When thinking about the Age of Exploration and the men that shaped it, many come to mind: from Spain, Pizarro and his Inca conquest; Cortez and his breath-taking, mind boggling, expedition in Mexico; and the man who started everything, Christopher Columbus. They all made the mother land proud. From Portugal, Vasco da Gama, and Ferdinand Magellan, the first man to sail around the world, also left their marks on world history books everywhere. .
But one man, Francis Drake, the eldest boy out of 12(Bradford 6), born in a Catholic town from a Protestant family, became one the greatest and more accomplished navigators in the history of England, although the Spaniards might like to call him a fake, liar, and cheat. .
Drake's was born in 1543 near the western coast of England near Plymouth, in the area of Devonshire. When he was around six years old, his father, himself a navigator, received a job as a chaplain in a naval shipyard in the county of Kent (World Book) all the way on the other side of the country, but the move was good for the family since they were of Protestant belief, and they lived a Catholic town. As a youngster, he probably was apprenticed to an old sailor by his father, Edmund Drake, to learn the craftsmanship of the seas and how to be a sailor. Since on the east coast of England were difficult rivers and waterways, such as, the English Channel and the Thames River, he learned about the navigation and maneuverability of ships, but little or no information about the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, something he would have learned had he stayed on Plymouth. He soon learned about the Atlantic through trips with his cousin, John Hawkins, (Bradford 10). Not much, if anything, is known about the man who taught Drake about the trades of the sea. What is known is this: Drake's first ship was probably inherited (31). .
In first mayor voyages, he was young, only 20. Those trips took place from 1566-1569 with Hawkins, they were two slave-trading voyages.