies of Santo Domingo and Venezuela in the late 16th century. He styled himself "Captain General" as the General of both his own flotilla's of ships and those of the English Royal Navy and to distinguish himself from those Admirals that served only in the administrative sense and were not military in nature. His death and that of his cousin and mentee, Sir Francis Drake heralded the decline of the Royal Navy for decades before its recovery and eventual dominance again helped by the propaganda of the Navy's glory days under his leadership.

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